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…