Moving

Of all painful experiences that we are forced to go through in life, moving has to be right there among the top 10. It is so tiresome to pack everything into boxes, load it all into a truck, haul them all to a different place - just to unpack everything. Of course, the pain factor of the move is directly proportional to the number of belongings involved.

I am no stranger to moving. In fact, my childhood was punctuated by moving every two (or if we got lucky, three) years. My banker dad saw to that. However, back then, in spite of the logistics involved in moving the contents of an entire house, I never cared too much about the actual move other than feeling bad about leaving yet another set of friends behind. You see, I was still a kid and all I had to do was not get in the way. Of course, as I grew older, I had more duties but the main chunk of the responsibilities still fell on my parents' shoulders. It also helped that my dad's bank always provided professional packers and movers to assist us.

The first time I moved for myself was when I had to join the hostel during my first year of engineering. But then, my sister came up with the list of required items, my mother packed everything, my dad drove my stuff to the hostel and the watchman carried everything inside. All I had to do was unpack lightly. So once again, a hassle-free move.

My next chance came when I decided to come to the US to do my masters. How on earth was I going to fit everything I needed for the next 2 years into two small suitcases? My mom, the super-packer, managed to cram clothes, books, utensils, shoes, cooker....and what seemed like all my wordly possessions into the suitcases. Once again, all that yours truly had to do was unpack all the stuff once I reached Davis. Since I moving into an already occupied house, no hassles there either.

All the hitherto blissful experiences with moving came to an end when I moved from Davis to the bay area to take up an internship. I had to pack all by myself for the first time in my life. Fortunately, friends helped with the lugging and the moving part. All my stuff fit into the trunk and half of the backseat of a car.

For another 7 months, I lead a move-free existence. Then I had to move again. This time around, I had a lot more boxes - even though I did not yet own a single piece of furniture. It took 3 trips with a car, completely loaded each time, to ferry all my stuff to my new place. Seriously, HOW can a person quadruple their possessions in just 7 months? Fortunately, once again, two chivalrous guys came to my rescue and I did not have to do any heavy hauling.

I am still staying at the place I moved to. For the first few months, me and my roommate were too scared to buy furniture just out of fear of lugging it when we had to move next. But there is only so much time you can spend sitting on a mat on the carpet to watch TV. Slowly we succumbed and added to the "shoba" of our house - a futon here, an entertainment center there, that pretty coffee table - the list grew. Then, this year I invited my family over to visit me. My room-mate was getting married and she moved out (leaving behind most of the furniture). It was the first time my parents and sister were coming to see me in my "own" house and I wanted the house to put its best foot forward. I took great pride in making it just perfect and unleashed my interior decoration skills. These improvements called for further additions to my growing list of possessions.

This new arrangement was hunky-dory while my family was here. They went back to India last week :-(. And I decided to move to a smaller place. I found a cute place - I am moving there this coming weekend. But God! I have so many things now :-(. I have booked a u-haul and 3 of my friends to help me move. I have been packing in bits and pieces for more than a week now but no matter how big the pile of packed boxes get, somehow there doesn't seem to be a dent in the number of things still to be packed. I swear to God, my stuff is multiplying behind my back.

The real test is going to be on coming Sunday. Boy-o-boy! As far as moving goes, I have come a long way from being asked to stay out of the way. Now, not only do I get to pack, I also get to lug my own stuff and in fact, drive it to my new house. Is this progress or what? Nah, somehow I dont think so!!!