Memories and impressions

A few nights ago, a bunch of heady middle aged women giggled and danced away like teenagers in their old school auditorium. A little while later, we may have complained about aches and pains, knees and other; but in that moment, we giggled and reminisced and danced to numbers we considered the ‘coolest ever’ in our teen years.

Nostalgia was high, memories ran loose, everyone seemed the same, everyone seemed changed. We seemed like a bunch of teenagers trying to pass off as grown women, artificially aged with make-up and wrinkles, haircolor and pretend postures.

Memories have a strange way of reappearing from the deep abyss of past when we move to familiar locations. Both good and bad, they emerge uninhibited from a past submerged and forgotten.

We sang the school song and were amazed that we could sing it without even glancing at the words.

A friend I met after 25 years looked at me carefully and declared, “It was you”.
“Uh oh,” I thought apprehensively. Fortunately, the memory was silly and funny enough that we laughed. Although I did not remember it, it did seem like something I would say, and it tickled me. It tickled me to think that she would remember something like that after so long. 

I met my geometry teacher, who I adored. With startling clarity, out leapt a memory that I had forgotten since the day it occurred.  

A military general and president of a neighboring country had died in an aircrash. Relations being hostile between the two countries then (this is over 25 years ago), some girls in our class wrote the headline on the board. That somehow led to applause. Honestly, we were too young to have opinions of our own and merely reflected those around.

Somehow it made me uncomfortable and I didn’t want to join in. All the more unsettling, as the entire goal of that age is to fit in. Just then, this teacher stepped in and upon witnessing what was going on, gave us a talk on respecting others – especially the dead, no matter who they may have been or what they may have done.

Seeing her, I remembered that day with clarity. I also remembered the huge wave of relief I felt once she endorsed that applause was not required. I no longer felt unpatriotic. Her words gave me permission from a certain pressure to fit in.  

I shared the memory with her. In her typical no-nonsense, lets-not-get-too-sentimental manner, she nodded and then chatted about something else.

I wondered how many people had made impressions on my then young mind and to what extent. I wondered how many people continue to make impressions on our not-so-young minds. I wondered if we still have the capacity and flexibility to allow the impressions to happen.

I hope we still do.

Rememberance of things past

This past Diwali, I decided to make besanache ladoo. I remembered the only person who could make them right. My grandmother. I remembered the many afternoons I had spent, pouring over the shiny steel plate, savoring the soft brown ball of goodness. I remembered how I would break the one ball into many…many many. How I would crumble the mother ball and roll it back (just like my grandma did) into a gathering of lookalikes – arranging each identical sibling in a neat pattern along the circular rim of the plate. Perhaps it was my way of making a good thing last. Perhaps, it was my way of pretending to be my grandmother.

Eventually, yet slowly, I would mouth each one – all whilst my grandmom chided me for playing with my food and making a mess. But I would like to think she enjoyed watching the amount of attention I gave her delicious creation. Each time. Unfailingly. 

My memories took me to an excerpt of Marcel Proust’s, Rememberance of things past (In search of lost time) that I had read a few centuries ago. It made me want to pick up Proust’s work and wade through all seven volumes. Fact unlikely to happen. But I wondered if my besanacha ladoo was similar to Proust’s madeleine – the sight, taste or even thought of which, had the capacity to awaken involuntary memories and emotions.

I thought of Proust again as we took the road that curved through the mountains on our arrival in India. As the orange dawn sun hit the cliffs, I studied the mountains, searching for familiar shapes, pointing out to my daughter, a cliff’s edge shaped like a nose. She said it looked like something else. I cannot even remember what; I dismissed the thought in my mind quickly, permanently. For to me, it was the Duke’s nose and it would always be so. Turning it into something else, would mean washing away and fading out memories of trips and hikes, especially in the rains, to these mountains.

I thought of Proust again, as I sat at my parent’s dining table eating familiar, yet now unfamiliar food. I noticed how much more I ate than usual. I noticed the vigor with which I ate.  

