I have had my fair share of travels in the last 7 years. Living
out of a suitcase is not new to me. Even
shifting and setting up a new house is actually not that alien. From my first "out
of home" stint in Coimbatore, to life in Amsterdam to setting up two rental
houses after marriage to setting up my own one.. I have set up my fair share of
houses also. But there was a big difference between my previous moves and this
one. I always had someone around, except in case of Amsterdam where I didn’t require
anyone simply because I was moving into a fully furnished place – all I needed
to do was unpack my suitcase.
Moving into my current home was a mighty task…. I have had a
lot of eyebrows raised over the fact that I did it all alone, taken many a
compliments on my “bravery”, garnered a ton of sympathy for my husband “abandoning”
me in my “time of need”. I almost felt like I deserved a medal of honour or
bravery… a jhansi ki rani in modern day London, though I had no clue what I had
done to deserve it.
So, let me start at the beginning. Like all good Indian
families, mine also thought that Britain was experiencing some kind of drought
– no food, no meds, no electronics in this country to sustain life. So in order
for me to survive till I foraged enough to sustain my ongoing life, I carried
112 kg of luggage with me. I didn’t physically carry it – if that is the image
popping up in your mind – not from India anyway. I used a particularly
effective courier service who came home to pack it all up – from clothes, to my
vacuum cleaner, iron box, Phillips mixer, rice cooker to sets of plastic
containers of all sizes, to crockery to enough groceries for at least 2 months –
I’m not exaggerating. In hind sight it was a good idea – not because of drought
in Britain but because of the fact that I get reimbursed by my company for
transporting the luggage and I wouldn’t have got paid if I had purchased all
that here. The deal with the courier company was that they would ship
the stuff from India once I gave them a permanent address. As soon as my offer on the house was accepted, I mailed the address to the courier guys. The courier was to reach in 4-5 working days – maximum by Friday or by next Monday. Friday came
and went and no one called. No progress on the online tracker either. I was a
bit worried – images of my mixer being used to make minced meat and my rice
cooker being used to make chicken biryani had started haunting me. So I decided
to call them on Saturday and to my shock they said they had already made the
delivery – on Friday – to a house where no one lived!!! Can you beat that? So I
rushed there as soon as I could, or at least as soon as the London weekend
public transport system would allow you to get from Ilford to Kingston.
Dragging a 25KG suitcase with me while trying to find my way from the station
didn't speed up the process either. And then there was the case of the furniture I had
ordered online.
That’s a whole different story, but it is quite necessary
that it be told for you to understand my moving in drama to its full extent.
The house I had rented was bare except for a fully kitted
kitchen (sans a microwave – an oven is not the same as a microwave – I found out
that later) and wardrobes in both bedrooms. So I needed to get a sofa, 2 beds,
mattresses, cloth drying stand, ironing board, coffee tables etc…. I tried ordering
online, but I didn’t have a debit card. The day I got my debit card, I put in a
huge order with one of the cheapest online stores here – Argos – Ikea was out
of question (if you've read my previous blog, you will know why?).. I don’t think they even deliver cushions which didn’t require
assembly. Anyway Argos was much quicker on delivery time, the quality couldn’t be
that much different as the prices were not and so Argos it was. Of my huge
order, there was a small order made up of multiple items amounting to around 250 quid and a bigger
order consisting of the bed and the sofa amounting to around 550 quid. For some
unknown reason, the bigger order was rejected by my bank, the smaller one was
authenticated but I didn’t get a confirmation from Argos and neither did the
transaction appear on my bank statement. So I figured that the transaction had
failed. I will try again later. So it came as a shock to me when I got an SMS
on Saturday morning – the same Saturday that I was planning to shift – that my
order was ready for delivery and would be delivered between 8 and 1.
You can imagine that while I was lugging my suitcase, trying to figure out from
Google maps where the hell my house was, I had a lot on my mind. I finally
found the house and a sight that buttressed my belief that I had made a right
choice by selecting the house for its location. My front door was covered with
packages – at least 8 of them of all shapes and sizes – just lying in front of
my door. I didn’t know how to react. I was standing there stunned surrounded by
all these packages when I hear a voice – “Are you the new tenant?” I see an old
lady, white, with white hair and blue eye shadow who I realise is my downstairs neighbor.
She sees me as a damsel in distress – for the first time in my life I actually
felt like one. She invites me for a cup of coffee which I badly need. I am wondering what
to do with my suitcase and then I figure – if no one has bothered to steal my
packages, then maybe no one will steal my suitcase either. Right then my knight
in shining armour arrives…. No it’s not my husband making a dramatic entry
which would be what would be expected in true Bollywood fashion. It is the
property inventory guy – but that day, to me – he was no lesser than Hritik
Roshan playing Krrish to the rescue. An affable guy who walks me through the
house, shows me chinks in the property I hadn’t seen before, shows me how the
appliances work , towards the end of our tour and explanation of the process –
asks me the penultimate question –“do you have anyone to help you with your
luggage?” I say ‘Nope”. “So how exactly were you planning to get all this stuff
up?” “Good question . Best answer – either rolling them over the stairs or
dragging them”. He looks at me as if I am cuckoo and says – not asks, but says “I’m
going to help you”. I could have jumped up and kissed him right there – I am
not lying – I was happy and relieved – it was like having your faith restored.
