Summer of '04 :: To new beginnings

Disclaimer: Very long and uncut version. Read at your own risk :D

Relocating is always painful....Everytime I go to a new place I hate it in the beginning and then I fall so much in love with it that its hard to let go....

Maybe thats why I dont sleep at all or negligible if any, whenever I am about to move...It was the summer of 2001 when this first happenned...I had to leave the GH (Girls Hostel) of my college at Jalandhar the next morning at 9 am...Just 12 hours prior to then, I was busy going around the hostel rooms where I had been repeatedly asked to come by before leaving.... In each room that I was summoned to we cracked different jokes, remembered the good times spent together and bid farewell...I must say doing this was not a chore for me, it was more exciting, more fun, the thing that felt right to the heart...Since childhood, I was well aware of my talkativeness and boisterous nature and with due consideration to these facts about me it was natural for me to be famous and friends with tons of people....

As the night slipped by and after having finished meeting with all my casual friends started the longer chat sessions with the close to heart friends and also per se enemies (you know the ones you didn't see eye to eye for the 4 years at college)....Okay most of these sessions were initiated by me as was the fun and frolic....After about 30-40 minutes some friend would say oh, I have to get back to my room and pack and so on.....The night kept drifting away and I kept talking, dancing, scribbling on scrapbooks, even recording autographs as audio files on PCs....Personally, I got all of my friends to write on a clean white T-shirt which I have proudly preserved till date...

By 3 in the night, two of my closest freinds were having a heart attack being with me...Their trains were much later in the day on the next day and they were all packed and here I was, the one who had to leave first thing in the morning idly sitting and chatting :D.....

After many protests and explanations to them that they needn't worry because I had everything planned out in my head and ready to be packed asap, they finally kicked me out, some of them forcibly went to sleep and a few came to help me at 4 in the morning....Perfectionist that I am, I gave 2 of them some trivial tasks, asked the others to go rest and I myself got completely engrossed in packing well if you don't consider the trivial 1 liner joke breaks in between the packing.....

By the way, I finished packing my stuff at 7:00 in the morning and was all set to board the auto-rickshaw from the hostel to the train station at 8:00 am....That the rickshaw would breakdown in a secluded spot and that I would eventually have to load/unload to another one and then rush all the way to catch the train is another story....Its destined to happen, always....

Don't believe me!? The second time this happenned was in the summer of 2002 when I was leaving home for Mumbai to catch a flight to California...Yes, again I pulled an all-nighter, started 10 minutes late from home than what Dad had planned and this time there was no auto rickshaw making me late business....This time it was the erstwhile porters' union who were on a strike on that fateful day at that minute when we reached the train station...And lo and behold that particular train which was to arrive at platform one and always does was announced to arrive on a different platform...Oops now this was a googly....2 large suitcases each weighing 70 pounds each and we had a long way to go to get to the train...Dear Daddy took one bag and myself another while Mom who has a very bad back managed the 2-3 smaller bags that we had...This was another miraculous event where just when we just got to the platform the train was about to leave in 30 seconds...Like an angel a young porter who had seen that we were trying to achieve the unachievable (ya well jumping on to a running train is something but with such heavy luggage within 30 secs that too on a busy Indian train station :D ) came to our rescue hauled both the large bags swiftly into the train and then off went Mom and then me and then Dad...Dad always wants to help the poor and this time he was very touched because the guy had broken the strike and was being bad mouthed by all his unions members sitting on the platform....Dad was trying to hand him a 100 Indian rupees note as the train got a little faster but the young porter, God Bless Him; refused to accept any money and louldy said "May God be with you and your family Sir."

As touched and emotional as we were for the next half an hour, then started Dad's tirade on my poor time management skills and always being late and leaving things for the last minute thing...One thing he was sure of that "God was with me" because had it not been for the gracious porter, I would have missed that train and I would have surely missed my late night flight from Mumbai.....

Anyways, this has become a long rambling post I guess, but nevermind, if nothing else, I will love reading it for years to come everytime I move....

Why I got thinking about this? Well because while packing through this entire night this is what I was wondering about..Its certainly not the case that I am stupid and lazy..I have every move planned out and a list of to-dos available well in advance...Then why do I end up tiring myself endlessly or not sleeping before moving....

This is what I figured out...As much as I love traveling to and living in new places, its the letting go that I find very difficult...maybe thats why I dont allow myself to miss an hour or a minute or a second of the place that I am leaving by experiencing it fully right up to the last moment.....

As talkative as I am, deep within I believe, I am very reserved and hence I treasure every new home that I have created for myself over a period of time....

Anyways, enough of rambling...Got to get back to packing ...After all gotta leave Stan in an hour's time....Go Stanford!