The first time I realized that being a part of a family that was used to shifting houses, cities and compass directions was a culture in itself was when a cousin was shifting cities for the very first time after having lived in one place for twenty-nine years. The fact that they could not settle into their new city even after six months was mind boggling to me. Especially since I can settle in my immediate surroundings in a week and take maybe a month to settle in a wider context of where I’m living.
Goodbyes for me are easy, almost clinical. I don’t understand when people fight over houses or refuse to sell their ancestral homes because of memories. I have never been attached to a home or a place. Sure I have fond memories, but no attachments.
Because dad had a transferable job, any time we would leave a city, we would leave it for good. The first time I went back to a city I had left was Dehradun for a friend’s wedding. If that nostalgia of revisiting a city as a tourist, one in which I grew up from a teen to a young adult was not enough, we took it a step further and went to our school too.
I may not have attachments but by god seeing our classroom, which we had for three years from tenth to twelfth, changed into something else was…not pleasant. But meeting our class teacher and English teacher who had taught us for four years was…quite extraordinary. It was because of her that I caught the bug of actually writing and not just dreaming about writing. It was because of her that I developed a lasting love for Shakespeare and literature.
But my original exit from Dehradun and reentry was marked by a distance of about a decade. So it wasn’t such a big deal. I was a new person, visiting a new city. Even if the view to Mussourie reminded me of dad’s excited chatterings when he first brought us to the city saying, humare ghar se na Mussourie dikhta hai. As if Dehradun ki har road se Mussourie nahin dikhta!
Cut to 2018, we’re packing up a house in one part of Bombay and moving to another part of Bombay, to another house. The old house has seen too many moments but we’re all pros at this by now. We already know how this goes, how much time it takes, which boxes need to be used for what things. There are so many things…but we pack it all and move.
This is a new sensation for all of us – moving and yet not moving. Though for all intents and purposes, we are moving to a new city only. Cuffe Parade is near the sea, Goregaon is near a…hill…? There were no autos in Cuffe Parade, only taxis but Goregaon runs on autos. Because of the sea, Cuffe is cooler, but Goregaon is dustier. The restaurants are different, the malls are different, the people are different – the very air is different.
But, we’re old hands and we settle in for the ride, looking for stores from where to order groceries, discovering new places to eat and shop at and relearning the cadences of sitting in an auto.
What I was not ready for was going back to Cuffe Parade after two weeks of moving away. Suddenly, all of my friends’ dialogues that coming to my house for a visit felt like coming to a new city made sense. It was such a discombobulating feeling that it took me a while to figure out why this coming back was such a big deal. And when I did figure it out, it felt wrong coming to a place I had already said goodbye to.
That incident put a whole new twist to my aloof – I don’t get attached – thought process. I realized that I do miss things but because of all the experience I have had in shifting, I don’t dwell – or compare. But by god can I reminisce. I have favourite anecdotes and I can bore you with repeating them in different ways.
I haven’t gone back to Cuffe Parade since then, you know. But knowing my sister, she’s going to drag me there as soon as it becomes “safer” for us to visit and just drive around, reacquainting ourselves with the roads we had travelled many times. Maybe, I’d even revisit my library and the old man who was always listening to a debate on BBC News whenever I entered that little oasis.
But I don’t think I’d be able to bear it if I found out the pandemic swallowed it.
Sometimes, forever goodbyes are better. At least then, the library is still standing and the old man is still listening to a newscast.
Connecting this post to #BlogchatterA2Z. To read other posts, check Theme Reveal 2022: Without Prearrangement.
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