Drunk in Nostalgia.

My childhood was pretty colorful, to be honest. According to my mom, I was never an easy kid. But I don't remember much from that age. The only thing I can recall is my habit of reading books.

Nah, you'll get bored reading this blog if all of a sudden, I started writing a book review. Well, worry, not. It's just me writing down some eventful memories from my childhood.

I was reading a post yesterday authored by our guardian angel azircon. It was about this book, Ho-Jo-Bo-Ro-Lo, by one of the pioneers of Bengali literature, Sukumar Ray. Now, you'll not find one single Bengali who claims himself to be a bookworm and did not read this one. As did I too. And seeing the cover page again after so many years just drowned me in nostalgia. It took me back decades ago to a time when life was so easy and comfortable.

The first book that I read without my mum or my sister was a Tin Goyenda book.

Tin Goyenda is literally a rip-off of Alfred Hitchcock's famous teen thrillers, The three investigators. The writers just took materials from those books and called it their own. But as a kid, I didn't know that. And I honestly didn't care if it was written by our president or not. I loved reading, and these were among them.

I was 6 then. My oldest sister was the one in charge of my academics, and she was a rigorous tutor. I wasn't even allowed to ask questions outside of what I was learning, all the while I was doing my homework.

That was a time before the internet, so among the few entertainment sources we had, one was books or comics. And I inherently had some book worm genes that drove me towards her bookshelf, which was sacred, and none of us were allowed to even touch it. But I did anyway and grabbed the first book that was in my reach. I hoped it would be a comic, but it turned out to be the volume 9 of Tin Goyenda. It took me a couple of days to finish reading it. But the deed was done. I could never turn back my face again from books ever.

My grades slowly started deteriorating, and complaints began coming to my mum from my teachers. I was 11 by then and began stealing books along with my Sis. (You can read about that here). And one day, she had had enough and decided to give it all away. I didn't eat for three days straight. Not really though XDXD. My Sis fed me cakes and cookies. The books mum gave away were hers too. She also was a victim. And so she was angry too, and this was her way of protesting.

And then came my reign over birds. I used to hunt like crazy. I had this cousin, the same age as me, and equally chaotic. We used to fill our pockets with hundreds of small, round marbles, walked into the trees, and shoot at any birds we could see with our DIY slingshots. Some days we would drag 5-6 pounds of dead birds and geese home. My mum would chase after me with a broom for hours for killing so many. But she wasn't the one to waste anything. The edible birds would get roasted or stewed, and the other ones would be fed to our pets.

Such great times. Sigh. Now when I'm old enough, I sometimes think if there was some way, some machine that would stop time at those moments. My sister would be alive, and I would be so happy and free. But nature never budges, does it?

I have no images from that time Ive been just talking about. So these will have to suffice for now. It was raining here for days. It stopped in the afternoon once before again raining throughout the whole night. So I made use of that small window and clicked some photos for your viewing pleasure XDXD.

All the photos are mine. None of the photos are edited.