Memories

It was my sis’ birthday on 4th; the day she was born was also my first day at school. The only memory I have of that day is of my dad coming to the school to take me to the hospital, I got a half-day on the first day itself. I don’t remember whether or not I cried before going to school that day, but I guess I must have. I don’t even remember going to the hospital or how my sister looked the day she was born. Sometimes when in novels a writer describes the feelings of the elder sibling when the younger one is born, I so much wish to know what my feelings were then, how I reacted looking at my sis, holding her for the first time. I so much wish that I could write a retrieve command and lo! I have the file of that memory staring at me. (tch tch, what has the s/w industry done to me?!)

These days it’s so easy for parents to chronicle their kid’s childhood, but cameras were not so common those days and going to the studio was an occasional affair. So the earliest pictures of my sis were taken when she would have been around six months old (or even older, I am not sure.). There is one pic of ours together, she sitting on a chair smiling toothlessly and me standing in attention position and looking at the camera angrily. Don’t remember whether I was actually angry at that time or in the pic I came out that way.

I always wonder how we remember and forget things; there are some things of seemingly no importance, which stick to us all our lives. Like say, I still have this picture in my mind, a memory of the time when I would’ve been 4-5 years old.

I am standing on the stairs of my old house, there is someone else sitting and asking me a question about Rajiv Gandhi. I remember neither the question nor who asked it, but I remember being asked a question, just that. This is what I call a forgotten memory.

Sometimes I feel if I hadn’t gone to school and college my memories would be totally disorganized. The time frame of many things I remember is associated with what class I was in then. So I remember that we had gone to Puri after 5th std. and Ooty after 8th,K2H2 was released when I was in 9th std. and K3G in 12th etc etc. Lets see what methods my mind devises to remember the time frame of things now that I am done with college also. Maybe I’ve found some sort of an organizer in this blog, maybe after 10 years I will scan my archives to read the same very post and think, “Ok, I thought of this when I had just finished an year at work.”

Memories are just one aspect of the human mind that amuses me; I also grapple with other aspects of the inexhaustible mystery at times. Will post about the insights and observations as and when I get any, till then happy discovering!