Right outside our door, nature lived. It was a ground floor, and whatever sunlight that could enter our house was blocked by the huge trees. I think they preferred their photosynthesis more than our Vitamin D. Somehow, I didn’t mind that. Maybe because I had lived in far worse houses, and in comparison to them, our society was nothing less than a resort. A resort right in the middle of Bengaluru. Early this year, we shifted to a bigger house in a better locality with more sunlight. I occasionally miss those trees.
I am not a hoarder of memories. I consciously keep very few of them, and I leave it to my brain to figure out the rest. If it wants to keep anything else, then ok; if it doesn’t want to keep, then also ok. I don’t micromanage it. But the ones that I keep are generally very powerful and can evoke strong emotions whenever I think about them. A few of them are related to the people in my life, and a few of them are related to the houses that I have lived in over the years. Souvenir memories, if I may say.
I think it was the second grade. We had shifted to Delhi, and everything was new. No, not the furniture or house or my cycle. I mean the environment and the people and the school. But for some reason, I had fit right in. It felt like home. And it was. I grew up, made friends, forgot them, and then made some new ones. Changed houses, changed schools, changed myself, and then changed some more. All in one city. Predominantly, we lived in three houses. The first one was very shitty, and I have like two or three memories from that house.
One of them was that the bathroom door never locked, and we never bothered to fix it even though it opened towards the balcony and everything was visible for the world to see. I couldn’t read the newspaper in that bathroom for three reasons: 1. It was an Indian toilet, and in Indian toilets, it’s very difficult to do anything other than what it's meant for, so forget reading. The only aim was to not fall in the commode over our own shit while squatting for 10 minutes. 2. My one hand was always perpetually busy in holding the door of the bathroom so that it didn’t open by itself, and 3. Why would a fourth-grade kid read a newspaper anyway? This went on for five years until we changed the house.
The second house we had was much better, and we had two bathrooms and a small lawn kind of area as well where we would play cricket. No specific memories as such except one time my cycle got stolen, and I was so sad that my folks bought me a new one the same day. And then the next day, as it turned out, my cousin had taken the cycle without asking me and he returned it, and now I had two cycles. However, I never liked cycling, so I’d rarely use any of the two. I don’t remember what happened to those cycles. Where do the cycles go? Does anyone remember? They just magically disappear, I think, when you reach a certain age.
The third house has some bad memories, so I’d like to skip it. But I believe that house defined me as a person. My school got over, the college got over, and I got my first job too. All in that one house. I started reading more and developed a taste for everything, from music to books to movies. I also started writing there. I remember the first piece I wrote was an essay. My English teacher just forced me to participate in some essay writing competition, and I remember writing the essay about how I didn’t want to write the essay ft. Global Warming. I won the competition. Guess that was a sign, and I should’ve understood it and should have never bothered to write again. That house was also the last house where I stayed in Delhi. However, my family continued staying there. I would visit them every three months and meet my friends or avoid them and go to my favorite restaurant, etc. It felt a little weird at first, staying away and all, but I guess that’s what growing up is. My folks stayed in that house for a while. They don’t live in Delhi anymore. It’s been three years.
I came to Mumbai a few years back, and this city sucked my soul so much that I had almost forgotten the city I was brought up in. Of course, you can’t forget it. But you know what I mean. Mumbai is very demanding, I feel, both mentally and physically. And in the process of balancing everything, you tend to forget most things. The houses I lived in in Mumbai were barely houses. The cliche of matchbox houses is true. They were small, and I wasn’t used to it. It took some adjusting from my side, but I guess I never truly had that Mumbai spirit in me. After spending my prime 7 years, I decided to say goodbye to this city. I don’t miss it as often as I thought I would. They say it’s the city where your dreams come true. But do people even dream after the age of 30? Don’t they just give up? Shouldn’t they? Anyway, who knows, I might come back to this city and live here when I can afford bigger houses in better areas with good sunlight. Till then, Bengaluru it is. I am installing curtains in the living room of our new house in Bengaluru. Trees were better curtains, I think. As I am standing on the chair and looking at my neighbor’s balcony, I see myself in that first house in Delhi. I realize I have no reason to go back to Delhi now. No one lives there anymore. Whenever I visit, I will visit as a tourist. In my own city. As a tourist. I will stay in a hotel. What a painful realization. But one can’t be too emotional about it, right? It’s pathetic. I hope one day, like an old Hindi film, I’d go to those three houses and relive a part of my memory. Maybe, then it would be the right time to delete these memories. But as of now, the brain is keeping it. I hope that the bathroom door is fixed now. I have installed the curtain. No more of that stupid sunlight. Is it weird to always feel homesick? Even if you are home? I have been feeling like that for a very long time. There is no home, I guess. It’s just an idea that we tell ourselves to feel comfortable, and one thing that I have learned so far in life is, don’t get too comfortable
"kahani ghar ghar ki" would have been a apt title.
Loved it but did you purposely didn't put a full stop at the end to make us feel less comfortable?