Be Kind - Rewind

As I grow older, I have this niggling worry that I am forgetting more and more of my past. True, one has to live in the present and look forward to the future. However, when my teens seem like a blur and the twenties seem all hazy, it feels like I have lost a part of myself.....

Until Std X, I felt like my life only consisted of school and in those days I couldnt imagine a life outside its four walls. That’s only natural since from ages 3 to 15, my school was my oyster. Today, my school days can be best recaptured in a few amusing (some painful ones featuring nuns and PT teachers) anecdotes. Have I forgotten what it was to be a school girl, has that part of my memory dimmed? Ditto for college and thereafter.

It is an overwhelming thought, isn’t it, the days that have gone by getting erased as you move into the future. Whats scarier is that often your friends and family seem to have a better memory than you..

Luckily, there are ways to recapture those lost moments. When my senses act as an ally to my sieve like mind. Let me explain. Aren’t there moments when your senses react to a medium (say a song), thereby jogging memories which you thought were erased. After the OMG feeling subsides, I wonder at the depth of my memories and what all is registered in my memory of which I have no clue *twilight zone music, plays eerily on*

So let’s start with music as a medium to remember the good ol days. So many songs bring back not only a recollection of an incident, but the exact way you felt at that moment in your history. Like a feeling of déjà vu, I can sense my state of mind then and what I was like at a different time in my life. Whenever I hear any song of the Beatles, I am instantly transported back to Std 10, 1995-1996. It was then that I had heard the Beatles for the first time and I went through the next few months believing I was a flower child of the 60’s. Which is what I do now as well, if I want to recapture my school days, “Help!” is only a song away. Its amazing that I can recall which year a song was released in (ie only songs post the 90’s), because the song makes me remember what I was doing back then! Yes, I treat this as a gift.

Recapturing memories is not restricted through the powerful medium of music. I find perfume also has the power to take you back. A whiff of a fragrance/ stink can remind you of holidays by the sea/ mountains, loved ones, your gym, office and what not. I still remember my internship days and the nervousness I felt when I get a whiff of CK Be, which I wore back then. The beauty of the senses getting activated is that the recollections assume multiple dimensions, its really a time machine if you think of it.

I know some well wishers will advise me to hold on to my memories by maintaining a diary. As all of us who’ve tried know, it takes discipline. I started one at age 12 and there are gaps as wide as the Grand Canyon. However, it is very amusing to look back and read about my issues in my teens. As a short cut, I find maintaining a diary noting for the year that went by satisfactory. It’s works as a report card!

For the most part, day on day life seems pretty routine and you sometimes want to know whatever filled up your year and what you’d been doing. A new age tool which I find effective to check on what I did in the year that went by – my facebook/ twitter status updates. Its often inane but I find it reassuring to see an update which says that on November 29, 2009, I was jumping on a trampoline with my nephew!!!

Thank God for the most important medium to remember your glorious past. Photographs! All of you out there, take some time and print your digital pictures, 36 for each trip you went for, each birthday you celebrated, your new house, your family, your friends, your workplace, a new landmark in your city. Because that marks your life and is a testimony that you have lived. Believe me, you don’t want to lose a part of you when your hard disk crashes......