Sunday, August 23, 2009

HOMEWARD BOUND !


We're finally going home, early in September. No, the date hasn't been finalised yet, although it'll probably be on a weekend so that K can get some rest before he joins the TCS Kolkata office on Monday. We're in a mad, chaotic situation now, selling off furniture items and the car. My last few days have been and the coming few are likely to be occupied mostly with frenetic scrubbing and dusting and packing and planning. You'll find me on my knees, armed with latex gloves most of the time now, trying to get the apartment back to its former pristine condition, which is proving to be a feat of sorts as we've been here for a year now and have definitely 'used' it. My principal areas of jurisdiction include the gas range, the refrigerator, the kitchen floors, the kitchen walls that loom above the gas range (spotted with yellow from our turmeric-heavy Indian cooking), the window frames, the bathtub, basin, commode and floors and the display rack in the living room. Yesterday, I spent the entire morning trying out numerous solvents and cleaners on my turmeric-stained kitchen walls without any success whatsoever, until I returned to my faithful original, the Vim Dishwash liquid. It lived upto its record of conquests, once again, although a whole year of stains meant I had to strain my back and waist muscles for over half-an-hour, eliminating the incriminating marks. But at the end, the result was marked. The impression from half a feet away was that of a white and not yellow-splotched wall. Vim Dishwash liquid ke jai ho !

Besides this, of course, I'm checking the email every half-an-hour, replying to responses - of ads put up on craigslist.org and sulekha.com - from prospective buyers of our furniture etc, half of whom are not even remotely serious about the entire deal, and mostly just end up wasting our time and wearing out our patience. There's this one guy, an Arun from Woodbridge, who called up thrice about the sofa set and center table and car, but hasn't been able to make it yet thanks to the lack of availability of his friend, whose car was supposed to convey him here. The very first day he called, he sneezed thrice on the phone, straight into K's ear, much to the former's discomfiture and the latter's disgust and even dismay, who was seriously convinced that the said Arun might have swine flu. It was too much for me when he even suggested calling off the deal because the guy might infect us. I couldn't but rubbish that and told him firmly that he was to ask the guy to come over at his convenient earliest, although I did commiserate with K on the affront to one's hearing if one was sneezed upon so loudly and so many times in one phone call. That certainly would have been a novelty for most and not in a happy sense at all !

This afternoon saw us embark on a shopping spree for the folks back home, that ran its course right through the evening, interrupted once in the middle only for a small evening snack and marinating the chicken that is to be our dinner tonight. The weather has been dismal today, raining non-stop since 1 am early this morning, when the thunder and lightning was as bad as it could possibly get, the entire sky a grim yellow and the extreme flashes of light & sound not in the least conducive to a peaceful weekend sleep. That continued into this morning, after stopping in the afternoon for a couple of happy hours. Having checked weather.com before we left home in the afternoon, I was to discover to my chagrin that the forces of nature are after all as unpredictable as they're reputed to be. We made a trip to Bridgewater Commons Mall to check out the formalities of disconnecting our T-mobile connection but were re-directed to a direct sales outlet of the company concerned, a few miles in a totally different direction. Rather annoyed at this unexpected disruption of our list of things to do that day, we pondered for a few mins, before cheering up and deciding to go ahead with at least our shopping plans for that day.

K waits for the rain to subside :

Poor visibility :


However, as I hinted at, the weather gods played havoc with our intentions and we actually had to pull up along the wayside, for the rain became so torrential that visibility at a distance of more than half a foot was nil. After 15 mins in the car, K rebelled and announced his determination to drive on, braving the odds. I gave in, also annoyed. So we drove on to 'Marshall's' and 'Bed, Bath & Beyond' at Bridgewater Promenade and later to Walmart, to indulge in some hardcore shopping till my feet went to sleep and we had to give up and go home. The shopping saga continued late into the afternoon on the next day, mercifully a Sunday and what's more, one boasting better weather. In between, K's college batchmate Jhuma called to enquire if we could possibly return via Heathrow, since I've become really pally with her via orkut, but am yet to meet her in person. So now, we have a total of 3 invitations from friends to make a stopover at their places via home. The others are from Shobhana, my happily married and dearest school friend in Singapore and another dear friend of K and mine, Ayan, who's based in Bangalore. Now that I think about the invitations, it strikes me that we've actually gone global !

