Nostalgia

I am often taken back to the old corridors of our previous house - the one that saw us grow old. Its windows would let the fresh air in that would blow over our text books, those trophies we won in school, the notebook our father kept- the notebook he had kept for future knowing not that the internet would soon take over and maybe obliterate its value.

He would keep newspaper clippings safe of the featured poems written by my sister and by a younger me, unaware that soon we would go so digital we would lost count of the URLs that would hold pieces written by us to be lost forever and maybe, found again someday.

It’s funny how we talk of nostalgia these days when we would still have a lot of photographs capturing our smiles, the places we visited, the fun we had and the people we met. For me nostalgia would sometimes take me back to those days when we used to run around in the house - all four of us, the smiles that were not captured by any camera, the moments untouched by any cellphones, the thoughts uninhibited by any selfish desires of the future.

Oh, how do I say now that I’d miss my college days when there is so much more just for reminiscence?

The science project I could not make myself, for which, mother would’ve to return from work, do her chores and still make the work presentable. The same project a teacher would throw away for she wouldn’t know any better than to crush a child’s dreams for her angst at her own family’s shortcomings. A matter I would not understand until years later when I find myself at the age of 25 and still imperfect. A matter I would probably not understand again when I’d turn wiser or kinder as years of experience would embrace this restless soul.

Probably there would be videos then to look back at these days we’re talking of. “Batch Photo sessions” and Facebook posts, Numerous blogs and maybe this note. But who can bring back those golden days of the people whose lives have so changed, of the days when dawn would break at 6 and the day would end at 20 when midnights were just times scary.

20 years later maybe it would be time to reminisce these days when we sleep at 4 and wake up at 12, when we would talk of the brilliance of a professor long gone, or of a dear friend who had gone so far. As of now, maybe I’d just retain the innocence of those four “children”, make sketches of the past, if I could make any better, of the people I loved but never saw again, of memories I’m not so sure of, if they were stories or thoughts of realities so grave or realities better than my now, of my old house that still waves its hand every time I walk by its lane, the echoes of our laughter still etched on its dying walls. Another coat of a new paint- Nostalgia of this age.