Tag: childhood

This cottage I called home had a view of a tiny stream from the verandah. I remember sitting calmly trying to witness the mystical motion of it flowing through the hill while kids out there played their own sweet gully cricket, ocassionally of which a ball hit my head and grandmother came out of the kitchen all enraged ready to take those kids down for hurting her precious child.

We played our favorite games of the Ludo and she did give me a tough time at it. Grandmother did not like losing you know, she never did. Oh, and the Sunday morning breakfast were something she concocted with every drop of heart and soul she could gather.

As the good days ended, like they always do, I saw the cottage turn a little grey with each passing day. Or maybe, just maybe, my eyes were starting to get dimmer. The stream didn’t appear as magical as before, the boys stopped playing and like the presence of a huge dark umbrella over it, the cottage stopped sparkling in sun. The marigolds stopped blossoming, neigbours came and left. And what was once my own turned less familiar with each waking moment.

And then I left. I was young and I wanted the light. I wanted the warmth and my own sense of magic. The cottage stayed though, still reminiscing of what it once was a home to.

Years later, well 8, to be precise, as homecoming happened like never before, I gathered my courage to visit my humble cottage once again. A lot had happened by then. A part of me broken never to be revived and another part built meticulously of every previous shatter. How overwhelming was it at even as I stood in front of my childhood, a sense of familiarity passed through me. A sense of belongingness came and hit only to be reverted back for it wasn’t hitting me anymore.

There was someone else in that home now. New people, building their own set of memories. I stood outside listening to their banter, the kids giggle and the faint sound of the TV playing in the background. It was time for me to go. My home was there, it still remembered me. But I had stopped remembering it for what it actually was in all these years.

Places aren’t cursed, our moments are. Had my beautiful little home not existed, I probably wouldn’t have come this far, albeit trying to run away from something that was trying to engulf me in its darkness some ages ago. Like everything else, I needed a one last visit to a part of me that had stopped existing now only to re-evaluate the beauty of what continues to stay and what lies ahead.

Closures come with your own acceptance...