Going North -1975

 

Going North

I was in second grade and my sister was still in pre-K when we were told that Appa was getting a job in Delhi.

At that age, Delhi meant very little to me.

It was simply a place that existed somewhere far away, presumably in the same country.

Appa was working for the Central Government in what was then called Defense Accounts, managing the books for the defense budget. It was one of those jobs where you were "posted" every few years to a different cantonment. Appa had already moved around a fair bit. He was posted in Pune when I was born and had subsequently moved to Chennai.

Somehow, he had managed to stay in Chennai for six years.

Six years was a long time in the world of Defense Accounts.

Then came another move.

Except this time, Appa wanted something different.

He was beginning to worry about what all these transfers would do to our education. Education was the number one priority in our household, and moving children from one school to another every few years wasn't exactly part of the plan.

I was doing surprisingly well academically at Velankanni School in my second grade.

So Appa began contemplating an alternative.

A boarding school.

In Chennai.

I was not particularly enthusiastic about this idea.

The prospect of being separated from my parents and sent to live in a hostel did not strike me as an exciting educational opportunity. I was perfectly happy where I was, thank you very much.

Then Delhi happened.

Appa decided that rather than continue moving us from one cantonment to another, he would make Delhi our permanent base and raise the family there.

There were several reasons behind the decision, including better opportunities and the possibility of giving us some stability.

We, of course, went along with it.

We were children.

Adults made these decisions.

Children packed.

Going North

In those days, TamBrahm families looking for opportunities outside the South tended to gravitate toward two places: Bombay and Delhi.

Tamil enclaves had sprung up in places like Matunga and Chembur in Bombay, and in Delhi around Karol Bagh, R.K. Puram and Munirka.

There was already a community waiting for us.

That probably made the decision easier for Appa.

He went ahead to Delhi first and found us a temporary home—the one-bedroom arrangement inside someone else's house.

Then he came back to Chennai to get the rest of us.

And that was it.

We packed.

We said goodbye to whatever constituted normal life at that age.

And we headed north.

I think this was probably the first really long train journey of my life that I can vaguely remember.

Three days.

Three days on a train.

Today, putting a child on a train for three days sounds like an endurance experiment.

Back then, it was exciting and simply how you travelled.

I don't remember much about the train itself.

I remember that it was long.

Very long.

There were the endless railway tracks, stations that came and went, food appearing from containers, sleeping in a berth, waking up somewhere completely unfamiliar and watching the landscape slowly change outside the window.

But I don't remember thinking we were doing anything particularly significant.

We were simply going somewhere.

North.

I had no idea what "North" meant.

I certainly had no idea what Delhi meant.

And I had absolutely no idea that this train journey was taking me into a completely different world.

A Different World

We had grown up in Chennai.

Tamil was the language around us. The food was familiar. The climate was familiar. The people were familiar.

Delhi was none of those things.

The language was different.

The food was different.

The weather was different.

Even winter was going to be a completely new concept.

And somehow, all of that was going to become home.

Looking back, I find it interesting that I don't remember being particularly afraid.

Perhaps children are naturally better at adapting than adults.

You arrive somewhere new, look around, find a school, make a few friends, figure out where the good food is, and get on with life.

There is no five-year transition plan.

There is no relocation consultant.

You simply adapt.

And Delhi became home.

What Appa had intended as a way to give us stability ended up giving me something else as well.

It taught me very early that home didn't necessarily have to be one place.

Home could be something you built around yourself.

You could arrive somewhere where you knew nobody, didn't speak the language particularly well, didn't understand the customs, and still find your place.

That lesson stayed with me.

Years later, when I began looking westward for opportunities, moving to another country didn't seem quite as frightening.

I had done this before.

I had already been that little boy on a three-day train journey heading north, with no real idea what was waiting at the other end.

Perhaps that is why, when life presented another opportunity to pack my bags and head somewhere unfamiliar, a part of me already knew what to do.

Just go.

There will be a train—or a plane—waiting.

The rest, you figure out when you get there.

I didn't know it then, but that journey north was the first chapter in a much longer journey.