Last week, my two friends and I were sitting in the sauna at the gym, talking about our “over 40” health issues — dizziness, mood swings, hot flushes. Ordinary conversations. Honest ones.
And yet, I always look forward to those moments.
Not because of the gym.
But because of the feeling that I am not alone.
Somehow, between the steam and the laughter, you realize that what you are going through is not just your story. It is a shared one. And there is something deeply comforting about that.
I grew up in a joint family in India — around twenty-five of us living in one big haveli in the heart of the city. Four grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins. Separate kitchens, but shared lives. Together, yet independent.
It wasn’t perfect. No large family is. Where there are many people, there are disagreements. But there was always someone around. Someone to celebrate with. Someone to lean on. Someone who had already lived through what you were just beginning to experience.
I remember the women especially. After their chores were done, they would gather. Conversations in stairways. Quiet talks while hanging laundry. Laughter in the courtyard. Sometimes silence too — the kind that now, as an adult, I understand was filled with shared worries, health concerns, family tensions.
They were each other’s support system.
At that time, I didn’t know I was witnessing something important. I just thought that was normal life.
Years later, living far from that haveli, I realized something — the structure may change, but the need does not.
We still need people.
We still need community.
We still need to be seen and understood.
And so, without even planning it, I found my substitute joint family — in my apartment building, during my courses, among my clients, and in the sauna at the gym.
Different backgrounds. Different cultures. Same human experiences.
It made me understand something simple but powerful: community is not about blood. It is about presence.
We are not meant to go through life in isolation. Not health changes, not parenting, not success, not failure. When we speak openly, when we sit together — whether in a haveli courtyard or a gym sauna — we recreate something ancient.
We recreate belonging.
Maybe that is what a joint family really is. Not just a physical structure, but a shared space of support.
And maybe wherever we find that — we are home.
Comments