My heart was palpitating; sweat was pouring down my
forehead; nausea enveloped me from all sides; if there hadn’t been so many
people on the road, I swear I would have fainted, I was feeling so dizzy.
I know what you are thinking, but I assure you all, you
are wrong. I wasn’t being attacked by menopausal hot flushes!
This was happening frequently enough for all of you to
assume the worst. But I have my own explanation, do bear with me as I meander
into my past and give you a scientific hypothesis why this was happening.
I think (I must have told you before), I have nomadic
genes. From the time I was born I have moved on an average of every three
years. In fact in one place that I lived for four years, I moved three houses!
There have been exceptions but mostly my fate has made me move. Do not pity me!
I am very proud of this fact.
I just adore moving. The whole process of packing is a
pleasure to me. I love sorting things through; throwing out whatever I haven’t
used in the three years we have been in that particular house; lovingly dusting
and packing my books of over thirty years (which I haven’t read in the last twenty
years!) and the many artefacts that I have collected from the world over (they
might be cracked and faded but I never have the heart to throw them off!) I do
love to throw away my old clothes though (My maids love me for that!)
Many of my friends feel sorry for me. The first question
they ask me, when we speak after a gap, “Where are you these days?”. Of course
Facebook has been good to let them know where I am at that point in time. But now
a days Facebook is out of fashion; all the young people have migrated to Instagram
for their socialising and the older generation (I mean the seventy plus) have
taken over Facebook! My generation is somewhere in-between- totally confused
about what to do. We are sort of undecided, with one foot in each arena! If the
boats stop moving in unison, we are going to fall into the water! I have three
sets of friends- the one that starts from seventeen to thirty, then the thirty to
sixty and the third set is the sixty plus!, So I try to keep track of all of
them through various Social Apps.
Getting back to my ‘moving times’- well! as I was saying,
I love it! I love the pre-moving exercise(sorting and packing), the ongoing
moving exercise (staying in a hotel after the hard work and just chilling) and
the post- moving exercise (Unpacking and finding new places for my old stuff!)
I never did feel sorry for myself, in fact, I feel sorry
for the people who stay in one place throughout their lives! I feel they are
missing out. They argue that they learn from their vacation travels, but I
argue that visiting and moving are totally different things. Depending on
whether you are the nomads or the settlers, you can pat me on my back or throw rotten tomatoes at me!
Back to my ailment, I seriously started to find some
common denominator for all the episodes of my ailments. I was normally always
outside, mostly when I was going to the garden for my walk; there were always plenty
of people and traffic around me at that time; my irritation at the stray dogs
being fed on the roadside was also there; I kept on collecting my data from
these episodes. One more common thing was, I was always feeling healthy and fit
before these attacks!
Nobody, least of all myself, gave much importance to this
new development in my life. Like a wood splinter under the skin, it started poking
me very frequently. As I am a self medicator, I did not even think of taking professional
help.
Maybe it was hot flushes, I admitted to myself. But what
about my data collection, my parameters and a burgeoning hypothesis? So again
the Hot flush theory was flushed down and I waited for a new episode to add to
my data.
“Didi”, my maid had just come in, “The front door neighbours are moving”.
I wasn’t really surprised. The Lady of the house had told
me before that they are looking for a new house. I did wonder why she hadn’t
told me that they were moving so soon. To cut a long story short, out of
neighbourly concern I went over to their house.
The men were packing and talking amongst themselves. The house
was a mess, everything was laid out and the packers were doing their job.
It started, my heart beat faster; the sweat poured out
and I felt so dizzy that I held on to the door. The disease was in full form.
“Are you okay?”, our neighbour asked.
“I think so”, I said smiling weakly.
“Can I get you a glass of water?”, he asked.
“Thank you, but I am okay”, I said steadying myself, “Do
let me know if I can help you in any way”.
How could I tell him that the smell of the packing boxes,
the rustle of the bubble wrap and the mess, all made me feel so jealous that I
was nauseous!
As I entered the latest data into my journal, I realised
one more common factor during these episodes was the presence of a Movers and Packers
truck on the road! In fact this has happened when I gaze down idly from my
twenty sixth floor and see the Writers (A favourite Movers and Packers of mine!)yellow
and black truck moving or taking things from the Apartment opposite us.
We had recently completed four years in this location(
way above my average of three years!) and all these signs were like a knife
twisting in my nomadic heart. The intense desire; the painful jealousy; the
restlessness within me were all signals telling me it’s time to move!
My hypothesis was proven beyond doubt!
