The Haunting Experience of House Hunting in the State Capital

Very few townships in Nagaland can rival Kohima town in terms of its strategic location, natural scenic beauty, and salubrious climatic condition. If you are someone who is on a lookout for a temporary or permanent domicile, Kohima is definitely the ultimate destination where country roads from all over Nagaland will lead you to. By virtue of being the state capital, which houses all the administrative establishments, the growing educational institutions, the booming business enterprise, medical facilities, and a host of other attractions, Kohima continues to draw hundreds and thousands of new citizens each year from all walks of life. As you will notice, like any other growing cosmopolitan city, the demographic landscape of this quiet township is being changed rapidly within the past couple of decades. People from within and without the state of Nagaland continue to migrate to Kohima for a number of reasons, and they all need a house which they wish to call “home.” This is a trend that is bound to grow. The question is whether or not Kohima and its citizens will be magnanimous enough to spread their wings of benevolence and play a good host by welcoming their new inhabitants and by being hospitable to them. Despite its natural bounty, Kohima suffers from a number of manmade sicknesses - unplanned development resulting in mammoth traffic jam due to non-existence of proper road facility, poor water contribution system, erratic power supply, to name a few. Among the myriad ailments Kohima is marred with, finding a descent house for rent is a very disheartening and humiliating escapade one has to undergo. Forget about the price tag of monthly rental fees, if one is lucky enough to stumble upon a potential house, the normal response of the owner is that someone else has already booked the place, implying that he is not interested in renting out his house to you. Unless one is a close relative or a known friend of some landlords, no one gets his jackpot in a single shot. The intention is understandably to double-check the identity and ascertain the background of the vagabonds, but most house hunters get double-crossed in the process. House hunting in the state capital takes a heavy toll on the economic, mental, and physical tenacity of a person. The experience is not only daunting but also haunting. While we complain to others about our anguish of not having given a proper place for accommodation by residents in cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, many of us still struggle to find a place to hide our heads in our own land. Let alone the people from other parts of the country, the Nagas from Nagaland struggle to find a descent place to rent and live in places like Kohima and Dimapur. We love to broadcast to the world by inviting them to come and savor our hospitability, but we look at each other with suspicion and refuse to share our space with our own brothers and sisters in need. The number of people seeking accommodation in the capital will grow more and more each year and the struggle to find a roof above our head will grow in equal proportion. This is one issue which should not escape the attention of policy makers in the government. No right-thinking leader can afford to wash his hands off the responsibility of providing his fellow citizens one of the most basic needs of life. The government and its agencies should join their heads together and find ways to address this pressing concern. After all the right to shelter is a legitimate human right. Rümatho Nyusou