Btw, I almost forgot : we spent a most unpleasant 15 mins - hot and bothered, with menacing drops of rain leaking onto us from a grim black-grey sky - in one of the several parking lots of the Bridgewater Commons, hunting for our car. After we had almost given up, K noticed that there were two entrances to Bloomingdale and we had parked our car near the other one. I was too disgusted at my poor observation skills to experience even a passing sense of relief.

More updates soon...


10 comments:

little boxes said...

Gargi Di,
i'm just so happy that you're going back home :)

barnalisaha said...

Dear Gargi,

I loved your blog. You have a wonderful sense of humor and reading your blog always makes me feel happy and contended. I especially loved the cleaning description and the Arun saga; I think you sounded a lot like P.G. Wodehouse in this blog.

Love
Barnali

Kaustav said...

God !! that saturday rain was horrible !! Great desciption ... you should post yesterday's experience as well.

Sujoy Bhattacharjee said...

Back to the chaos and familiarity of home then...good.
And of course you shouldn't be complaining about the rain....your blog title seems to say you like it.
Have a great homecoming...

Suchismita said...

I agree, fantastic post. Could really visualise you on the clean clean mission and wrinkled my nose at that Arun sneezing. Great job, Gargi.

Discovering M said...

didnt know it rained so much in NJ. .. I know that Portland get a lot of it. I love the rain even though things get messy and everything is slow etc etc.. I guess everyone in the middle east longs for rain :)

Casuarina said...

@ little boxes : Yeah, I know, I'm looking forward to getting to meet you in person ! :-)

@ Barnali : Well, now, that's awfully nice of you to say, can't help but be flattered ! :-)

@ K : Heheh, the photos speak for themselves...and yes, I am going to write about Saturday, I'm halfway through another post !

@ Sujoy : Thanks :-) Yup, I do like rain, but here in NJ, the rain is intermittent throughout the year and at times, it can go on for days at a stretch, with thunder and lightning and flash floods, paralysing normal human activity completely, and that can be a big source of frustration !

@ Suchismita : Well then, I suppose I'm improving as a writer ! :-)

@ Discovering M : Well, to say that NJ's weather isn't its strongest point would be an understatement for sure, its weather is extreme in all ways, be it the summer heat, the winter snow, the around-the-year rainfall, the spring rainfall and the unexpected hot-and-cold fluctuations, the sudden dip in temperature around fall...I still haven't got used to it !
And yes, the middle east would love rain....the grass is always green etc as they say...and hey, I love rain too, but too much of it annoys me, especially when I'm availing of pulblic transport in Kolkata...the situation can get pretty grim then, what with dripping umbrellas and soaked clothes and slippery floors and heated tempers and well, you get the idea, I suppose ! :-)

Anonymous said...

Hey you are headed back home! After a while I suppose...Would love to read your thoughts on settling in and on how it has changed. :)

PS: Hope you get a rocking deal on your stuff. :)

Sh@s said...

Happy homecoming!!
Your story of coming back home reminds me of couple of scenes from a bengali movie Anuranan(am not sure of the spelling but the word means resonance)Rahul Bose and Rituparna are there.

Casuarina said...

@ Choco : Heyyy, that's true, we're due to fly back this weekend itself. We arrived here last year, just before the 4th July Independence Day holiday, so I do suppose it's been quite a while now. I'm really excited (and nervous) about the changes I might encounter back home, and yes, that should provide substantial matter for another blog post soon !

Thanks for your wishes...they sure seem to have helped ! ;-)

@ Shas : Hey, welcome to my blog, do keep dropping by sometimes !

The comparison with 'Anuranan' is humbling. I'm planning to watch the film again, interested in locating the parallel. Maybe you'd like to elaborate on it ? I'd sure look forward to details !

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