Packing Suitcases...

"I have barely traveled outside my own state."..Now that's a statement.Really.I have been staying in my own state West Bengal for the last 29 years of my life.And I have barely traveled outside of it.No,I'm not attached to my city so much,if that's what you are thinking.Its exactly the opposite.I'm a bohemian.I don't have sentimental attachments to places.I never did.My late father used to work in the Government sector and that meant a lot of transfers.I have been to the remotest of villages in West Bengal(Perks of being an honest policeman) with my family ever since I was a kid.I don't remember those days as I was just a toddler but from what my mother has told me,we have often lived in places with no electricity to times when my mother had to keep ducks and hens in the house and sell their eggs in the market to make ends meet(like I said perks of being an honest policeman).But as far as I can remember I was never really very sad to move places.Rather I was the only one who was happy when my father was transferred.My mother used to hate it because let's face it,moving every 2-3 years to new places with a family is not really a homemakers dream.Rather it's her worst nightmare.My brother,who was always great at making friends and quiet attached to them used to hate it too.He used to be gloomy for days and later grew resentful towards this whole cycle.But then he also had his reasons.For you see my brother is 6 years elder than me and has been on the receiving end of this bargain six years more than me.Plus he loved his schools and friends.However I never really was the sentimental type.My mother used to say I'm a typical "bhobo ghure"(Bengali for bohemian) and couldn't for the life of her figure out how I,her darling daughter,had turned out to be such an oddball between her two kids.

And that cycle of "leaving and going places" had continued till I was in College when my darling father untimely passed away in an unfortunate way(train accident).So we stopped.Though to be fair to my parents my high school,college and university days were all spent in Kolkata.But then like I said it wasn't outside the state.The only problem was the older I grew the more the stagnation of staying at a place permanently suffocated me.I used to feel like an old building,decayed and dilapidated but with concrete roots growing underneath the ground,forever fixed without any chance of movement.Well you may think its an exaggeration but honestly I'm hardwired very weirdly and differently by God.Like as a child I could't sleep inside a "Moshari"(mosquito net) because I used to feel trapped inside like a bird in a net and get restless throwing my legs every where during sleep which often caused the bed posts to collapse in the middle of the night with the mosquito net.(yeah,I was a troublesome kid).My mother tried a lot to get me used to it but she failed miserably.And its still the same even now.I have some weird innate fears.But that's for another time.I had decided that once I started earning enough all I would do is travel.Travel like crazy because I never really had any plans for marriage or stuff.I thought there was too much to see and too much to do so marriage was not really for me.

But then again "Man proposes and God disposes" is a very true saying.Just when I was comfortably settling into the idea of being single for the rest of my life and had almost convinced my very strict mother of the same idea,Wham! I met my husband.There's a very good story there too.But then that's for another day.So after meeting him and knowing each other for hardly a month or so we got married(cray,right??).Now my husband is a second generation migrant living in Singapore.So I guess to some extent it was a relief that I wouldn't have to stay in this city,state,country forever.I should have been happy,happy,happy.But here's the problem.I'm not actually very happy about it.Though this city has no hold on me(sorry Kolkatans)but the people do.You see its not exactly the place that gives you good memories but the people in it.Your love for a particular place may be influenced by a number of external factors but mostly by the people in that place whose treatment towards you defines how in the future your love or longing towards that place maybe.Same is with me.

This city,this Kolkata has no sentimental attachment to me.But in my growing up years I have meet some really wonderful and phenomenally dreadful people,who in their turn have given me a lot of memories.Good,bad and incredibly unpleasant.But those things have in return taught me a lot about myself,my life and the world.Its like if I have to explain it to you in layman terms then I would say Kolkata has been the "Shaolin Temple" to my inner "Jackie Chan" or the "Haymitch Abernathy" to my inner "Katniss"(sorry,huge Hunger Games Fan) or the "Man With No Name" to my inner "Arya Stark"(Again couldn't help.GOT rules!).So today when I'm here sitting and packing my bags,packing up 29 years of my life to leave this country and go to a place of which I have only seen photos and watched it on TLC,I cannot help but feel a small sigh in heart.So much I know of this place,of its people,all packed up with my clothes and life to be carried in my heart as I get ready to start a new chapter of my life.The only relief-having a partner in crime,Nish(My hubby).