I am homesick

I love home. Home is not just four walls and a roof, it is more than that. A home is a place where you can be you. Your childhood memories are attached to it. It is a place where you played with your siblings and friends. It is a place where have grown up.

There are good memories attached to your home. There are also bad memories attached to your home, still, it is your home. To have a home of your own is a blessing. You are really fortunate if you have a home of your own because there are many who don’t have any place to live. They live on footpaths, at roadsides, on railway stations, under bridges, etc. It doesn’t matter if you are living in a hut or a luxurious bungalow. Home is home.

I am homesick. Home is not just a place for me, it is a feeling. I can’t live without my home. There are so many memories are attached to it. There are childhood memories when I used to play cricket, badminton, carom, and other indoor games with my sister, aunts, uncle and friends. I used to talk with my friends sitting on the terrace. We used to talk all nonsense and laugh on idiotic and silly things which others may find strange.

There were only two rooms when I was small. There was a lot of empty space in front of those rooms. We had grass in some part where we used to relax and play. In another part, we had a lot of plants of vegetables like Brinjal (eggplant), Turai (Ridge Gourd), Lauki (Bottle Gourd), and many other vegetables that I don’t remember. Monkeys used to come to eat them. They were our regular visitors. There was a Guava tree in our home. Under the shade of that, we used to sleep and relax. We used to enjoy sunlight in winter. We used to eat sugarcanes sitting there. Parrots used to come to eat Guava. If you don’t know, guavas that parrot eats are the sweetest ones. There were few flower pots also in which Gulab (Rose), Genda (Marigold), and other flowers that I don’t remember were planted. There was another tree that was outside our home. It was Gulmohar (Royal Poinciana).

When no one plays with me. I used to play cricket alone on the terrace and outside and in the rooms by hitting the ball against the wall. I used to go to the terrace or sit on the steps when I feel sad or had a fight with someone. I also used to sit on the window sill in one of the rooms that was close to the road. I used to sit there and see people and compare my life with their lives. I used to watch the rain from that window. That window is like a window of my life through which I used to look from my life to other people’s life.

With time, the home has grown so am I. There were only two rooms and now there are more rooms. The new rooms have taken the place of the old garden. I miss the old home.

After schooling, the first time in my life, I left my home. My college was about 525 km away from my home. It was about 8 and a half hours away from home. The first two years were very tough for me. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I used to think about home all the time. After every semester exam, we used to have a few days’ holidays. The exam time was 9:00 am to 12:00 am and the bus that I used to take leave the place at 1:15 pm in the afternoon, so I used to pack my bag the day before the final exam of every semester because I used to have a little time to reach the bus. At 12:00 am when the exam used to end, I used to run to catch the bus. I used to go to the room where I used to live and then I used to pick the bag and run to catch the bus. I can’t explain the feeling of going to the home. It was the best feeling. The day when I had to leave the home to go to college again, that used to be the worst day.

I am so homesick that I don’t like to go anywhere. I don’t like to stay in any other place. Rarely, I spent the night somewhere else’s house. Though I don’t like to go anywhere, I can spend the daytime in someone else’s house, but at night I want to be at my home. I can’t sleep in any other place.

Sometimes, I want to escape from my home because of all the restrictions and many other problems, but that is a feeling for a few hours, then after I come to my senses. I know I don’t want to leave this home. I can’t leave it at all.

These rooms, walls, floors, corners, windows, terrace have become part of me and I have become part of them. This is my home. This is where I belong.