My Room at Upstairs and a Shy Boy

The moment I woke up, I felt content. My memory lane was open and there was a clear passageway between the long lost electromagnetic pulses from hippocampus region and my eyes. I was there, in the very room, where I had spent most of my childhood.

The room, whose every wall had distinct color, whose balcony gave this wholesome picture of the quiet and motionless village, houses roofed with inclined brick tiles, and the old trees, still alive. The furniture had changed, but one or two of them from my childhood period survived. A wooden almirah with decorated glass and carved with peacock imagery stood at corner, now contained with extras of the house. Extra blankets, extra bed sheets, extra everything. And there was that bed. Massive. Made of mehgony and with modern comfy mattress on it, it certainly took most of the pride.

But everything else was replaced. The light was new, the others furniture were trendy, the balcony got a makeover with glass panes and all. Only a primordial frame of Lord Krishna with a flute in his hand hanged on wall.

My whole childhood was here. My father had a small shop at next village and he used to use this ‘room at upstairs’ as a battlefield or his lab to fix my future. He taught me math, kicked my ass, cared me madly and promised a better future, away from this village’s legacy of being stuck in forever. And when he succeeded, he locked that room, only to be opened when I’d be here. My elder brother shifted to another one, a new one, with more air and amenities; my parents went downstairs to a smaller room, adjacent to the pond and the ‘room in upstairs’ was renamed after me. Every other day my mother used to open it and clean and lock again.

And today, I was here after one year. My nephew came in, and told his story in school and the incident of falling his teeth, while he was playing football with his friends. He was excited. Then came in my niece and she wanted my laptop. In broken sentences, she asked me to show her some cartoons. I listened them, obliged them and watched them.

But it seemed like yesterday. I stood there, at the balcony, while other kids played at nearby field. I wasn’t allowed to go down and play. My mother stood guard, while father was busy in his little shop. I had to finish my homework and then after a brisk walk on broad roof, had to do evening prayer in front of a large portrait of Swami Vivekananda. Then father used to return and sat with me and my siblings till eleven at night. Mother sitting in corner, used to take small naps, while we were taught new formulas, new definitions, new chapters with new ways of punishments. I saw it like yesterday, in this very room.

Today, mother came in with morning tea and biscuits. Father came in on pretext of a work, and I asked how was he doing. He got mild head injuries yesterday in an accident. He told me that he was fine, and sat down beside me. Both asked me about my work, my wife and kid and my life. I looked at them. They were same. Only older. Father’s hair was white and sparse, and body thinner for long fight with diabetes. Mother’s skin loosened with age and face wrinkled with time. I looked at me. I was bigger, totally alien to that small shy kid in this room decades before. Everybody was here, only he was lost. Like forever. Or, maybe till I was there.