Home... Sweet Home

We moved in to our new house today. No, not in some newly purchased flat in a state-of-the-art apartment among the swanky towers by a Page 3 Builder. 

I am presently posted in Binnaguri.... You are not to blame at all if you have never heard of it. Well, it is a seemingly nondescript Cantonment close to the Bhutan and Nepal border, in the Dooar region of West Bengal. There is a grass called Binn and it is said that Binnaguri gets its name from this grass where 'Binn' stands for the grass and 'Guri' stands for the particular places.

Mesmerizing view of the Teesta River,  backdrop view of the lofty mountains, astounding beauty of charismatic tea gardens all around and an invisible serenity of the Samchi Monastery close by...  So, basically, Binnaguri is not exactly nondescript in true sense.

That's where I had been staying in a Guest Room for last one month... Till yesterday, that is. Meanwhile, Standard Operating Procedure of applying for a Government House and wait for allotment. Luckily, this time there was hardly any waiting. Once the allotment was confirmed, we took a few days to get it ready to move-in, and there we are. 

As we slowly started setting up our House this Sunday, I paused for a while to recollect that, in my 20th year of marriage, this is the 11th house, where we are opening our luggage and setting it up. And I am not counting the places where we stayed for short 3-6 months for various reasons which army has no dearth of.

It all started in Bikaner, Rajasthan .

We got married in March 2003. I was posted in Bikaner then. Rajasthan, the colourful land of Maharajas, offered plenty of excitement for any couple. When we landed at Bikaner Railway Station after an exciting meter gauge train ride from Delhi, we were welcomed with an abundance of surprises, and with a lot of adventure and embarrassments thrown in !! We were accomodated in the Guest Room Number 1 of our Unit. (Number 1, 2, 3 etc add a tinge of flavour to the place they are attached to). We could have thought of setting up our first home in Bikaner.  But my Boss told me not to apply for allotment of married accommodation, since our Unit had already got orders to move out of Bikaner in next few months. We were perfectly fine with staying in the Guest Room, since that added to the fauji charm for my wife, who was from a purely civilian background. No home decor, no studies, no kids, no cooking, a charming new surrounding... Vibha could not have had a better time in that Guest Room, as she slowly absorbed the mysteries of army life. After a few days, she made a mini kitchenette type arrangement in the Guest Room. Another lady from our Unit helped her to pick up some basic utensils from the market. We still have those couple of steel glasses and katoris in our Kitchen. And after a couple of weeks, we were visited in our Guest Room by one of my Coursemates from the training days in OTA. He too was newly married, a few months before us. Since he was sure to continue to stay in Bikaner for a couple of years; so, unlike me, he had applied for a house, got it allotted and the couple was  comfortably staying in their first dream home. So, one fine evening , when this lovely couple came to meet us in the Guest Room, we ended up shifting with our entire luggage to their 2-BHK House the same evening. As he insisted that we stay with them, I tried my best to avoid it. How can I move into his house with all my luggage, it would bring so much of discomfort to them. But, Coursemates are a strange breed. For next about one month, despite a reluctant resistance from our side, we stayed in their home where our hosts happily made us feel a part of them. All four of us enjoyed the vibes of Bikaner together. Junagarh Fort, Hotel Lallgarh Palace, Laxmi Nivas Palace, Gajner Palace, Karni Mata Temple, Chotu Motu Sweet Shop, Station Road, Street Food, Vyas Colony Icecreams.... we relished on everything that was on offer in our free times. After about one month, we moved back from their House to our Guest Room... and continued to stay there till we moved out from Bikaner. So that was our first stint together, exactly 20 years back.

From Bikaner, our Unit moved to Narendra Nagar, a charming hamlet in the Garhwal Himalayas, offering panoramic views of the Holy Ganga river and the Doon Valley. It was a very close knit location without any housing facility. But over the years, the jugaadu faujis had managed to setup a few makeshift houses, one of which was given to us. So that temporary makeshift house was our first abode where we started the process of setting up a house. Slow but gradual steps which you learn as you do. A Gas Burner, some kitchen utensils, small TV, Curtains, some decorative pieces here and there for walls, a small  fridge etc. But a home is a home. And we still smile remembering that when a group of Young Officers came calling on us one fine evening, Vibha  very humbly offered tea to everyone, much to their laughters since they had never been offered tea ever before. So that was Narendra Nagar. 

But that small house had to be wound up within a year as I got selected for Helicopter flying training in Army Aviation.

Since then, when I go down the memory lane, we have stayed in all kinds of places and houses. The comfort of a 3-BHK in Jhansi and Meerut, a 2 1/2 room kind of house in Assam, the smaller 2-BHK in Jammu and Gujrat, one room Mess Accomodation for months in Bikaner, Allahabad and Secunderabad and a temporary shelter type house in Bengaluru before we got a 3-BHK there.... it has been fun all this while. 

The boxes and crates have kept on increasing. The mode of conveyance for my household luggage has graduated from simple old fashioned train booking to a TATA 407 Pickup to a 8-10 Wheel Truck to a 32 feet Container vehicle today. 

And everytime that I wind-up my home during my transfer, it is the same old emotions of packing up every memory in a box or carton, till you open them again in a new house, with a smile.

So there we are... in our 11th House, call it Home... And this one is a 3 1/2 Room kind of bigger one with its own warmth, its own stories and its own mysteries to follow.

******************