I HATE PACKING! It is one of those things that I will hate forever. But quite often, the things you run away from are the very things you finally get. I have been constantly on the move since the past 7 years and needless to say, my nomadic life has forced me to Pack, Unpack and Pack again and again every now and then.
It all started when my family migrated to Oman in 2008. After the mammoth task of packing up our things that formed an essential part of our childhood, and painfully even letting go some, we reached Sohar. The initial excitement soon disappeared when things started going downhill for me. Knee injury, low grades and no friends made life a living hell for an academically sound student, who was also a CBSE national level athlete back in India. But then I met a bunch of losers like me, who were equally clueless. Together we danced in chemistry lab when our experiments failed, ran behind smalls kids to trouble them, sang songs during math lectures and above all dreamt of a better future there, in that hopeless situation. Even with so many lows, the place bestowed me with friends for a lifetime and above all, taught me to love, hope and dream even in the worst of situations.
Then came the time when I had to pack my bags and come back to Bombay for graduation. Like every other first born, I was thrown in the ocean and asked to learn to swim on my own. By now, I knew it quite well that it is easier to adjust in an uncomfortable place, but almost impossible to adjust with people who make you uncomfortable. My naive nature and inability to judge people often landed me in trouble and this experience was turning out to be a bigger hell than the previous one. That’s when I got in a hostel in South Bombay and things started to fall in place. I was blessed to have found few amazing people in college and hostel, and each one played a special role to make my three year stay worthwhile. If one would religiously give me wake-up calls in the morning to make sure I attended college, then the other would take care of me like a mother and make sure that I didn’t skip meals. Yet another gave me a shoulder to cry on every time I fell apart, and one also made me a part of her beautiful family and touched my heart with her selfless deeds. With these friends, I had made a home away from home. Even though I had to pack and unpack twice a year to visit my family, the distance brought me closer to them and I started valuing their presence in my life a bit more. And when the time came to pack my bags and leave hostel, I had made such beautiful memories with this another family of mine that goodbyes were often accompanied by tears.
My next stop was a rented apartment far away from South Bombay. By the time I shifted to this apartment, I had seen so many different kinds of people. For the first time, it was just me and no one else to adjust with. Thanks to this experience, I learnt to single handedly search for apartments, buy electronics and groceries, cook edible stuff, handle day to day household activities in a better manner, and realized the daily chores done by mothers are not as easy as they make them look.
As I pack my bags and head for my next stop, I know I can be sure of few things; I may take time to adjust in the new atmosphere, there may be few down hills also, but in the end, I will make memories to cherish for lifetime. And as for the packing part, I know I will hate it forever but I am ready to go through the torture to be on the move. For after all, a rolling stone gathers no moss.
Tales of an Urban Nomad 