Home Sweet Home * 2

Change is unavoidable. It is what is permanent. But too many changes are bad, I tell you! I'm already struggling not to think about how it will be exactly a year later, where life would be so different, etc etc which will come in a later post.( Yes, this year it is all about emotional moments, nostalgic stuff cuz that is exactly what is going on in my mind.)

In the same breath, the time has come when I've left yet another place which has been my abode for 20 years. Yes, 20 whole years. Where I spoke my first words, where I took my first steps. The place where I wrote my first poem, the roads which inspired me to write many a post in the first place.The place where I made my first tune, where I sang my first song. The roads where I walked happily thinking of the best things that happened in my life. The roads where I sang out loud not bothering about the world around me. Where I cried I couldn't learn music and the same place where I walked awaiting my next music class. The roads where I've walked with my closest friends talking about so many odd things.


I'm gonna miss the familiarity about this place. Why, I could walk with closed eyes from one room to another over there at home, something I'll do eventually over here but still. And that area was abuzz with people I know, people I wouldn't talk to but that friendly smile of acknowledgement, even primary school teachers who somehow recognize me and talk to me finally leaving me feeling good about myself. Those bhajiwalas and all those small shop people who have literally seen me grow from someone who couldn't reach the vegetables to someone who'll work in a few months. Familiarity will so be missed.


It's 10 days since I shifted now. I sort of feel guilty to talk good things about the new home as though I'm betraying the old one. But its been an adventure in itself. It's exciting to stay on 8th floor after staying on the 1st floor for so long. It is so nice and windy and the chance to sit at my balcony which is in every room somehow is enticing enough. And the whole 'newness' got me to clean all those cupboards that got dirty in the years they have stood stagnantly and the mirrors in which we couldn't see our reflection no more. I've cleaned everything here except for the paint on the doors which I can't using cloth and soap, it seems. I somehow like cleaning when there is lot of dirt, the sense of satisfaction and the happiness is impossible. It's like that token of appreciation you expect from your boss when you've done your share of hard work.Also, it's been nice arranging stuff, participating in the discussions of where to keep which furniture, how does the house look good etc which makes you feel old,responsible et al.


Whenever we lost something under the bed or under a unreachable almirah, my mom used to say that 10 years later if and when we shift, we'll find these things intact right where they got lost. And It's funny the things we found while unpacking. I found really old stuff that I'd written, poems I thought I didn't have copies of, random notes I had written when really in despair, cards that had been made for me, cards that I and my sister had made for the different occasions in the year, actual inland letters (I so miss the days of letter writing). I actually found a copy of Aesop's fables, wait a second, "in Marathi". God knows how it came there but it did. :P And I found a treasure trove of my parents' old books. (Thank God for the fact that we share the love for the books by the same authors) Also found was 46 kg of raddi and an equivalent amount of trash waiting to be thrown away.



We packed on one day and shifted the other. I thought I would have time to go to each room and just think of all the memories and say a quiet goodbye so as to mentally accept that I am actually leaving that house. But the chaos that was there when people came to shift the boxes out, it suddenly got decided that I'll have to show them the way to the new house. Hoping that I would come back to do all the mental mourning but still trying to say a goodbye I left. And by the time we finished all the work in the new place it was 11 at night and it wasn't possible to come back that very day. I shed a few tears all of a sudden missing all those memories, missing just the presence of the home that we had created in that place. Its been 10 days, I still haven't been to my old home, I think those tears were all that were needed to know that I had finally moved on. The memories may have been abundant over there but like a close friend told me, I'll make new memories in my new home. It may be just 8 months but this is the place I'll be coming back to irrespective of where I go for a lifetime.

Our very own home. Gives a nice ring to it. :)