I have spent my childhood in Chaugaon. Those days are really immortal. Wherever I would be, in the moment of loneliness I always get a flashback of those golden days. Though now I am 25 years old, I have very fresh memories of my childhood right from when I was 4 years old.
That time we had an earthen house built by my late grandfather. We had a big veranda outside the house. There we used to play many typical village games like “Gotya-Gotya” (marbles), “Lapa-Chapi” (hide and seek), etc. Now a day’s it’s very rare to find such big veranda.
We had a “Neem” tree outside our house, because of which we had enough shadow to play around our veranda. In childhood it was forbidden for us to go outside and play with other village children. Because of which my house was the only place where I have spent my whole childhood.
As our house was made up of earth, it had some pits in the roof made intentionally for the sake of ventilation and sunlight. Our house had three rooms in a straight line (like a train) first hall, second kitchen and the last was store room. Every room had 2-3 such pits in roof, which in the rainy season needed to be covered in case of raining. It was totally our (me and my elder brother) duty to go up on terrace and cover those pits. We used to love that job. On the terrace we used to feel the initial small drops of rain on our body and used to smell the drenching earth keeping our hands wide open. It was great experience which taught me to love my mother earth.
When I grown-up, I moved to our district place for my graduation. When I was in second year of my graduation, I heard news from my father that we were going to break our old earthen house and going to build new concrete house. Initially I felt good, but after some time I realized that I am going to miss my old earthen house. And one day we broke our old house. But days passed away and due to some financial crisis we could not build our new concrete house.
After my graduation, I done with my PG. And now I am doing a job for last 2 years. Now after 7-8 years we are starting to build a new concrete house. In this long span I realized the importance of own house. I am very happy that we are now going for this important step of building a house, but in the hidden corner of my heart I still miss my old earthen house. And I know I will never get that house and those days back at any cost!