It was 9 a.m. on a Sunday when nine men barged into my house. Chaos followed. They spread out across rooms, bathrooms, and the kitchen, shoving whatever they could find into boxes that seemed terribly small to hold everything. But they persisted.
"Are there valuables in this?" one of them pointed to a box of faux jewellery we had forgotten in an almirah's corner. "Never mind, we are putting it in the bag," they said as I exchanged confused glances with my wife. We sighed and looked on, trusting the professionals with their job.
Packing and moving houses is a nerve-wracking experience. It's a pain seldom spoken about. It's a heartbreak that B. Praak has yet to write a song for. It's a loss that is not usually equated to missing Coldplay's tickets, but it's 'something just like this'.
I was moving from Noida to Delhi. While the new address is barely six kilometres away, it feels like several light-years - not merely because of the time-space dilating Delhi-Noida border traffic jam. The reason is much closer to the heart; it's about home.
The House That Grew With Me
While I have been an OG 'dilliwala' since birth, I moved to Noida in 2022 to stay close to work. I was a new dad and wanted to be just a phone call away. My wife had taken a career break. Our parents visited often. The house - albeit rented - grew, along with our daughter. We were taking baby steps in building a fresh, new life.
I think that's what houses do. They just exist around you as structures that you fill with memories, materials, and moments - the collection of which you call home. And while it's easy to move and update your address, pulling away from this physical cocoon takes some emotional toll.
When you remove framed pictures that you had precisely marked with a scratchy pen, strip the floor of rugs you were too lazy to pick and dust, and claw out the corners where you threw stuff to check back later, you realise the little things that made it work, that made it a place with a soul. It's an experience that makes you reflect. You wonder why you have accumulated 4,310 plastic food takeaway boxes. Are you turning into your mother? The plastic bags packed into a bigger plastic bag hung on the kitchen door would want to say yes.
In my house - now ex-house - there was a vacant hall. I added a projector and seating space, installed ambient lighting, and built a cosy cinema space. It did not come together at once, but bits and pieces picked up from several places over several months came together to shape this place. With a growing child, the toys kept piling too. They took up a space of their own and suddenly reclaimed other parts of the house. It was a cherished space, a place where life thrived.
Just Like That...
Then, just like that, it was time to leave.
My wife was slowly returning to her professional life, so Delhi was a mutually convenient location. Of course, when we moved into my previous house, we always knew that it was not forever, that we'd be shifting somewhere else in the near future. Suddenly, the future was here.
Almost everything I own, packed into boxes the size of a microwave.
Credit: Aaqib Raza Khan
Moving houses is also an excellent opportunity to revisit many things you thought you 'might use later' but quickly forgot about. E-commerce boxes piled up as some 'memorabilia', a stack of wires sufficient to electrify an entire village, clothes you bought only because of 'never-before discounts'. But then, are you really even Indian if you use the opportunity to move to actually declutter your life? As much as 99% of my belongings ended up in one of those boxes after half-hearted contemplation, travelling with us to our new house, in that irrational hope, again, that they might come in use some time. Logical me has a thousand arguments against that sweatshirt I have worn twice in the last season, but as far as black-and-white decisions go, I'd like to keep it, 'just in case'.
A Life Packed Into Boxes
It's stressful and humbling to pack almost everything you own in boxes the size of a microwave. A packers-and-movers team does it with a strange emotional disconnect; it often borders on disregard. They don't seem to care if that lamp you bought in a flash sale will survive in the box they are throwing it in (it did not). But the experience of moving carries you to a place that's somewhere between exhaustion and moksha. Suddenly, you believe in 'letting go'. You are agitated within, but calm on the outside, like a choppy sea.
You've left the familiar shore. The truck moves out with your life packed into tiny boxes. All you're left with is some keys, and a question - will the new shore make space for your absurd little life?
(The author is Deputy Editor, Content Innovation, NDTV)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author