settling down in a new town

....it is difficult. when you go to live in a new town, in a new country, it gets that much more difficult. You carry your best wardrobe only to discover that whatever they wear in that part of the world is missing from your suitcase. Whatever you wear seems so out of context with the way everyone dresses up here. Whatever you are used to eating is not available- and you are trying to get used to the food habits here. Dinner is at 7 p and you feel hungry five hours later if you are awake!

I have gleaned some learnings in the process of having moved some 15 times in 25 years, each time being a total change- jumps from south to north to west to east within the country or without. Living in India for the major part of my life, I am anyway so exposed to dramatic differences in cultures and lifestyles that coming out to another country has been simpler- but the pangs of settling down have been pretty much the same.

This brings me to point number one: a cultural and linguistic orientation is required before the movement, not after or during the settling down. Reasons can be many- suffice to say that pre orientation prepares us better for the movement; we know what to carry, we understand what is expected of us..... and we move with all the requisite paraphernalia in our suitcases.

The other learning is that one should not be hasty in setting up the house- while it may seem as if the house lacks warmth and amiability when its bare with just essentials in place, but for the longhaul, it works out better when you take some time to survey the market since it adds style and class to your effort. And you end up spending the right kind of money than when doing impulse purchases. Emergency shopping should be confined to foodstuffs and basic toiletries and maybe a skeleton kitchen. We have lived out of one room and one kitchen for three months on one occasion when the house leased for us was burgled and we had to take time to locate another suitable flat for ourselves- believe me, it was not a problem at all, though the children were young and needed all the attention... had I set up a full fledged establishment, it would have cost me that much more effort as well as money to relocate to the new flat when we found it.And those days,money was dearer than it is today!

An assessment of the fashion trends is very important when relocating- imagine my chagrin when I was told in Kolkata that i could wear pure silk in the summer too? Hailing from Delhi, where fashions are season driven and increasingly fabric driven, the thought of wearing silk in summer was fashion harakiri!I had arrangd my wardrobe with cottons and organdies in the summer, but the humidity just would not allow me to wear them! And now, as I begin to inhabit Bangkok, I realize that the color black is just not favoured- so I now have to think about revamping my formals.... also the entire dress culture is contrary to the Indian belief of maximalistic(is there a word like that? I like it- its very expressive...) dressing with loud, or maybe elaborate accessories and adornments. Here, i see the need for minimalistic dressing habits due to the weather and the full-day-out lifestyle with people using public transport mostly. Unlike in India, here I find very few overweight people so the need to hide the spare tyres is also not apparent. Its so cool to just walk out in a cotton blouse with a simple short skirt and a smart pair of shoes....so chic, really.

And I am seriously trying to lose weight now... so watch out!