Having a fixed address for a long period is something I have never had in my life, in essence change or moving has been the only constant. Right from childhood since my parents had transferrable jobs we kept moving between towns/cities and even when within a town we changed houses multiple times. At times I would envy some of my friends and cousins who have always lived in 1 or 2 localities throughout. I would wish always that how would things be if we didnt move houses and we stayed in same place.
But again it was not just my parents who were to blame, when I grew up I was also doing the same thing at even more rapid pace. I lived in 5 different houses in Bangalore in 3 years I spent there to give you an idea. Post 2008 I have lived 6 major global cities and moving is something that is a norm
Anyways what I want to write about today is not about those missed childhood experiences of a single familiar place or lack of something constant though my parents eventually settled back in my hometown to the house they built around the time I was born and for last 15 years my hometown / permanent address is same. So in a way I finally did get that. On the positive side whenever we moved we would meet new people, there would be new school, school mates , new neighbors, new neighborhood which I usually explored alone. It was always a huge fun going out and discovering the place you lived in. I think that's the reason why this movie is a huge personal favorite of mine
Moving in childhood was always easy and huge fun, because I basically did nothing. My parents along with some folks from my dad's office would come in and do all the actual moving. Subsequently during my student days I did stay for short periods in multiple places but all I had to carry was a mattress and couple of suitcases. Even when I had started working my worldly possessions were very minimal and could be carried in 2-3 suitcases.
Only after my marriage I actually started 'settling down' and started buying household stuff like furniture, household electronics, cooking utensils etc. So when I moved from Chennai to Seattle there was quite a lot of stuff to be moved to my hometown. Again as I had to leave quickly I just left and my efficient better half took care of it all. We hired a professional movers and packers, but it was still exhausting for her and she was certainly not happy but having never really been involved in a move I still had no idea how hard it was.
Then we settled in Seattle and everything seemed fine for a while we lived in the same apartment for an year and half. Even though the apartments here are equipped with household necessities like Fridge, heater, washing m/c, dryer and dishwasher with time we did accumulate enough stuff.
So when we had to move to another part of the city so that we can be near her workplace, finally there was a 'Move' which I had to co-ordinate. As with most things in US the 'do-it-yourself' attitude extended to even household moves. With a fair bit of planning using internet and more importantly with inputs from a local cousin who enlisted himself as volunteer#1 we decided that we will do it ourselves. Moving on your own is certainly something that needs to be done once in lifetime it certainly was a good experience to remember later
Overall it was simple and straightforward : hire a truck get lot of boxes and tape and then put stuff in, take it out and before you do that just let the word around in office floor and friends circle. So many helpful tips and inputs came my way.
Essentially there was lot of initial planning and getting boxes to pack and identifying the right truck. With services like U-Haul renting truck and getting any other necessary stuff is very easy. Couple of folks my office team who lived nearby also offered to join and in fact they did most of the hauling. The previous evening we had to start putting stuff into boxes and taping it up and it was a long night. Next day early in the morning when the store opened I went and picked up a U-Haul truck. It was my first time driving such a big vehicle and the old guy at the store mumbled some instructions and I didnt understand a single word and decided to proceed to the truck. I tried a while but couldnt figure out the gears and luckily the guy had followed me slowly and he explained how to start it. It was smooth sailing until I had to put reverse gear and park in my apartment community and once again a quick google search solved it and the truck was parked and ready. It took us an hour or so to load up the truck and then I set out on the truck with my friends all whom were new to US and had recently started driving cars. It was really good experience driving the full truck through multiple highways and luckily we reached and parked with no issues. The actual move itself took only like 4 hours and by late afternoon we were ready to unpack. My entire furniture was from IKEA which meant it could be easily dismantled and assembling back was also easy. By evening along with my cousin who stayed back till late evening we had assembled all the furniture. Since we moved from 1 Bed apt to 3 bed one laziness took over quickly since there was lot of space to keep the boxes and my initial plan was to just take out immediately the most necessary stuff on Day1 and then gradually over the week slowly do the other boxes.
But it always never works according to plan, always! Most of the time the things we need will be in the boxes kept in spare bedroom and even though the boxes were marked appropriately almost always I had to open 3 boxes before I found the right stuff Within a few days we got rid of almost all the boxes and moved everything to correct places but it did take another 3-4 weeks fully settle down
Our new house was simply fantastic, it was on a hill and there was greenery all around. There was a small stream right outside and the place around had all the amenities you needed. We had sufficient and more space inside and for rent we were paying it was a steal. All this lead to the thought that we had a perfect place and we are not going to move anywhere for a while. Things indeed looked fine for a while and then in another 6 months we had to move again. This time we were moving to Texas about 2000 miles away in another corner of US and this time the Do-it-yourself was ruled out not only because of logistical issues also because my wife's employer was paying for the whole thing.
So this time we got a professional packers and movers, again there was same dread and pain but in lesser magnitude. We had to do some amount of planning on what stuff we will carry with us and what will go in truck and also on how to manage once they picked up the car which was moved by a different company. But the actual work was fully done by the Movers and after 2 weeks of survival in a hotel once we moved in to our current apartment in Dallas we had the movers bring in our stuff which was kept in Storage until we were ready. Getting the stuff in boxes to apartment without any damage is one thing, but setting up the home is another major challenge and it again took us well over a month to make it into our home again!
