It came up as a sudden realization on that first day when I was going off to stay in Kolkata. As I walked out of the gate of the house that has been my home for the last 17 years I realized it was more than a building. It was the place I first laughed, got scolded and cried, brought back my first report card and prepared for my first dance performance. The walls of that house were my first canvas. The lawn my first playground. It was the place where I fell down from a tree and broke my arm and brought back my first pet. Learnt cycling and sang the first song. It was the place where I made memories for the first time and learnt to preserve them in nooks and corners that went unnoticed by everybody other than me.
When you walk into my house through the gate the first thing you would come across is the garden. I remember my evenings passed by watering the plants with my father. Clipping the dead leaves, trimming the shrubs and then just looking at them till it would grow dark and then, us gardeners would go inside the house for the evening tea.
Upon entering the house if you are observant enough you would know that it has too many doors. Every room has been given a door wherever possible and at times impossible. There were few doors which were never opened because having them there made no sense. The windows were not very big and that is one thing I hated about the house. Though our house was a quarter that looks exactly like the rest of them in the row but we had special parts. We had two small storerooms in our house. Now the storerooms could have been filled up with furniture or boxes or whatever but as luck would have it they were filled with books.
Ancient looking books, not so old books, almost new books, brand new books--- name it and it's there. Every year during summer vacations we used to bring out all the books from the shelves and the cupboards and put them in the sun to rid them of insects. Each one tends to his or her own books and Ma always had the most number of books and ended up asking me for help. She had books like Communist Manifesto, Crime and Punishment, Franz Kafka, Jean Paul Sartre, Leo Tolstoy Short stories collection, Poems by Mao Zedong and what not! Uncountable number of bengali poetry books. Name the poet and she has his collection. Rabindranath Tagore, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Sunil Ganguly, Jibananda Das, Krishna Bosu, Binay Mojumdar, Shankho Ghosh, Joy Goswami, Kazi Nojrul Islam, Sukumar Ray, Nabonita Debsen and many many more. I used to wonder how could she have read all this till I found out that she has read all her books, all of Baba's and then of mine and much more than that.
Many of my friends are of the opinion that I get attached to people very fast. Well that's not entirely true but then to tell the truth I like people in general. I have been brought up that way. Though practically speaking our family was pretty small but our house never had less than six to seven people living with us. First there was Babai who apparently was not my father's real brother which I came to know after Babai passed away when I was in class-III. They were just friends. My parents not even for once thought that it was important for me to know that what exactly is my relation or their relation with this man and trust me it wasn’t important at all. That man was nothing less of a father to me. He was the reason I never got to complain about not being able to play with my father or run around with him or fight with him because even though Baba would just stand at the door and watch me and Babai having a pillow fight or me dangling from Babai’s biceps, I never felt that it isn’t normal.
Then there was Gopal. She came to our house as my governess and became family. She came to look after
me when I was 6 months old and even a day before she died I had heard her
telling my friends about how I would not leave her on the first day itself. I was
her child in the truest sense of the term. She looked after me all day. She knew
what I ate, how much I ate, when I felt sleepy or when I would fall sick. She
could take me in her lap and tell how much I weighed. I could not sleep without
her. I could not eat anything but the food cooked by her and at a point of time
I knew nothing other than her. She had two daughters and was abandoned by her
husband when the younger one was a month old. She came to India from Bangladesh
to look for her husband and as she did not have a passport never could go back.
May be it was her who taught me that giving up is never an option. I remember
it was my class-II annual exam and Ma got pox all of a sudden. Baba had to
shift to my grandparent's place because he was a transplant patient and any sort
of infection could be fatal to him. There was nobody to teach me right before my
exams. That lady who had gotten married at the age of 13 and could just barely
read and write taught me. After doing the household chores and taking care of
my mother she would actually sit down in the evening with me, study the stuff
herself and then teach me. She would go to Ma and learn the English words
from her so that she can teach me. The night before I went to write my test she
had told me “If you don’t do well everybody will call me illiterate.” I did
well. I had to. She passed away when I was in my final year school. She passed
away in our house. For the first time after that, I realized that she was the
most important person in my life for all practical purpose because without her
I did not even know what to eat and how much to eat.
My parents were teachers and so was Babai. They used to give out
tuition classes till the government made it illegal for professional teachers
to give out such classes. My mother had three batches of more than 50 students
a day. They were all my brothers and sisters. I played with them, fought with
them and not even for once did I feel that they are just my parents’ students.
Carom was a big issue in our family. Not just Baba but maternal uncle and
cousins all were carom freaks. We had a huge carom board in our house which was
always set. Nobody ever took it down the table. Anybody passing the drawing
room can try a hit and a game can start off any moment. The students were mad
about carom as well. Every day morning going to school was war! Us against Ma! Her
last batch ended at 9a.m and then would start the carom marathon. First it
would be Baba and some students. Ma would come and take him away by the collar
so that he can also get ready for school. Then it would be me. I was so small
that I could not even see the board properly just by standing so used to stand
on a chair to take my shots. Ma would again come and pull away the half-dressed
me and shout and curse her students who were also getting late for their school
and after a while inevitably my frustrated mother while criticizing some badly
taken shot would sit down to play herself. The mornings, my evenings, my nights
were always filled with events.
We used to celebrate everything. Republic Day, Netaji’s birthday,
Gandhi jayanti, Christmas, Diwali, Durgapuja, Rabindra Jayanti, Football world
Cup--- everything. My cousins used to visit very often and so would Ma’s friends. Every weekend
was some special occasion and if nothing good enough was happening we would
hire a VCR and watch movies the whole day or call over some friends or faily and have
cultural sessions where people would read, recite, sing and even at times if
Baba allowed liquor in the house, dance. There couldnot be a day that would go wasted. You have to enjoy every day. Every moment. It has to be significant and
productive and most importantly memorable.
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