Entering a Rented Home

The flat is on the fourth floor, it is not yours, and the family before you lived in it for nine years.

You are moving in on Saturday. Every page you have read about Griha Pravesh assumes a house that was built for you and belongs to you, and none of them says whether any of it is meant for you.

Griha Pravesh is the day a household enters a dwelling and asks for it to go well. That is the whole of what it is.

The things attached to it - the kalash, the lamp, the milk, the havan are how that gets said. Some of them need a courtyard, or a purohit, or a kitchen you are allowed to make a mess of. Most of them need none of that.

The oldest verse behind this is the Rigveda's hymn to Vastoshpati, the lord of the dwelling, and it is worth reading closely because of what is not in it.

Lord of the dwelling, recognise us. Be a good dwelling for us, free of disease. Whatever we ask of you, grant it. Bring wellbeing to our two-footed and our four-footed.

There is no owner in that verse. There is a dwelling, and there are people in it, and the request is that the two get on. The deity being addressed presides over the house, not over the paperwork.

And the Grihya Sutras - the old manuals of household rites set out exactly what to do on entering a new house. A fire is lit, a new pot of water is set down, the hymn to Vastoshpati is said, food is cooked in the middle of the house and shared. The man of the house enters with his wife and his eldest son. Nowhere in any of it does anyone ask who the house belongs to.

And our own tradition already has the category. The three kinds of griha pravesha are named: apurva, entering a house for the first time; sapurva, entering again after being away; dvandva, entering after the place has been rebuilt or repaired. Two of the three are about going into a dwelling that is not new. Nobody had to invent anything to make room for you.

Here is what actually works in a rented flat.

Clean it first, properly, before anything is brought in - this is the part people skip and it is the part that matters most. Then do the puja before the boxes, not after. A room with nothing in it is easier to do this in anyway.

At the door: a lamp, haldi and kumkum on the frame, a swastika if your family draws one. Take the sankalp. Carry in a kalash of water with mango leaves and a coconut, right foot first. Set it down in the main room.

If a havan is not possible — and in most rented flats it is not, between the landlord, the smoke alarm and the neighbours — leave it out. A lamp and incense do the same work. Nothing is incomplete without a fire. If you want a purohit and can have one, have one; if you cannot, an elder of the family or you yourself can do all of this.

Boil the milk over in the kitchen. Cook something. Feed whoever is there, and send some to the neighbours on your floor, who you will be living beside for the next two years.

And if you have already moved in, and the boxes went in on Tuesday and the puja never happened — do it on a day that suits you. The verse asks the dwelling to recognise the people in it. It does not specify that you have to ask on the first afternoon.