{"id":5198,"date":"2016-05-12T22:41:38","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T17:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5198"},"modified":"2016-05-12T22:41:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T17:11:38","slug":"moving-out-home-childhood-parents-heartbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=5198","title":{"rendered":"Moving Out of Your Childhood Home Feels a Lot Like Heartbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p><\/div>

‘m about three months away from being homeless, and deep in mourning. All right, I know I\u2019m being melodramatic, but I really do feel grief-stricken at the thought of leaving this old, creaking, stubborn collection of rooms I call home. This place that I\u2019ve always<\/span><\/i> called home. Sure, we\u2019ll move into a new house in a new place. It might even be as nice as this one. No, scratch that, <\/span>nothing<\/span><\/i> can be as good as this looming, lumpen, symbol of my childhood. Not even close. Of that I\u2019m sure. Yes, we\u2019ll have a new place to live in. But it won\u2019t be <\/span>home<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/a> Not in the strictest sense of the word, anyway.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nAs a <\/span>millennial, <\/span><\/a>I\u2019m almost ashamed to admit that I\u2019m this pitifully attached to the idea of home \u2014 we are, after all, supposed to take great pride in being terrifyingly independent and unattached. We\u2019re nomads! Gypsies! Wanderers! Globetrotters! Most people my age boast about how many countries and cities they\u2019ve lived in by the time they turn 30. I nod and smile when they invariably regale me with tales of their adventures, but secretly I\u2019ve never really understood the allure. The thought of leaving a neighbourhood or city just as you\u2019ve finally started to figure it our seems so tiring to me. It takes months to figure out which Udipi in the vicinity has the best sambar to chutney ratio, and many more to tip your way into the heart of the delivery boy who will then ensure that your dosa arrives at your doorstep before it goes cold and limp. An istriwala can take anywhere between 16 to 22 months (don\u2019t question the math) to finally remember how each member of the family likes their creases, and any new cook takes at least six weeks to internalise that heeng is what evil tastes like. Once you\u2019ve finally managed to get everyone on the same page, why on earth would you want to leave? When I was younger, my dad used to joke about girls being \u201cparaya dhan\u201d and sasural being their \u201creal\u201d home. Little did he know that I had every intention of moving any future husband into our very real home. The keys to this house would have to be pried out of my cold, dead fingers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nIn a world obsessed with the new and uncharted, with moving on and around, I\u2019m the kind that likes the idea of home and history. I like knowing that when I look out of the window, my eyes will crash with the same set of snooping eyes across the road that it always has. The world around her might change and evolve, but Aunty K\u2019s (now bespectacled) eyes can be counted on to peer disapprovingly at any young couple that might have the temerity to hold hands, or, gasp, lean in for a spontaneous peck. How many nights have my <\/span>parents <\/span><\/a>gone to bed, blissful and\u00a0 confident that as long as Aunty K was around, their two daughters wouldn\u2019t dare to sneak a boy into the home in the dead of the night? A 100? 1,000? Other neighbourhoods had CCTVs, ours had Aunty K, and we\u2019re yet to find a way to deactivate her.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nBut now it\u2019s time to move on. Mum and I spend hours each day taking inventory and discussing how long it\u2019s going to take to pack it all up, and how many boxes, people and trucks we\u2019ll need to hire to help us move. Any day now, we\u2019re going to start the painful process of purging our personal belongings \u2014 what we\u2019ll take, what we\u2019ll donate, and what will have to be tossed. We\u2019re averaging about one crying fit each, a day.\u00a0<\/span>\n

In a world obsessed with the new and uncharted, with moving on and around, I\u2019m the kind that likes the idea of home and history.<\/blockquote>\nYou can pack up all your junk, but how do you pack in all your <\/span>memories? <\/span><\/a>You can throw away the boxes of papers and misshapen stuff toys that have the magical ability to hang around long after the children that played with them grow up; but do you also throw away a part of yourself and a piece of your life when you leave one home for another? This house was my mum\u2019s first anchor to the city, when she arrived here almost 40 years ago as a blushing, petrified 19-year-old bride. Barring the two miserable years we spent in an apartment a few buildings over when this one was being razed and rebuilt, it\u2019s the only home she\u2019s ever lived in. In the four decades she\u2019s spent here, the house has undergone many changes. Once upon a time, it used to be home to 16 people, and even more aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins passing through. Everyone wants to travel to Mumbai, but hotel room rents are astronomical and wasteful, so childhood was an endless shuttle from one room to another, because every room also doubted up as a guest room. Not that I minded. I\u2019ve spent as many nights in my own bed as I have bundled up next to <\/span>my grandmother.<\/span><\/a> My arms and legs flung over her big belly. Hers is the one bedroom in the house my mum won\u2019t redecorate. A cousin and I still laugh about the number of times we yanked out chunks of each other\u2019s hair when we were forced to share a room. She breathed too loudly, and it interfered with my reading.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nEvery corner of this house, my home, is bursting with memories. I can pinpoint the exact spot on the terrace I \u201ccaught\u201d my chacha kissing chachi, 27-odd years ago. If I close my eyes, I can still see my mom and dad dancing in the living room, with the <\/span>radio on.<\/span><\/a> The memory still makes me smile. This was the home we brought my dad back to, after every surgery; and the home my sister left when she got married and moved cities. Of all the properties our family has owned, this one has always been my father\u2019s favourite, perhaps because it was the first one he ever bought. This home has raised newborn babies, and said goodbye to ancestors. How do I take all this history with me to a new house?\u00a0<\/span>\n
This home has raised newborn babies, and said goodbye to ancestors. How do I take all this history with me to a new house?<\/blockquote>\nWhen I tell friends that I\u2019m moving, they immediately ask me, \u201cWhere?\u201d As if losing this home would be a <\/span>tragedy <\/span><\/a>only if we were moving to a smaller house, or a lesser neighbourhood. We could be moving into Antilia itself (minus the current occupants), but I\u2019d still be just as filled with sorrow. We haven\u2019t even moved yet, but I\u2019m already homesick.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nI\u2019m sure eventually, the Udupis in the new<\/span> neighbourhood<\/span><\/a> will be nice enough. I\u2019m sure it will have its own version of Aunty K, and its own roster of middle-aged men who stand in their balconies with their bellies bursting out of worn-out Rupa baniyans. Which Indian neighbourhood doesn\u2019t? But it will never be home, not in the way this one was, and in some ways always will be, anyway. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a world obsessed with the new and uncharted, with moving on and around, I\u2019m the kind who likes the idea of home and history. And now when it\u2019s time to leave my childhood home behind, I wonder… How do I pack in all my memories? How do I take all this history with me to a new house?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":306,"featured_media":5199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[1220,5490,2918,1726,6178],"class_list":["post-5198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-home","tag-moving-out","tag-nostalgia","tag-parents","tag-sad"],"yoast_head":"\nMoving Out of Your Childhood Home Feels a Lot Like Heartbreak<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a world obsessed with the new and uncharted, with moving on and around, I\u2019m the kind who likes the idea of home and history. 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