Skip to main content

I have no nostalgias


Nostalgia wipes away bad memories and magnifies good ones, says Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his autobiography, Living to Tell the Tale.  [I have modified his words a little and hence no quotation marks.]  Now I know why I have no nostalgias.  It’s very amusing when I come to think about it. 

I lived in quite a few places in South India, and then in Shillong and Delhi.  I lived with all sorts of people in these places, people belonging to different religions, castes, tribes, and cultures.  These places and people have given me a lot of memories but no nostalgia whatever.  

There were so many funny people who provided a whole lot of entertainment to me all along the way.  However, those experiences become entertainment only when I look back from the distance of today.  Standing on “a heap of broken images” of an Eliotean Waste Land, I have little to long for from those days which are lost permanently (and mercifully?) anyway.   

My fears and desires, joys and sorrows were all real.  Did my fears and sorrows outweigh my joys and fulfilments?  I’m not even sure.  I have reached a stage when the answer to the question doesn’t matter at all.  Was it all worthwhile?  That’s a question which arises in the core of my being more frequently than I would like it to.  Could I have helped it anyway whether it was worthwhile or not?

If I could walk the same paths once again, I would do the whole trekking in a different manner.  But the funniest thing about life, I think, is that by the time you learn the lessons that really matter you are too old to need those lessons.  

I have no regrets, however.  Regrets are futile burdens on the soul, quite as futile as nostalgias perhaps. Decisions make the difference.  Decisions belong to the present.  They shape the present.  Where else can we live but in the present?



Comments

  1. Purba chakrabortyOctober 23, 2017 at 8:50 PM

    So true! It's best to live in the present.
    Thought provoking post :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rajeev MoothedathOctober 24, 2017 at 7:49 AM

    "But the funniest thing about life, I think, is that by the time you learn the lessons that really matter you are too old to need those lessons"- interesting observation!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Renu VyasOctober 24, 2017 at 10:07 PM

    Absolutely loved this post Sir and can so relate to this..like you said, I too might have done things in a different way if given a chance but I have no regrets..I learnt from them and the experiences made me wiser..some may call me a cynic but I am what I am :) Thank you for sharing such a lovely post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 25, 2017 at 7:38 AM

      Glad to get this comment, Renu. I'm called a cynic by some. But I know I'm more positive in outlook than people credit me for. I live in the present.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
25 comments
Read more

Queen of Religion

She looked like Queen Victoria in the latter’s youth but with a snow-white head. She was slim, fair and graceful. She always smiled but the smile had no life. Someone on the campus described it as a “plastic smile.” She was charming by physical appearance. Soon all of us on the Sawan school campus would realise how deceptive appearances were. Queen took over the administration of Sawan school on behalf of her religious cult RSSB [Radha Soami Satsang Beas]. A lot was said about RSSB in the previous post. Its godman Gurinder Singh Dhillon is now 70 years old. I don’t know whether age has mellowed his lust for land and wealth. Even at the age of 64, he was embroiled in a financial scam that led to the fall of two colossal business enterprises, Fortis Healthcare and Religare finance. That was just a couple of years after he had succeeded in making Sawan school vanish without a trace from Delhi which he did for the sake of adding the school’s twenty-odd acres of land to his existing hun
19 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more