The
garden was in full bloom, fragrant flowers of different colors. It was spring
after all. The wind brought along the familiar scent of home. It was slightly
chilly. From the balcony in the garden the whole of Shillong appeared
picturesque, bathed in the golden sunlight. I walked to mom and dad’s bedroom
windows, peeped in trying to see past the white net curtains. But the curtains
were now blue in color. Strange.
I
concentrated hard and there it was the room I had spent so many years in. But
something was not right. It was not the same. The bed was smaller and not placed
next to the windows overlooking the valley beyond. The very bed where all four
of us took our naps on Sunday afternoons; talking, laughing and then finally falling
asleep. The cabinet that stored our piggy banks wasn't there either. Perplexed I
looked from one corner to the other. Even the dressing table, standing in front
of which mom always tied our hair for school, was replaced. Nothing that
belonged to us was there in that room anymore. But how was that even possible? Apparently,
though it was. The television that we spent hours watching was swapped by
another. Despite the fact that it was the same room, our mom and dad’s room, it
somehow seemed stripped of its quintessence.
Something
was terribly wrong. I walked to the windows of the living room next and there
were unknown people inside. Not mom, not dad, not even my sister. A new family
was sitting in a sofa set which was nothing like ours. It was brown and not
bottle green. And somehow that broke my heart. They had a linoleum carpet spread out instead of our beautiful Kashmiri one. Who were these folks and what were they
doing in our home? When I couldn't take it anymore I turned away. But then I
saw the car in the garage, it wasn't my dad’s. Reluctantly I walked towards the
windows of my and my sister’s room. Our study tables, the cane chairs, bed and
shelves were all gone. Our red and white cabinet where we kept pictures of our favorite
actors, ones we had crushes on, was also not there. I felt tears rushing
through my eyes, burning my cheeks as they gushed out. My home, the home of my most precious
memories, had been invaded to make room for someone else’s. It had changed, even looked withered and I felt its pain. And then with a
strange sensation of loss, I suddenly woke up to find myself miles away in
Bangalore in a new home, now my own home.
I grew up in Shillong and it has
been over 2 years since I’ve been there. Too many memories to even count. I don’t
know if it’s natural but I feel like a part of me is still there. It happens,
doesn't it? Years on years pile on but the rapport remains, doesn't matter with
a place or a person. Time and distance apart seem meaningless. Consciously or subconsciously
my heart always yearns to visit Shillong, a bizarre, invisible pull. I miss the
cottage that was my home for 12 years. The last time I was there was in the
year 2012. I had even gone to the cottage, stood outside wishing I could just
go in like I used to. The fact that someone else was now living in the home
that once used to be ours was a fact too difficult to process. Of-course changes
like these are natural. But natural or not, it was and still is a change I
never can enjoy. So as I stood there looking at the house that once used to
be my home I felt stripped of the rights to call it my own. It was like sharing
a part of me I had never wanted to share in the first place. Maybe that’s why
the dream, so real and so perturbing. I don’t know if I can ever emotionally let
go of that house. Maybe I will never be able to. But that’s alright. Don’t you
think so too?
Before you go tell me have you ever
had such a dream, so real that it almost made you cry? Have your memories reached out to you in your dreams?