The Day Before the Big Day

It all started on a Friday.

I received a job offer just before a holiday, with one big expectation attached to it. I was supposed to relocate from Bangalore to Mumbai.

Bangalore wasn’t just the city I lived in. It was the only city I’d ever called home. Twenty-six years of my life had happened there. My family, my friends, my routines, the roads I knew without having to look them up, and all the little things I probably never thought twice about.

And now, I was supposed to leave all of it behind for a job.

I’d been unemployed for about a month and had actually been looking forward to taking a break. A little time to slow down, breathe, and figure things out. Instead, here I was, preparing to move to a city I’d barely experienced.

The financial situation at home wasn’t great. This wasn’t an offer I could casually turn down and hope something better would come along. I needed to take it.

And so I did.

There was relief in finally having an offer I could accept. There was excitement about what lay ahead, too. But there was also this sinking feeling that I was about to give up the life I’d known for as long as I could remember.

I couldn’t separate the feelings. I was happy to have the opportunity and sad about what it would cost me.

I don’t think I had enough time to process either.

I packed my bags and gave my friends and family two days’ notice.

Twenty-six years in Bangalore, and I gave everyone two days to get used to the idea of me leaving.

Two days to leave a life behind

Ashish, one of my closest friends, came along to shop for clothes with me. He spent almost the entire morning with me, helping me get ready for the move.

We’d joked about this sort of thing plenty of times. What would happen if one of us left Bangalore? How would the other manage? The usual nonsense you’d say to a friend without imagining that you’d actually have to find out.

We never really sat down and discussed what we’d do if one of us moved away. We just joked about it.

And then, suddenly, the joke had become real.

There we were, shopping for clothes, doing something completely ordinary, except this time there was a deadline attached to everything. I was leaving in a day.

I don’t remember us having some big, emotional conversation about it. Maybe that’s what makes the memory feel more real. We were still just us, spending time together, even though the circumstances had changed.

My mom wanted to organise a family gathering before I left. A proper send-off, with everyone together before I moved away.

But I was busy packing, sorting things out, getting ready for the pooja, and trying to adjust to the fact that I’d be leaving the next day.

I also had to get my vehicles ready for the pooja. There were last-minute things to pack, things to organise, things to remember. The kind of small tasks that somehow take over your entire day when you’re preparing to leave.

There was one thing I really wanted before moving, though.

My mom’s biryani.

One last home-cooked meal before starting this new chapter.

It didn’t happen.

It’s such a small thing to miss when you look at the bigger picture. I was moving cities for a new job, and there were a hundred things to think about. But even with all that going on, I wanted that one familiar meal.

I wish I’d found the time for it.

Maybe because when everything else was changing, that was one thing I wanted to remain the same, at least for one more day.

The morning I left

The morning of my flight was Ayudha Pooja.

I was still packing the last-minute items, getting everything ready for the pooja, and preparing to leave home. There wasn’t much time to sit around and reflect. There was always something else that needed to be done.

And perhaps that was a good thing. If I’d stopped to think about everything that was happening, I don’t know how much I’d have got done.

I eventually left home and met a few close friends for lunch on the way to the airport.

We talked, hugged, and said goodbye.

Or, more accurately, goodbye for now.

I don’t think any of us knew what that goodbye would mean in practice. We’d still have our calls, our messages, our group chats. Nobody was disappearing from anybody’s life.

But something was changing all the same.

The casual assumption that we’d all be in the same city, that meeting up was always an option, that home was just around the corner, was about to go away.

Then I got into my friend’s car, and we headed to the airport.

And that’s when it hit me.

I was actually leaving.

The airport

I couldn’t hold back my tears.

I quickly got out of my friend’s car and rushed towards the terminal. I didn’t want to sit there any longer with everything I was feeling.

I just wanted to get inside.

It was strange because, until that moment, the entire move had felt like a series of tasks. Pack this. Buy that. Get the vehicles ready. Meet friends. Reach the airport.

Now there was no more packing to do, no more errands to run, and nobody else to meet before leaving.

I was at the airport. The next step was a flight to Mumbai.

And Bangalore would be behind me.

Once I entered the terminal, though, my brain apparently decided it had more interesting things to focus on.

It was my first time inside an airport terminal, and I started looking around at everyone.

Why do people wear sunglasses inside an airport?

Damn, he’s rich.

She’s pretty.

I was busy observing people, noticing what they were wearing, making random judgments in my head, and trying to understand this entirely unfamiliar place.

