Being the daughter of a PSU employee, moving from one place to another was a part of my childhood. Staying at one place, relishing its landscape, and making life-long friends were something that I always dreamt of during my childhood. However, when you shift from one place to another back in the late 90s and early 2000s with no Facebook or Instagram to keep you connected, it was a rather an unpleasant situation.
Then struck 2003, my father was transferred from South India to a beautiful state in the north east, Assam! It was beautiful indeed, every corner was picturesque. With the great Brahmaputra flowing by majestically, it was a treat for the eyes.
With all the surrounding beauty, I stepped foot into one of the schools in Assam. Well, little did I know, that a girl from South India who had taken Hindi as her second language and knew bare minimum of the language, would have to sit in classes that were taught in Hindi. It indeed was a treat to my ears.
Now making friends in such a circle where Hindi was their medium of communication, I had to gear up to giddy up my language grasping skills. It started with baby steps, nodding of your head and sign language were few of the solutions I resorted to in my initial days. There were days of embarrassment, long nights of tears trickling down my eyes and the sweet memories of well, the last place I stayed at! Three weeks later, voila, I made friends.
Those days moulded me into looking at life as a rather cheerful journey of unseen opportunities and partly discovering yourself. Now when I look back, every state that I have lived in pretty much feels like home. I no more feel the fluttering of butterflies in my stomach when someone says, “Let’s move to some other place.”