Walk-in Closets and me

An eventful week, and this time the event was very physical. It was not the happiness of a news, or the stress of a deadline, nor was it a departure of a close friend or the accomplishment of a task. And yet it was all of that.
I moved. And it meant moving things to a new apartment, that was not mine. It meant leaving my only home in this country to a temporary accommodation before I could figure out my future lodgings or homes as the case may be. Funny, that the ticking clock that moved towards the realtor's taking over makes you numb as you try to finish ticking off the check list for vacating the apartment that was once your home. You are busy wiping the glass, emptying the closets, filling the holes in the wall. You don't remember the trees outside, the small trinkets you collected with your meager daily wages, the pictures that you hung. The pain in your arms is far too strong to let nostalgia settle in. And somewhere you are thankful for that.
In the midst of all this cleaning and emptying I entered the walk in closet of my apartment-mate's room. There were a few bits of paper lying here and there and I was determined to show each one of them their rightful place in the dustbin. This room had been mine for the first two semesters of my graduate life. It bore the same look when I had first entered it on the fateful first evening in Blacksburg, two years ago. The closet was as empty as it had been back then. It was my first walk in closet and my first experience of being in one. A small world that you could phantom so well, with all the things that belong to you, and only you. No one would knock or demand to share it. It was my perfect idea of privacy and in a strange way, a six square feet floor area that I grew very attached to.
As I bent to pick up the errant pieces of paper, the strong smell of the carpet hit me hard. (Carpet smell is something that I have associated very strongly with houses in USA. Indian houses generally smell only of food.)It sent me back two long years ago. It brought back all my dreams, my hopes and my fears that I had come with to this place. And now in perspective, so much had changed and so little had gone according to plan A. Life has been so full with plan Bs and plan Cs, that it makes me wonder why did I think of the Plan A in the first place. That walk in closet had seen a very different girl two years ago and today it saw a changed woman (whoa!). I took a different path than I had envisaged, but there I was: more individual, more mellowed and, more realistic towards life. And while I write this in first person, I know that it is a story we all share, a walk in closet made me realize mine, for some it has been the statue of liberty, a old photograph, their first car, the cap and gown, a bottle of wine or something as random as a manhole cover in USA that says "made in India'.
The vacuum cleaner in the adjoining room brings me back to life in 2008. I get along moving and saying good bye to my walk in closet. I will never see it again, but remember it for the rest of life. My grandchildren will most probably laugh at their crazy grand mom who claims attachment to a closet, but then they will have their own bizarre experiences to hold on to, and I shall in turn laugh at them.
One last thing. A few days ago a wave of patriotism gushed over me and my friends as we heard the sad plight of bombarded Indian cities. And there we were making silent promises to ourselves that we shall keep in times to come, to serve our motherland and our home. India is my first home, but if ever there will be a place close to my heart after that, it will be US of A. It gave me my second home, and some of the most moving experiences in life. It made me realize how much I love India, and I shall always be thankful for that. Cheers to 882 Claytor Square and cheers to United States!