I remember

Azi, mother and me: in front of mother's house, my birthplace,
Thüvopisü village, Phek District, Nagaland

I fondly recall a poem we used to read in school. It is "I remember, I remember" by Thomas Hood.

And revisiting my birthplace after almost two decades last week brought such strong feelings of nostalgia that I had to look it up again.

When I stopped at my mother's house,(now occupied by some other family for the last twenty five plus years) tears just fell from my eyes.

I was very young when we used to live there so I don't really remember everything but I have vague memories of standing on the balcony, watching the lights of Kohima town and singing nursery rhymes my mother taught me. Sometimes I used to call out to my father to return home it seems, for those days he was posted in Kohima. 

I remember having picnics with my nanny on the lawns of the Government school where my mother taught. I remember the little marked grave downstairs where my poor dead sister lay. Mother kept flowers and swept it clean every morning. I remember  running up and down the stairs and my nanny chasing after me, making sure I didn't fall and hurt myself. I remember leaving home and moving to our new home in Kohima. We travelled by night and the journey seemed endless. By then I had another sister for company and mother says we were a noisy lot but always happy. I remember going for walks with mother and dad, me on my father's shoulder. I remember the clipped hedges surrounding government quarters and rock pavements winding through houses around Kohima's Bayavu colony. And in summers, climbing peach trees and catching butterflies with my cousins. I remember spending a season with father while in kindergarten and learning to cook pumpkins and squash. I remember playing big sister to my little cousins and running errands for my older cousins. But most of all, I remember being a happy child, picking fallen cherries in my neighbor's yard and dressing up in my mother's dresses and dancing to the tune of ABBA's dancing queen. Those are the memories I cherish from my childhood.

"I remember, I remember 

The house where I was born, 

The little window where the sun 

Came peeping in at morn; 

He never came a wink too soon, 

Nor brought too long a day; 

But now, I often wish the night 

Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember 

The roses, red and white, 

The violets, and the lily-cups,

-- Those flowers made of light! 

The lilacs where the robin built, 

And where my brother set 

The laburnum on his birthday

,-- The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember 

Where I was used to swing, 

And thought the air must rush as fresh 

To swallows on the wing; 

My spirit flew in feathers then, 

That is so heavy now,

And summer pool could hardly cool 

The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember 

The fir-trees dark and high; 

I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky. 

It was a childish ignorance, 

But now 'tis little joy 

To know I'm farther off from heaven 

Than when I was a boy (girl)."

-Thomas Hood

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