“Siddharth and Adi can you come here please?” Dad shouted from his bedroom. “ In a minute Dad, just finishing up a problem.” I hollered all the way from my bedroom. I dropped my pencil and walked briskly over to my parents’ bedroom. My brother, Aditya followed me inside the bedroom and we both sat down on my parents’ four poster bed.
“ We have some big news,” announced Mom, “ we may be moving to America.”
“What!!” Aditya and I exclaimed simultaneously. The smell of pasta drifted into the bedroom, instantly making me hungry, but I forgot about it almost immediately as I tried to process what my parents had said.
For the past couple of weeks, I had known that there was some big news coming. But I had no idea what to expect, maybe we were going on a vacation somewhere. I definitely didn’t expect to hear that we were going to be moving, because whenever any one of our relatives moved away, Aditya would always ask Mom and Dad if we were going to move too. And every time their reply was no.
The next day, Mom took us over to Grandma’s as usual after school. Grandma's house was huge with five bedrooms and a large garden. I always liked going there because I could study without any distractions, and Grandma always kept a stash of candy for us children. Also it was close to school and many of my friends lived nearby. Now, sitting at my Grandma’s mahogany desk doing my homework, I could hear Grandma and Mom talking downstairs about what we were going to take with us when we left. That’s when it finally hit me that we were actually going to move. All my life I had lived in Bangalore, and it was my whole world. Above all, my friends were all here, my grandparents were here and almost everyone I knew lived here.
“ Hey guys, listen I’ve got big news,” I told my friends reluctantly at lunch the next day. We were as usual sitting under the big tree in the schoolyard, in a large circle, and there was a gentle breeze blowing. Everything seemed normal and I wished it would stay that way but the fact was that we were moving, “ I’m gonna move to California next month”
“ Really!” exclaimed, one of my friends, Mehul. As I gave my friends the bad news I felt extremely sad for myself and angry at my parents. At the same time there were pluses to moving, my asthma would improve significantly and I could become more independent because I would be allowed to bike. In Bangalore, the roads are extremely crowded and most people drive rashly and as a result of that I was never allowed to bike or walk on my own. And the schools would be much better. Of course, I knew that it wasn’t my parents fault, and I shouldn’t be mad at them but I couldn’t help it, my whole life was here.
“ Okay, Siddharth and Adi, I need you to sort all of your books and movies, so we can give them to the relocation company.” said Mom. I groaned, as I lifted all my books and handed them over to a man who was packing all of our belongings to ship. I had decided to take all of my books and clothes because they all carried memories with them. I thought about Grandpa and Grandma. When I was in kindergarten, Grandma used to pick me up from school and take me to her house. She also took me to the park to play and at least once in a week she used to take me for ice cream.
I also thought of my friends, like Ananth with whom I had hung out with so many times. I was always welcome at his house for dinner and his family was extremely friendly towards me.
On the other hand I also looked forward to moving away because when I had visited the US for vacations I had loved the fresh air and the independence I got there. I also liked the schools and the education system there. But overall, I was against moving to California.
“ Its time to leave.” said Dad. It was October 25th and we were in Grandma’s house with Grandma, Grandpa and my uncles and aunts. Earlier that evening, Ananth had called to wish me a great flight and we agreed to stay in touch through Skype and Google Hangouts. Grandma, Grandma, Dad, Mom, Adi and I exchanged hugs. And as we were leaving, Aditya started crying about how he was going to miss everyone and how this move was completely unnecessary. I took one last glance at Grandma’s place and everything surrounding it as the car started and we left for the airport.
Later when, I started school in the US, I realized that it was a great place and now I have lots of great friends here. I stopped getting asthma attacks almost immediately, and I could now run long distances and do more physical activities. I also loved my new school and I made many of new friends. These days I even prefer the US to India and feel fortunate to live in the US. Nowadays, when I look back at how I reacted to moving to the US, I feel I overreacted, greatly and jumped to conclusions about how the move would affect me.