There is enough written material romanticizing the first love or the first job, yet strangely very few about the first home.
Papa and Mummy (the last two inhabitants of the house) will be shifting to Guwahati, and we are spending our last night at my first home in Shillong. I have been gripped by a plethora of emotions. My first den! My first abode! The place that became My Home, even before I got to learn the distinction between a house and a home. The place I was born and brought up in for the first nineteen years of my life, and the dwelling that had always, always, been my comfort zone in all the subsequent ones.
As Mom and Gunjan have been packing stuff the whole day, I have been trying my best to pack some memories. Both the groups will be leaving so much behind.
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The place I would have pestered my parents with my first demands;
The place I would have turned upside down while holding my sisters' hands.
The place which introduced me to a joint family,
Trust me, at one stage this place housed 16 people easily.
The place I would have had my first laugh, the place I would have first cried;
The place where I would have first fallen, and then gotten up and retried.
The place witness to my first success, and also the first failure;
And then seen me through it until I had something to cheer.
Holidays meant non-stop cricket on the front porch;
And then on Mom-cooked food we would gorge.
The place saw me hosting my first ever friends;
Some have drifted away, while others have lasted through all of lives' bends.
The place I experienced my first emotions - be it hope, fandom, love, or envy;
Ohh boy, within me lie faint fragments of memorable stories aplenty!
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In the world of astrology, the "first house" is believed to be about the self and defines one's persona. It wouldn't be wrong to say that this house has influenced me in so many ways.
People who know me would agree that I have always been an ambassador of Shillong. Letting go of this house seems like the umbilical cord with this great city has been cut (even though there are still enough loved ones here).
I'll miss my first home in Shillong, a place which will always be my 'Rosebud'!
