I unlock the huge
padlocks to step into our old one-storied house. From tomorrow it will have a
new owner. That’s a relief.
For more than five years
my sister Mila and I have been trying in vain to sell it off. The house has 3
bedrooms, a study, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Yeah, that does sound pretty good
but a closer look reveals how poorly planned the property was. The rooms were
boiling hot during the summers and stony cold during the brief spells of winter.
The backyard was infested with thorny shrubs that never flowered. Power supply was
unreliable and no amount of sanitization could keep the pests away.
Mila and I now live in
comfortable apartments. Father has passed away and mother lives with Mila. This
house had become an annoying baggage to us. I managed to sell it off after a
long agonizing wait. So here I am, on my final visit to our old home. Most of the
furniture have long been shifted. It is only a nondescript cupboard which I have
to remove before the new owner moves in.
I have made an
arrangement with a scrap dealer to get the junk picked up. A look at my
smartphone tells me that I have about 30 minutes of time before the men come
over with the collection truck. I walk up to the cupboard and jerk open the chipped
door to look at the piles of useless material hoarded by my father.
Rows of old exercise
copies are stacked inside. Those remind me of our lacklustre childhood and
annoyed, I shut the door. Perhaps I have banged the door too hard for the door
rebounds and a sketching book falls out. A scrawny, cross-eyed girl dressed in
impossible colours is now staring back at me from the open book. It is little
Mila’s work from preschool. I tear out the
page and fold it neatly before pocketing it.
As I place the sketching
book back my eyes fall on another copy. It is mine…it used to be mine. I pull
it out and read through casually. Looks like I often had tried my hand at
poetry. I stop at one poem, titled “My Dream Home”. It describes a simple house
with four rooms and a small backyard. Right at the bottom of the page my father
had signed and remarked, “Excellent!” I check the date. Three decades have
passed! The poem was from a time when we used to stay at a tiny rented place.
Was I a simpler person? With simpler hopes and wishes? I start to read the
piece again but the loud doorbell interrupts me.
I stuff the copy in my
purse and run to answer the door.
The men are here. They need
brief instructions. And then they begin to stow away the lone cupboard. I lock
the main door and start to walk away. And then…I don’t why…I burst into tears.
