Gypsy lives

Mid palaces and places though we may roam, be it ever so humble there’s no place like home’’. In the defence services some ho...

Mid palaces and places though we may roam, be it ever so humble there’s no place like home’’. In the defence services some houses are humbler and sometimes the humblest of abodes. But we count ourselves as the lucky ones. Not everyone gets a chance to live in homes of different shapes and sizes.

Looking back, though, reality struck me quite a blow on our first posting. Where were those beautiful houses one sees in movies? For someone coming from a ‘‘civilian’’ background, it was a rude shock. We’d come to a strange sounding place. Even Timbuktoo sounded more familiar.

We were told that getting a proper abode right away was impossible. You have to settle in whatever accommodation that was available, be it small, big, good, bad or ugly, be prepared, they said. So there I was in this single room in the officer’s mess, being told: ‘‘This is our temporary home. Hope you like it. We have to stay here till a house is allotted. Make yourself comfortable’’. My answer was a nervous smile.

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I heaved a sigh of relief when we were allotted a house within a few months. But my joy of moving into a house was shortlived after a near miss. The pelmet came crashing down. On another occasion, chunks of cement from the ceiling fell right on the bed.

In spite of the problems, we settled down quickly in our new home and were fairly comfortable when the signal came to move. We had to shift to our new base, to the extreme east. Once again the packing, unpacking and readjusting. There was a choice of homes: The bhoot bangla, a small poky two room set, amidst the tall grass and trees. Or the two room set with a make shift kitchen and the partition between the rooms so paper thin that you had to quarrel in whispers if you didn’t want to let the family secrets out.

After a short stint, it was time to move again. This time from the exotic east to the wild west. Here, the two-room sets were called Honeymoon and Honeycomb. We settled down very fast in our new base, soon to be beckoned by the Blue Mountains. We were moving south.

This being a staff course, we would be here only for a short while. The luxury of being on a hill station in a pretty house made me wish I could stay on and on. But we had to move. We were going back to the north near the deserts. ‘‘Watch out for the snakes and scorpions’’, we were told.

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We’ve moved in and out of many houses since, and also lived out of our suitcases. There were times when the uprooting, changing schools for the kids, making new friends, did seem frustrating. But we’ve learnt to live with it, not unhappily. Each new place offers a new challenge, new friends, a new place to see. We are used to this nomadic way of life. Like gypsies always on the move. Life is an adventure.