3.12 Free Form
Analog Home
Sketches and words by Pratik Tushar
January 2024
‘Analog Home’ is a series of sketches attempting to portray my home, the place where I was born and raised. It is a by-product of my extreme homesickness and an acceptance of the fact that the idea of home, ingrained in my mind, could never be relived. As times have changed, we, the children, have grown up. The closest I can get to reliving my memories of home is through its songs, photographs, and objects.
In this series, the main idea behind the composition is to explore the connection between the living and the non-living, aiming to define a house as nothing but a shell. The people who inhabit this shell are the ones who give it a unique identity: through their journeys, both as individuals and as a family, permanently engraved in its brick and mortar.
The sketches also embody a sense of belonging associated with my home, a feeling that can never be replicated. I have accepted that half of my consciousness will always remain where I grew up. Once this sense of belonging is realised again, I will truly know myself.
The blue of the sky was bluer,
the trees were greener, and the
air penetrated every pore of my
lungs – I could breathe.
​
Everything in my house reeks of memories—
memories so strong that I restrict myself
from remembering any of it.
I know when I go back,
none of the cravings would be fulfilled.
Nothing that is there now could satisfy my longing.
I know when I go back, nothing that is there now,
would satisfy my longings.
We are all ‘grown ups’ now
with worries of our own—
career, life, social relationships,
insecurities, money, time, health, failures...
Now at home, there are three of us—
my home, my worries, and I.
Our balcony used to face the
neighbor’s kitchen and their guest
room, where my mother’s best friend used to live.
Our houses were
built together in 1999.
For 24 years, my mother would talk
to her from this balcony
for hours every day.
They talked about everything;
they shared everything.
The family moved out recently and
the house is now rented out. Home is not just limited to our own houses...
To my mother, the other
house was a big chunk of what she
would call home - and their family
became a part of ours...
Their daughters became my sisters and
their grandparents became my
grandparents.
All the physical aspects of what
we call ‘home’ got blurred, and
we were left with an extended
idea of it.
Nobody talked about it,
but everybody knew.
My mother used to fix these cushions to their
right place every time my brother and I left the living room.
She would scold us for
throwing them around at each other - yes, we
were quite willful that way.
Now, it’s been quite a few years since we both have moved out.
The cushions remain in the same place for months.
My friends who have left their homes,
usually tell me how they miss their bed,
their washroom, and pillows.
It is almost beautiful that once you grow up,
your idea of home is not the people anymore,
but the things that brought you comfort,
made you feel safe... gave
you a sense of belonging -
just the way we felt when we were children...
when we were lifted up and felt safer, close to our parents’ chest -
while growing up, something takes away the lap
and the shoulder, and makes us self-aware,
and our whole life goes into finding the exact replacement.
Miserable.
Everything we do - like or hate,
is our childhood.
We do things to escape it or we do things to retain the
better parts of it.
I have grown, and the more I think about happiness,
the more I get disappointed -
the fact that my longing for home can never be fulfilled.
It is not the things or the people that I crave,
it’s the memories, feeling the way I did.
The subject of the sketch is not important here.
What’s important is the room where I stood
and sketched this.
I never felt like sketching this room,
but now, I only regret it.
I could sketch it now if I want to. But I don’t.
I’d be sketching just for the sake of adding that
part of the story to my book. I don’t feel the
same way about my house anymore.
It would be meaningless.
These sketches might be in black and white, but for me,
they hold more colors than I am made of, more than
what I could ever see again
Things and corners make a house.
The pictures hanging on the wall, which are not
exactly straight; the calendar on the corner
table, which hasn’t been turned in 2 months,
or the calendars that are just there because
they have beautiful pictures; the family pictures,
the crayon marks on the wall because the house has
a kid; the shoe-stand which still has shoes from
the time when my grandfather could walk, school
shoes from years ago; the wall clock in different
rooms which are slightly behind or ahead of each
other, and you know exactly which one shows the
nearest to the correct time; the containers in the
kitchen; the folded winter clothes; the place where
the clothes are hung for drying after washing.
I truly believe no architect can design these
things on paper; they can only be observed and
drawn, as a documentation of time.
If you want to study a person or a family,
don’t talk to them; talk to their home,
make good eye contact with its parts,
and if you are a good reader,
you’ll know more about the family
than they know about themselves.
This space was big enough for my cousin
and me to cycle in.
But now, it seems so small.
Everything looked so big: the dining table,
the chairs, the rooms...
As I grew up, the house became smaller.
Over the years, I have shifted multiple houses.
I have stopped looking for 'home' and started
making what I have more meaningful.
Who knows, the way I feel about the place where
I grew up, I might feel the same about
the house where I have stayed for just two years...
Maybe the way I am feeling right now makes no sense,
sometime from now.
Until then, I’ll keep figuring it out...
Pratik Tushar is a 23-year-old artist, musician, and architect based in Bangalore. He creates on-the-spot pen-and-ink sketches, emphasizing the energy of the subject over intricate details. He has created over 900 sketches, transforming his art into a personal documentation of time and life. As an independent musician, Pratik has released 6 originals featured by publications such as Rolling Stone India and Indian Express. He aims to champion analog art, urging people to appreciate it not only for its aesthetic appeal but also as a poignant reminder of the times we've traversed.