HOME, MEMORY, AND ME: SHAZIA ILMI ON BUILDING A PLACE SHE CALLS HER OWN

On a busy, foggy winter afternoon in Delhi, when we connect, she is moving briskly through her day in her car, quick and energetic, pausing only to greet the familiar voice of a junior from her college before turning to the conversation with effortless ease, instantly softening the formal distance. In the middle of her busy day, the talk shifts to something far more intimate than politics or public life. It turns to home. Not as a structure, but as a feeling. For, Shazia Ilmi the National Spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party, home is where the noise fades, where memory lives on shelves and walls, and where safety, order, and individuality quietly hold hands. “Home is where you have a sense of belonging,” she says. “Where you have the freedom to be yourself.” The word comes up again and again in our conversation. Belonging. Me-ness. Identity. These are not decorative ideas for her, they are structural, much like the walls of the house she worked hard to buy. Order and beauty, she believes, must live together. Her days are full and demanding, so her home has to work as efficiently as she does. Utility, she says, is not a luxury but a necessity. The layout must be easy to use, the systems smart and responsive to today’s needs. Sensors, electronic locks, new technology. These are not indulgences for her, they are tools of ease and safety. A busy life leaves little room for chaos. Her house does not look artificial or designed only to impress.

Aesthetics, for her, is not assembled from catalogues or handed over to decorators. It is gathered slowly, over years, through travel and memory. She curates her space the way one gathers a life. In fragments, in pauses, in chance discoveries. “Every article on your wall should have a story,” she says. “It should take you somewhere.” She describes her home like a painter’s sketch. Each corner a stroke, each object a note in a larger story. Her travels have shaped it quietly but profoundly. From a bustling antique market in Moscow, she brought back a delicate Russian vase, still treasured and carefully placed. Tiny keepsakes from Prague now rest in corners, like little bookmarks in the ongoing story of her life. Even the art she chooses carries weight. A Gustav Klimt painting isn’t a trophy or a status symbol, it’s a reminder of beauty she has seen, felt, and made her own. When Shazia speaks of her home, she speaks less about square footage and more about ownership in its deepest sense. Not just legal ownership, but emotional claim. The house is on loan, she says plainly, but in every way that matters, it is hers. The journey to it was long and deliberate. Like so many Indians, she spent years dreaming of a place she could call her own. She searched, compared, foraged through options, weighed costs, studied neighbourhoods. When she f inally found the right place, it felt monumental. “It is the biggest thing you can have,” she says. “Your own place.”

For a working woman, safety shaped that journey sharply. Past experiences with difficult neighbours left their mark. She learned to cross-check, to ask questions, to be cautious. Neighbourhood, for her, is not just about convenience. It is about peace of mind. Security, especially after she moved into public life more visibly, became non-negotiable. Before joining politics, she lived in a typical building in Greater Kailash, on the second floor, where access was easy for anyone. At the time, her nephews and nieces were young. She worried constantly. After she became more vocal in public life, the concerns multiplied. There were threats. There were strangers turning up unannounced. With her husband often travelling, she found herself alone more often than she liked. She did not want to burden her brother’s family, with whom she stayed for a period. Eventually, she made the decision to move into a place where security was central to the design. That sense of protection is woven t ightly into how she now thinks about home. It is not just a shelter from weather. It is a shield from the world. A controlled perimeter in a life that is otherwise constantly open. When the question turns to what she would tell other women dreaming of a home of their own, Shazia Ilmi does not speak in the language of market returns or property charts. She speaks in the language of lived experience.

A home, she says, is not just a financial milestone. It is emotional independence. It is dignity. It is the quiet reassurance that no matter how uncertain life becomes, there is one door that will always open for you. “It tells you that you matter,” she says simply. She remembers the unease of rented homes, the unspoken rules, the difficult landlords, the subtle reminder that the space was never fully hers. Ownership, for her, erased that constant sense of impermanence. Her advice to women is practical, and shaped by hard-earned caution. She urges them to choose safety over size, always. A smaller home in a well-lit, lived-in neighbourhood, she insists, is far more valuable than a sprawling house tucked away in isolation. Access is not a luxury, she says. It is protection. The closeness of markets, main roads, familiar movement of people. Though ride hailing apps have made travel easier, the basic truth has not changed.

Well-connected areas are safer. The ability to step in and out of your home without fear, at any hour, is not just convenience. It is a form of daily freedom that every woman deserves. Listening to Shazia Ilmi speak about her home, it becomes clear that for her, walls are not just boundaries, they are witnesses. Beyond the bricks and mortar lies a private map of her life. Journeys taken and battles fought. Public risks and quiet endurance. Her home does not chase trends or mirrors showrooms. It holds time. It keeps memory. It carries the weight of who she has been and who she continues to become, quietly and without display.