Memories from a Forgotten Childhood

CEILING

When I was little, my mom's validation is all I lived for. I would ask her "Mama, was I a good girl today?". I hated disappointing her. She would reply "Yes, but not all the time. You didn't listen to me when I asked you to not have that second piece of chocolate. You were a bad girl then". She would then sleep, lost in her dreams. Little did she know that I laid awake hours and hours, staring at the ceiling, crying because I wasn't a good girl. Now, I ask my friends, "Do you think what I did back there was okay?". "It was fine" they would say. But fine is not what I want it to be, I want it to be GOOD.

ALONE

Sometimes I wake up abruptly, a sudden feeling of knowing that I will be truly alone in this world when my parents would cease to exist. Who will let me know that I will be okay when I'm lost? Who will let me know when I have been bad? 

HONEY

On my 5th birthday, Mama got me a small tin with fragrant wax crayons in them. They were pointed on one end and the other end had little animal cartoon heads on them. The tin had a blue cap and was transparent. I wanted to show it to all my neighborhood friends, who didn't even speak in a language I could decipher. I took it out with me for the evening play time despite of Mama's warnings. "Those kids will break it. Don't come crying then." And they did break some, some ended up in the sewer. I sat crouching on the side of the sewer, watching my beautiful coloured crayons dotting the ugly stagnant sewer water. Six years ago, I found the little blue cap tin, filled with really old honey. 

GOD

I was six and I was sitting at the Guwahati railway station with my Mama, waiting for the second train of the day that would take me back to my hometown. My uncle was on the opposite platform, getting us bottled juice to drink. I had my little pink furry sling back with the eye stickers on them and they were filled with candy. I was happy. But then, Mama fainted. She hit her head on the iron rod as she proceeded to fall. A cockroach passed by her head. Do they bite? Strangers gathered around. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers", I thought. I went on in my head, imagining my Mama dying from the hit she took, and I becoming an orphan, and strangers kidnapping me and turning me into a beggar. At that moment, my Uncle came down the platform stairs. At that moment, he was my God.