E-Paper
Sign In
Life's like that: How moving house can teach you resilience
'It’s important to let things go when you know they aren’t yours and can never be yours'
- PUBLISHED: Thu 15 May 2025, 12:51 PM
“Good morning, bro.” That’s my daughter walking in with her son, who at two is on a learning streak, parroting whatever his elders say.
Like going down a kids’ slide, Shutti glided down the hip seat, holding out a fancy little counting book as he darted to his play station underneath the prayer console. “One, two, theee, fooor, faive...” And he did go up to 50 in one breath.
Recommended For You
“What’s up, dad?” Vava asked. “Doing a little math for my column.” And I continued to count on my hand “till my fingers dropped/Into Van Diemen’s land”. Sorry, that’s half a verse from Emily Dickinson’s If you were coming in the fall.
“Oh my God, both grandpa and Shutti are learning to count. Hey boy, come here and teach your good old fan a little math. Jokes apart, what are you counting, dad? Your little nest eggs, or my fortune in your yet-to-write will?”
Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.
“Beat me on this. Can you count the number of houses we — that is to say, ‘dad’ has — lived in?”
“Oh my God, please don’t start me on it. It was sheer madness. We were like internally displaced people. I am not quite sure how many places you lived in before I was born. Dad, anyone would have lost count.”
Oh boy. I need some time to recollect, starting with Mumbai where I started my trajectory. What a journey it has been. From a one-room sharing accommodation marooned by the black scum flowing down a nearby railway yard in Mumbai’s Kurla suburb to the comfort of a few metropolitan cities.
Was I an accidental nomad? Looking back, I start to wonder if I really lived a vagrant life, moving homes as fast as an autumn leaf that’s lost its trajectory in a gust of wind.
If someone asked me where I live in Dubai, there would always be a momentary pause before I could squeeze out the right reply. I would need to rummage in the cognitive back office for my latest residency details.
“Dad, give it a try. Let’s see if it’s a Guinness record.” She was ready with a pen and paper.
Images of my Kurla stay rolled down my memories like a 35mm black-and-white film strip. I was well off in my little room with a view. A bird’s eye view — sorry, a drone shot — of a not-so-impoverished slum that blared Bollywood numbers day in, day out. Swarthy girls with long, plaited hair roamed around picking rags or reading song lyrics. Boys combing their hair — longer and embellished like their silver screen heroes’ fashionable trope — gathered around chai and paanwalas [tea and beetle leaf hawkers], gawking at girls and eating peanuts.
When uninvited jobseekers from my village landed up and stayed put, the place where I once peacefully read law and journalism simultaneously had no space for me anymore. That’s when I made my first move. I picked my stuff and left looking for a space that could offer peace of mind to study.
The next stop was Antop Hill in Mumbai’s Sion Koliwada, which hosted what was once known as Asia’s largest government staff quarters. Filled with goons, drug peddlers, home brokers, and thousands of migrant workers, Antop Hill certainly wasn’t even remotely closer to the kind of place I wanted, so I started to look for greener pastures. “So dad, two places in Kurla and how many in Koliwada?”
“Let me see. Yeah, five.”
“Next stop, dad?”
“Three in Vashi-Nerul in New Bombay. Two in Andheri and Chunabhatti, and that winds up my Mumbai days, I guess.”
As we turned to Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Singapore, Kerala, and Bangalore (now Bengaluru), Shutti kept copy-pasting: “One, two, theee, fooor, faive...”
“Dad, tell me how you managed your emotions when you left each place, especially as you looked after every place as though it were your own. I remember you built a garden with auto dripping and wooden interlock, and a gazebo at Damac Hills 2 even though you knew it wasn’t yours.”
“Yes, I am an emotional creature, but I never let my feelings overpower me. It’s important to let things go when you know they aren’t yours and can never be yours. Emotion is like quicksand under your feet; it swallows you even before you realise you have been trapped.”
“But, I remember, tears rolled down your cheeks and you kissed even the walls and doors of our Singapore home when you sold it and left the Hougang neighbourhood.”
“True. I had to sweat blood to own it. But I make it a point never to revisit good old places and let a tsunami of memories drown me. It’s good riddance to good memories when it’s time to usher in new moments that make better memories. Never let the past devour the future.”
Vava sighed as she said: “But I paid the most for your house hopping. Nine schools in nine years! Kind of a record.”
“So, what’s the last count, Vava?”
“Forty-six, including the three Amma had rented in Palakkad.”
“Forty-six. Oh dear!” Shutti wowed, borrowing a kiddie show expression. Poor guy, he didn’t know he had jumped five places in two years. In his grandpa’s shoes, already!