My Childhood Memories – an Open Speech
Change is a superbly captivating word, but changing is not. Somehow, somewhere a melancholy lies. So, wherever I think of the changing days of my life from childhood to young adulthood I feel sad. Wordsworth in his famous poem ‘ Ode on Intimation of Immortality’ has said—a human child brings with him ‘the trailing clouds of glory from heaven’. I do not know if that is true but I know that my childhood days were very sweet and a magical period of my life. I guess it was a time when I was easily satisfied and elated. I remember that small gifts like Chocolates, Ice cream, etc., could send me to the heights of glory and ecstasy. So, my childhood memories are the memories of the blissful period of my life. The years “Span around with giddy motion.”
Childhood is the sweetest and most memorable period in a man’s life. Above all, I remember the warm love of my parents, how they wanted to save me from all the dark sides of life. I wish I could always have been sheltered by them. They still love me but I cannot cling to them as before. I remember how we played together and the comfort of running into their arms. Perhaps now I have shed the trailing clouds of glory from heaven?
During vacations, we used to go to our village home. There I ran in the green paddy fields like a free bird and swam in the water joyously. We used to stay in a big house with all my cousins were the days passed like dreams and nights like weddings. I remember the gallerist pictures of the famous musical maestros like Abbas Uddin Ahmed, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Angur Bala Devi, and many more hangings in my grandma’s living room.
I, with all my cousins, had built a treehouse in a two-story-high guava tree. I still remember ate a day, I fell down from there, trying to have a mid-noon nap. A notch in my left ankle is still a reminder of the day.
The first memory of tragedy in my life is the death of my Grandma. She loved me so much! I was her most loving granddaughter. So, wherever she came to Dhaka she used to stay at our home only because of me. The last time she came to us was for a medical checkup. She was suffering from diabetics. One night she called me and told me to call my father. She looked pale and sad. I ran to my father when we came back; alas! It was all over, 1 was stunned, I could not believe it a few minutes ago she had talked with me, and the next moment she was gone. Her death made me realize that life is not only made up of joys and laughter but also of sorrows and pain.
I was about five and a half years old when I was admitted to the school. I don’t know why children cry terribly when they go, to school. In my case, I was very happy thinking of going to a new place which awaited with a whole new lot of friends. But unfortunately, I failed to make any friends on the very first day as everyone was crying. However, I was sitting happily wearing a new dress, with new shoes and–in my hands were my new bag and books, looking with fascination at the pretty calls-teacher. It is still imprinted deeply in my mind. Very early in the morning, my mother called me. She told me that she was going take me to the Central Shaheed Minar where the brave Bengali sons have sacrificed their lives to save their mother tongue-Bengali. It was still dark, but the roads were full of people walking barefooted like us. When we reached the Central Shaheed Minar I saw a sea of solemn faces. We managed to reach the foot of the Minar and place our flowers there in homage to our martyrs. The sweet, sad notes of the “Ekusher Gan” still ring in my ears.
Change is inevitable. The caterpillar turns into a butterfly, the rivulets meet the ocean. So, life is dynamic and racing towards bigger and newer avenues. Though I feel sad as I have lost my childhood, I feel happy as I think that they have laid to foundation-Stone of my future hopes and inspiration. So, in the words of Wordsworth in the Prelude:
“Fair seed-time had my soul and I grew up.
Fostered alike by beauty and fear.”
