A week ago, we made what I believed was the biggest move of our life so far.
From a university town to solemn suburbia. From the embrace of an apartment to where-do-I-freaking-start-from home. From pushing the clock to finding that rushing is not an option anymore. From a ‘walk to’ to a ‘ride to’. From slamming yourself out to checking off each porch and garage light. From traipsing for tennis to stay at home hoops. As the last boxes were moving in, the mind was meandering out – thinking of other moves big and small, moves physical and not, moves wrenching and tranquil, moves personal and make believe.
Growing up, moving was not unusual - in fact there seemed a flurry. Boyhood years spent in Manila and vacationing in India, then dad being away in Jeddah and visiting India. Those moves feel marvelous looking back, as they involved many gifts. Each time dad visited my smiling glance at his face would turn into an even wider grin looking at his feet and the new pair of sports sneakers unfailingly there for me [carrying it like that meant even more gifts could be stuffed in the suitcase I like to think or if you want to think ingenious, one less new item for customs duty].
But moving back to Mumbai, the moves seemed to kind of dry up. Past life is no indication of the future could not have been truer for me, as I spurned one opportunity after another to move. Mainly I think because it meant moving away from being mama’s boy. I chose to do both my engineering and MBA [the years of education rest lightly on a TamBram’s shoulder] at good schools but this is telling: within a mile’s radius from home. However painful moving may be, not moving is considered cowardice. Choosing not to move is not such a moving story.
Marriage is one type of a move, becoming a parent another wonderful one. Moving up in your career [or sideways or round and round] while moving away from family is the kind of black hole move that always seems to lure you in.
You start to believe you're pacing yourself well for the mother of all moves. But relinquishing your own parents [it is really that, however much we immigrants may rationalize] to be 10000 miles away may be the most wrenching move. And the most devastating journey of all, God forbid? The 24-hour journey to perform the final rites of passage.
Human nature has a bias for the bright side, a penchant for the promised land. We feel the sense of dislocation only during the act of moving: as soon as we’re moved, we have the urge to unpack and to feel settled and organized. All, so we can start thinking again in peace about the next move.
A week ago, we made what I believed was the biggest move of our life so far?
From a university town to solemn suburbia. From the embrace of an apartment to where-do-I-freaking-start-from home. From pushing the clock to finding that rushing is not an option anymore. From a ‘walk to’ to a ‘ride to’. From slamming yourself out to checking off each porch and garage light. From traipsing for tennis to stay at home hoops. As the last boxes were moving in, the mind was meandering out – thinking of other moves big and small, moves physical and not, moves wrenching and tranquil, moves personal and make believe.
Growing up, moving was not unusual - in fact there seemed a flurry. Boyhood years spent in Manila and vacationing in India, then dad being away in Jeddah and visiting India. Those moves feel marvelous looking back, as they involved many gifts. Each time dad visited my smiling glance at his face would turn into an even wider grin looking at his feet and the new pair of sports sneakers unfailingly there for me [carrying it like that meant even more gifts could be stuffed in the suitcase I like to think or if you want to think ingenious, one less new item for customs duty].
But moving back to Mumbai, the moves seemed to kind of dry up. Past life is no indication of the future could not have been truer for me, as I spurned one opportunity after another to move. Mainly I think because it meant moving away from being mama’s boy. I chose to do both my engineering and MBA [the years of education rest lightly on a TamBram’s shoulder] at good schools but this is telling: within a mile’s radius from home. However painful moving may be, not moving is considered cowardice. Choosing not to move is not such a moving story.
Marriage is one type of a move, becoming a parent another wonderful one. Moving up in your career [or sideways or round and round] while moving away from family is the kind of black hole move that always seems to lure you in.
You start to believe you're pacing yourself well for the mother of all moves. But relinquishing your own parents [it is really that, however much we immigrants may rationalize] to be 10000 miles away may be the most wrenching move. And the most devastating journey of all, God forbid? The 24-hour journey to perform the final rites of passage.
Human nature has a bias for the bright side, a penchant for the promised land. We feel the sense of dislocation only during the act of moving: as soon as we’re moved, we have the urge to unpack and to feel settled and organized. All, so we can start thinking again in peace about the next move.
A week ago, we made what I believed was the biggest move of our life so far?
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