Given the nature of our jobs and our willingness to be ready to move if needed means those empty boxes will always be there in my storage room. Since we had very little time to find an apartment and most homes look spacious when empty it was very confusing. Only when we started unpacking we realized how small our kitchen is and the pantry shelves are tiny. So I guess its only a matter of time before those boxes come out again
But again it was not just my parents who were to blame, when I grew up I was also doing the same thing at even more rapid pace. I lived in 5 different houses in Bangalore in 3 years I spent there to give you an idea. Post 2008 I have lived 6 major global cities and moving is something that is a norm
Anyways what I want to write about today is not about those missed childhood experiences of a single familiar place or lack of something constant though my parents eventually settled back in my hometown to the house they built around the time I was born and for last 15 years my hometown / permanent address is same. So in a way I finally did get that. On the positive side whenever we moved we would meet new people, there would be new school, school mates , new neighbors, new neighborhood which I usually explored alone. It was always a huge fun going out and discovering the place you lived in. I think that's the reason why this movie is a huge personal favorite of mine
Moving in childhood was always easy and huge fun, because I basically did nothing. My parents along with some folks from my dad's office would come in and do all the actual moving. Subsequently during my student days I did stay for short periods in multiple places but all I had to carry was a mattress and couple of suitcases. Even when I had started working my worldly possessions were very minimal and could be carried in 2-3 suitcases.
Only after my marriage I actually started 'settling down' and started buying household stuff like furniture, household electronics, cooking utensils etc. So when I moved from Chennai to Seattle there was quite a lot of stuff to be moved to my hometown. Again as I had to leave quickly I just left and my efficient better half took care of it all. We hired a professional movers and packers, but it was still exhausting for her and she was certainly not happy but having never really been involved in a move I still had no idea how hard it was.
Then we settled in Seattle and everything seemed fine for a while we lived in the same apartment for an year and half. Even though the apartments here are equipped with household necessities like Fridge, heater, washing m/c, dryer and dishwasher with time we did accumulate enough stuff.
So when we had to move to another part of the city so that we can be near her workplace, finally there was a 'Move' which I had to co-ordinate. As with most things in US the 'do-it-yourself' attitude extended to even household moves. With a fair bit of planning using internet and more importantly with inputs from a local cousin who enlisted himself as volunteer#1 we decided that we will do it ourselves. Moving on your own is certainly something that needs to be done once in lifetime it certainly was a good experience to remember later
Overall it was simple and straightforward : hire a truck get lot of boxes and tape and then put stuff in, take it out and before you do that just let the word around in office floor and friends circle. So many helpful tips and inputs came my way.
Essentially there was lot of initial planning and getting boxes to pack and identifying the right truck. With services like U-Haul renting truck and getting any other necessary stuff is very easy. Couple of folks my office team who lived nearby also offered to join and in fact they did most of the hauling. The previous evening we had to start putting stuff into boxes and taping it up and it was a long night. Next day early in the morning when the store opened I went and picked up a U-Haul truck. It was my first time driving such a big vehicle and the old guy at the store mumbled some instructions and I didnt understand a single word and decided to proceed to the truck. I tried a while but couldnt figure out the gears and luckily the guy had followed me slowly and he explained how to start it. It was smooth sailing until I had to put reverse gear and park in my apartment community and once again a quick google search solved it and the truck was parked and ready. It took us an hour or so to load up the truck and then I set out on the truck with my friends all whom were new to US and had recently started driving cars. It was really good experience driving the full truck through multiple highways and luckily we reached and parked with no issues. The actual move itself took only like 4 hours and by late afternoon we were ready to unpack. My entire furniture was from IKEA which meant it could be easily dismantled and assembling back was also easy. By evening along with my cousin who stayed back till late evening we had assembled all the furniture. Since we moved from 1 Bed apt to 3 bed one laziness took over quickly since there was lot of space to keep the boxes and my initial plan was to just take out immediately the most necessary stuff on Day1 and then gradually over the week slowly do the other boxes.
But it always never works according to plan, always! Most of the time the things we need will be in the boxes kept in spare bedroom and even though the boxes were marked appropriately almost always I had to open 3 boxes before I found the right stuff Within a few days we got rid of almost all the boxes and moved everything to correct places but it did take another 3-4 weeks fully settle down
Our new house was simply fantastic, it was on a hill and there was greenery all around. There was a small stream right outside and the place around had all the amenities you needed. We had sufficient and more space inside and for rent we were paying it was a steal. All this lead to the thought that we had a perfect place and we are not going to move anywhere for a while. Things indeed looked fine for a while and then in another 6 months we had to move again. This time we were moving to Texas about 2000 miles away in another corner of US and this time the Do-it-yourself was ruled out not only because of logistical issues also because my wife's employer was paying for the whole thing.
So this time we got a professional packers and movers, again there was same dread and pain but in lesser magnitude. We had to do some amount of planning on what stuff we will carry with us and what will go in truck and also on how to manage once they picked up the car which was moved by a different company. But the actual work was fully done by the Movers and after 2 weeks of survival in a hotel once we moved in to our current apartment in Dallas we had the movers bring in our stuff which was kept in Storage until we were ready. Getting the stuff in boxes to apartment without any damage is one thing, but setting up the home is another major challenge and it again took us well over a month to make it into our home again!
Given the nature of our jobs and our willingness to be ready to move if needed means those empty boxes will always be there in my storage room. Since we had very little time to find an apartment and most homes look spacious when empty it was very confusing. Only when we started unpacking we realized how small our kitchen is and the pantry shelves are tiny. So I guess its only a matter of time before those boxes come out again
4 comments:
Dei! For a second I thought you are moving all over again!
I actually was almost ... I had moved then a few months back started writing this post and almost immediately we had some project changes and we thought we had to move again. Luckily that was not needed ... so for now staying put ... hopefully
Made an interesting read Anush.Could relate a lot to your experience having spent a good time with you out here.You must consider moving back in here sometime soon:)..Those empty boxes must be feeling idle :)
No fun in moving back to same place :)
Whats life without seeing,living and experiencing new places and cultures!
The desi culture here at Dallas is so amazing
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