My husband has not read Proust, and is unlikely to ever do so, but seated in his mother’s kitchen, being served simple, yet favorite meals, his mind must know the comfort of involuntary memories his sensory faculties enable with the introduction of familiar objects. Add to it love. On our first day here, his cousin brought him jilebis (Indian sweet), from his favorite store, standing in line 20 minutes to do so. He does so each time with a welcome predictability.

My daughter remembered a certain sweet she had eaten on our last trip at my mom’s place. Not remembering the name, she gave us vivid descriptions – orange, translucent, square, sweet, almondy… we figured it out. My dad went and got her some right away.

This combination of sensory memories and affection has got to be a remarkable one. They have the potential to be comforting and soothing and healing. And I’m grateful that we can receive them.

Yes. There will be plenty of sensory memories during our stay here. Despite food examples, possibly because I thought of Proust; it could be the sight of a certain place or person, the chipped benches of a certain chai tapri (tea stall), a sound of familiar laughter, a drive though the countryside with its familiar landscape… a smile, a conversation, a meal, a landscape…

And just as Proust contrasts involuntary memories (as these – triggered through sensory faculties by things from the past), with voluntary memories (retrieved with effort and intelligence), I can sense – be it through smell, taste, sight… the power and capacity of these involuntary memories.

Perhaps not all memories are pleasant and there is no way to control the impact of involuntary memories. Unfortunately, they are just as powerful as the pleasant ones.  

But hopefully, we will experience more the soothing comfort of these memories. Although I have mixed feelings about nostalgia, given the melancholy it can bring about, these sensory memories bursting at the seams with emotion and remembrance, constitute who we are, who we were, who we may become…

View from the Edge

With the majestic ocean on one side and towering trees on the other, it had the makings of a beautiful hike.

Yes. The churning of the ocean, the swooshing of the conifers and… the grumbling of one ten-year-old.

“How much longer?” “Do we even know where our car is?” “I would rather go play with the bunnies.” “Parents…are you even listening???”

The parents continued to take in the nature and the hike and hoped the trees would soak up the complaining. Amidst dinosaur-like heaves and forced enthusiasm, one parent attempted to point out to the surrounding wonders of nature.

Now this was a fairly easy hike, but at one point as we got higher, the path gone narrower, the craggy cliff seemed to poke into our faces and the ground was slippery.

“Okay, now this is just plain dangerous. It is not safe for us to be here,” our ten-year-old pointed out in a familiar, at-least-one person-in-the-family-has-good-judgment tone.

“Oh, come on… it’s not that bad,” I replied and recounted stories of treacherous paths from childhood hikes in the Sahyadris.

Interested, but unconvinced, she shook her head, and mumbled some more about the wet slippery leaves, the narrow path and our bad judgment.  

Right about then, the narrow bend of the trail wrapped around the cliff and we stood at the edge. The view was spectacular. The forest beneath us opened into a wide expanse of ocean in an uninterrupted, forever sense of manner. There were no interruptions - nothing blocked the view. It was clear, simple and beautiful.

“You always get the best views from the edge of a cliff,” I commented to my girl.

I paused as I slowly repeated to myself: ‘you always get the best views from the edge’.

I sighed. Metaphorically speaking, in life’s trying moments, when it feels as if we are at the edge, the view is the clearest, it is the simplest. Right before us, stand in clarity, the few things (the remarkably few things) that really matter. Triviality and its enormous mass and fog, fades away taking with it much that we occupy our daily mind and day. We are left staring with clarity at only a handful of things.  

Certainly, there is a mountain behind us. But for an instance, standing at the edge of the precipice, we are not aware of the mountain. All we can see is the vast, wide expanse.  

There are no interruptions - nothing blocks the view. It is clear, simple and beautiful.

Agreed that despite the clarity, we cannot remain at the edge forever. It would not be safe to do so. We would not want to do so. But as we turn the curve, is it possible to not re-immerse ourselves into the fog of triviality and to remain with the clarity? To carry back the clarity?

For in it, there are no interruptions - nothing blocks the view. It is clear, simple and beautiful.