At first I thought I had come to the wrong place. This couldn't be it, this couldn't be my home. Old, withered and neglected, the little house, which once used to be a happy shade of green, screamed loneliness.
I threw my bag on the ground, and it fell with a thud. I tried hard to listen to the sound of the birds chirruping, just like they used to in the good old times. But now, the only thing that could be heard was silence. Indifferent, cold silence.
I walked on towards the front porch, and the stairs that were now nothing more than a pile of broken bricks.
The memory of me and Raghav playing childish games on those very stairs was vivid in my mind. I could hear him calling my name; feel him pushing me aside to win the race to the front gate.
The wooden door made a creaking sound, and the scene it revealed of the inside of the house was even worse than what I had seen so far. My abandoned living room of twenty years ago lay in front of me.
I was in a room I knew and did not know. There was no furniture in the room, and the floor was covered with a thin sheet of dust.
Memories and flashbacks of Raghav and Dad, sitting on the couch fighting for the remote, came racing back to me. I turned, and I could see mom’s faint figure, cooking in the kitchen. The smell of my favourite dish, Rajma Chawal, invaded my nostrils.
I could feel the tears that had started to pour down my face, but the beach ball that hit me from behind distracted me.
“C’mon Tanya, you’re going to miss the show!” said my brother from the couch.
I smiled at the memory, filled with a sense of nostalgia that made my heart burn.
The room was empty again.
I slowly dragged myself to my bedroom. On opening the door, which surprisingly still said – No trespassing, trespassers will be shot without warning – a cloud of dust fell on me. I spat the dust out, which tasted dry. Just like the room which once used to be my headquarters of mischief, bliss, and sorrows – of life.
I edged towards my window, which was now broken, dirty and abandoned – just like everything else in the house that used to be my home. I almost expected to see the mango tree in the backyard. What I saw broke my heart, if it was already not broken enough.
The tree, sitting under which I had spent my whole childhood reading Enid Blyton books and eating delicious mangoes that made my tongue water even today, had been cut down.
I withdrew from the cold window, suddenly aware of the fact that the place I was in was not my home any longer; it was a derelict building, and nothing else. I walked out of the room that used to be my most prized possession so many years ago, and out of the living room and the front door.
This was not my home.
My home was gone, just like my family.
I walked out of the front gate, and didn't look back.
