After ages, I set out to clear out my room. And doing that meant pulling my childhood out of my cupboards…
It meant retrieving the paperwork of a lifetime from the clutches of dust and silverfish. It meant renewing my acquaintance with the playthings and possessions of life this far. Medals, certificates, textbooks, old cards, even the occasional letters…
I found the walkie-talkie doll that used to scare the daylights out of my sister when she was a toddler…and which sparked of my writing abilities at the age of 14. I shed a few tears over the little purple and cream pullover I used to wear as a kid, which my mother has kept lovingly over the year… as a memory of my childhood. The maid who was helping me clean the stuff, could not hold back her laughter when along with my pram were also found my feeding bottles and bibs, too assorted, too old, to be of any use….
Yet, I was not really surprised that my parents had stashed them away up there. I find it difficult to give things away too. This morning, I tried to steel myself to throw away one of my std x school uniforms autographed by all my classmates….and couldn’t.
But then old can never be completely erased…..it can only be reworked with the new. Isn’t it what each of us do each new year?…..build for the future on the foundation of the past. A past from which we take some aspects, discard others….
I still remember….crying like a baby….while leaving for Nagpur for the first time to join junior college….Sad – that a chapter so familiar and secure was drawing to a close…Happy – that I was on the threshold of a new aspect of life…