Afternoon rambling

Slowly and surely, it's all falling into place. The familiar feeling of being suspended in-limbo has taken over and the heart has guarded and steeled itself against any unexpected emotional responses and withdrawal symptoms.

The house in Bangalore is being painted and necessary repairs done. A hotel has been identified close to it where we'll stay for the week or 10 days that we have to wait for our goods to follow us from Gurgaon. Friends have been commandeered during this time to provide moral support and shopping companionship as I sally forth to buy furniture, curtains and rugs for the much larger place we are moving into. Peeps in Bangalore, much appreciate recos on places to buy all of the above -- we'll be staying in Whitefield, so please don't suggest places in JP Nagar!! FYI, I strongly veer towards traditional Indian work.

The schools have been given notice, as have my maid and cook, who are understandably sad at my leaving. Even if I say so myself, S and I are very good employers - I pay above market rates because I think a good househelp is the greatest treasure anyone can have (and its a hard job as anyone knows!), I do atleast of the quarter of the work assigned to the help by myself (I like washing dishes and doing laundry!), I'm generous with loans and advances (and I've never been taken for a ride - yet) and most importantly, we travel so much that the help has atleast a week off every month! :) Last minute shopping has been done. We're getting some furniture custom-made - Delhi is really good for that sort of thing and you have excellent carpenters and woodworkers here. The car will be sold in a couple of days. Fortunately, our current place is very centrally-located and it won't be a major hardship to be bereft of a set of wheels. The movers have come looked at the stuff we have and provided a quote, which has been duly accepted.

It helps that the weather here seems to have moved seamlessly from winter to summer with no suggestion of spring! It makes the thought of moving to cooler and infinitely pleasanter climes so much easier! I've been trying to find one good thing about the summer in Delhi-NCR for the last three years and have come up with precisely one reason. My appetite drops so dramatically during the season that all I consume is loads of water, lime juice and icecream. Plus I try and swim almost everyday, with the result its the time of year I look the most fit and toned (if a little wilted). The one silver lining!

Another 2 weeks to go! It's been a good innings here (nonwithstanding the gun that was pointed at the husband a couple of years ago - remind me to relate that incident sometime!). I have never had any major separation pangs while moving; sometimes I wonder whether it's a coping mechanism I developed early on to deal with frequent relocations. When we moved to the US from Bangalore, a dearly-loved city, the tears that flowed were only because I did not know when I would be seeing my parents again. When we left San Francisco, there was anxiety about a new life in India, worries about Ads being able to adjust, but no regret about leaving that golden land. Perhaps, the new economic reality for many of us is that India is the golden land of opportunity, much as the USA used to be a couple of generations ago!
Enough rambling for one afternoon, I guess :) Time to go and prep Ads for his admission test!