Now in case you are wondering why I am talking of hauling
things up the stairs, though the entrance to my house is at ground level, once
you open the door, you have to go up a flight of stairs to the first floor
where the actual abode is.
So there we were; the inventory guy (who shall remain an
unnamed hero in my chronicles) and I, playing a tango with the huge 30 kg
parcels - 4 of them. It was then that I realised, that in the midst of stuff from India was
stuff from Argos. Does no one call or ask for signature on delivery in this
country???? God… they just leave stuff at your doorstep and expect your neighbours
to be upstanding citizens with good morals (I have still not paid for that stuff). After Brit Krrish and I get all the
stuff to the landing, he asks me if he could help me with anything else? I am
lucky to have encountered decency on my first day in the new house – spread a
glow of positivity in me. When I profusely thanked him, he said the usual
pleasantries and rushed to his next house. So there I was left with a hallway
full of boxes and not even a chair to sit on.
I felt desolate – very desolate indeed. And then there was a
knock on the door and my neighbor came to remind me of coffee. A half an hour
at her house with coffee that reminded me of home made coffee, a small dog who
was extremely well-behaved , a short historical peek into my neighbours life
and some not so great hearsay about my landlords, I was back home and looking at
what I should do. I found the knife – the courier company wouldn’t carry it in
their luggage, so I had carried it in my checked in luggage. I found it and
started slashing around. It was more frustration and loneliness that got to me
than the mere physical exhaustion that the events of the day had brought down
on me. A few boxes ripped and bubble wrap and thermocol bits all around the house, I needed time out. So
I decided to get myself a chair made and realized that I didn’t have any tools.
I needed to go to Kingston to get a toolkit.
Down the road from my house and across the street was the
Thames walkway to Kingston. It was not until I went down the steps to the
walkway that I realized how close to my dream I was. It was one of those rare
days that the sun is shining bright, you can see the sun rays shimmer over the
water, the Kingston bridge across the river, trees losing their leaves in the
foreground, families holding hands, pushing prams, old couples walking as if
they fell in love yesterday, people jogging, rowing and I was here to stay…
this could be my life. This is what I wanted.. I was finally getting it. It was
enough for someone like me – tough gal, tomboy exterior, to almost feel guilty –
guilty that I was so happy at the moment that I was not missing my family
enough. What kind of person am I??
My first DIY project –
wasn’t easy – it was the first time that I was actually trying to make
something. It was grueling but I did it – gingerly sat on the chair and it didn’t
break… I know it was not rocket science, but for the first time I understood
why some people derive so much joy from working with their hands – carpentry,
pottery, gardening; it is extremely fulfilling to see something take a concrete
shape in front of you – even if all you did was screw on some nuts and bolts.
With the chair done, I was calling it a day – I looked back
and saw a house too messed up for me to live in and anyway half my luggage was still
at my hotel at Ilford. So I was on a train back to Ilford and reminiscing my
day… Gosh! Was I tired!!
The next day – a bright new day – I decided that I was going
to officially move in. I checked out of the hotel and started my last and final
journey from Ilford to Kingston. I started at 9.30 AM and reached home at 1. Three
and a half hours for a journey which should ideally take an hour and 15
minutes. Didn’t know at that time that trains on that route do not work on
Sundays as they are closed for repairs. So after an extremely tiring journey
home – all I wanted to do was to sit on my recently assembled throne and rock
to sleep – but there was a long day ahead of me – things to do. By the end of
the day, I had set up my kitchen, thrown most of my clothes in a closet, made a
temporary bed – 2 blankets and a sleeping bag and an led an exploration into
the bowels of my attic to store the packaging material. Unlike back home where
I once actually put a washbasin in trash and it was actually taken away – here there
was rules about how you dispose off packing material. The rules were too much
for me to digest at that point and so I thought I could just dump it in the attic
till my next move when it could be used again. All the unpacking made me remember
the times that mom and I had spent in packing – the thought that she put into
each item, stuff that I forgot, didn’t think of or deemed unnecessary. The
times dad & I spent in putting together the suitcase and weighing it a
hundred times to ensure it was within limits. It was strange to have such
widely conflicting emotions on consecutive days – one that made me happy where
I was and one that made me yearn to go back – at least to meet my parents, if
nothing else.
I folded for the night – my first night in a sleeping bag,
in a new house. I slept with the lights on, still do. The house creaks when you
walk on it, the boiler makes weird noises and it is so quite outside that every
little sound manifests itself a hundred times more loudly. I didn’t get much
sleep that night, but I was finally home.
And so today, I spend my 3rd weekend in the
house. I have a TV, cable, internet, some trinkets from home which made my home
look homely, a pastel blue wall clock, a microwave, clothes neatly folded away or hung, all the papers - from the rental agreement to the bank documents to the contract openings for water, electricity and cable organized in box files – a sofa and bed on their
way. I am as settled as I could hope to be……. Till the family arrives and then
starts the process of resettlement.. one that I am looking forward to.
I will
no longer be alone – there is only so much silence and solitude that one can relish
and while I am relishing the time alone – I may not for too long. Or worse
still I may enjoy it so much that arrival of my family can seem like an
unwelcome intrusion. That very thought scares me…..