Looking back, it’s funny. I’d just rushed away from my friend’s car because I couldn’t hold back my tears, and a little while later, I was people-watching like I had all the time in the world.

Maybe it was a distraction. Maybe it was just me being me.

I’d already arranged priority check-in and fast-track security, thinking I’d made everything easier for myself. But I didn’t know my way around the terminal, so I followed the crowd instead.

I didn’t even use the services I’d paid for.

I joined the regular queues, followed everyone else, and eventually made it to my boarding gate after about an hour.

So much for planning ahead.

But I got there. That was enough.

My first flight

It was also my first time flying.

And honestly, it was surreal.

The taxiway, watching the plane prepare for take-off, the sudden acceleration as the engines powered up, the way the aircraft climbed higher and higher until we were somewhere around 30,000 feet.

I was fascinated by all of it.

The take-off was probably the most exciting part. You feel the plane push forward, and then, almost before you have time to process what’s happening, you’re off the ground.

The city gets smaller. Everything you were just looking at becomes distant. And eventually, you’re looking down at clouds.

I was nervous, excited, curious, and a little overwhelmed, all at once.

For a while, I wasn’t thinking about leaving Bangalore. I wasn’t thinking about money or the new job or whether moving was the right decision.

I was just enjoying my first flight.

It was a strange contrast to the morning I’d had. I’d started the day getting ready to leave home, carrying a mix of excitement and sadness I couldn’t quite make sense of. Now I was in the air, discovering something completely new.

For those few hours, it was enough to simply be there.

And then we landed.

Mumbai.

Welcome to Mumbai

The humidity was the first thing I noticed.

Then the air quality.

Then the traffic.

My first impression was that someone had taken Bangalore and Chennai, put them together, and turned the intensity up a notch.

It felt familiar in some ways and completely foreign in others. I was trying to take everything in while also figuring out how to get to the place where I’d be staying.

I got into a taxi, and the driver turned out to be the highlight of the day.

As we drove through the city, he explained the different areas we were passing, told me about the neighbourhoods, and even suggested places I could consider while looking for a flat.

I was new to Mumbai and knew very little about where I should live. Here was a stranger giving me an informal introduction to the city, pointing out places and helping me get my bearings.

It was a small interaction, but I remember appreciating it.

I’d spent the day saying goodbye to people who knew me, and now I was in a taxi with someone who knew nothing about me, getting a tour of the city I was supposed to call home.

Eventually, we reached my Airbnb in Dadar.

The room was on the fourth floor.

There was no lift.

So I carried all my luggage up four floors in Mumbai’s humidity, and by the time I reached the room, I was sweating profusely.

Quite the welcome.

The host was welcoming, though. I’ll save that story for another day.

I was exhausted. I freshened up, ate a roll I’d brought back from the flight for dinner, and got ready to sleep.

The next morning was my first day at the new office.

A new job. A new city. A temporary room. A completely unfamiliar routine.

And somewhere back in Bangalore, my entire life was carrying on without me.

The night before Day 1

I slept peacefully that night.

That’s something I remember about the day. After everything that had happened, after the tears at the airport and the first flight and the unfamiliar city, I was able to lie down and sleep.

Maybe I was simply exhausted.

Maybe there was some relief in finally having reached the other side of the move. The decisions had been made, the bags had been packed, the flight was over. There was nothing left to do that night.

Tomorrow, I’d wake up and go to work.

It sounds so simple when I put it that way.

But that night, in a room that wasn’t mine, I was still the same person who had left home that morning. The same person who had wanted one last plate of his mom’s biryani. The same person who had hugged his friends goodbye and then hurried into the airport because he couldn’t stop crying.

Nothing about me had changed just because I’d landed in Mumbai.

But my circumstances had changed completely.

I was grateful for the job. I knew why I’d taken the leap. I knew that, given my situation, it was a decision I needed to make.

That didn’t mean leaving was easy.

I think that’s the part I want to remember. Sometimes you can make the right decision for your life and still feel sad about what you’re leaving behind. Sometimes you’re excited about what’s next and still wish you could stay where you are a little longer.

Both things can be true.

I had a new city to figure out, a new job to begin, and a life to build from scratch, or at least from a very different starting point.

But before all of that, there was Bangalore.

Twenty-six years of it.

My family. My friends. My home. The familiar version of life where I knew where I belonged without having to think about it.

I wasn’t ready to stop missing any of that.

And I didn’t have to be.

The next morning, I’d begin a new chapter.

That night, I was still saying goodbye to the old one.