Have you noticed how flimsy our memories are? What we
remember is not what really happened. Our memories twist the reality according
to our psychological needs. We apply soothing balms on painful memories. We
exaggerate the sweet memories. As times passes, the reality and its memory may
become totally different.
My yesterdays are largely a continuum
of pain of different tinctures and decibels. A childhood of horrors conjured up
by the adults in my life and an adulthood haunted by the ghosts of my childhood.
Is it all nothing more than my memory? Is my memory a true chronicle of what
actually happened?
One of my favourite Malayalam poets,
O N V Kurup, composed a touching song about memories and nostalgia. The poet
persona longs to return to the courtyard of his childhood where sweet memories
amble. He would love to sway the gooseberry tree there once again. The berry’s
bitterness and sourness and eventual sweetness effervesce in his memories. He
longs to sit on the bank of the old river and return the call of the koel.
There’s a lot of longing in that song. Sweet desires. Sweet memories. Lucky
man, I feel envy.
I didn’t have a fraction of such
luck. Never mind. There are a lot of people who didn’t have happy pasts and yet
went on to break even or triumph too. Our yesterdays need not determine our
todays and tomorrows. History is not where we live. History is what we make up
as we get on with life.
We can even remove a few centuries
from our history if we are not comfortable with it as our present government
has done with the Mughal history in the school textbooks. After all, how much
of all that history we studied is quite true? They taught us about the victors.
What about the losers? What about the marginalised? Did history belong to them
at all? Whose is history?
Is history a collection of the lies
of the victors? And the self-delusions of the vanquished? A merger of imperfect
memories and inadequate documentation?
Our yesterdays are more evanescent
than our todays. Hazier than our tomorrows.
The heroes back there had feet of
clay but we alchemised clay into gold. The idols were as feeble as ourselves
but we reshaped them in tungsten. We still keep transmuting our gods.
Our yesterday goes back beyond Jesus
and Krishna. Beyond Dwapara yuga and Treta yuga. Back to a Big Bang. That was
the time when we were all one. Science calls it Singularity.
If I were O N V Kurup, I’d probably
write a song about returning to that Singularity to answer the call of the
first koel, the primordial music of the cosmos.
PS. This post is part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2023
Previous Post: Xenophobia
Coming up tomorrow [the last post in this series]: Z of
life
Absolutely true. Our past memories are just what we want to remember i guess, and the way we want to remember it. I had a beautiful memory of a picturesque picnic spot in shimla, i some forest. Went there with my children and found it less then charming. Maybe the fun i had with my friends is what made the place special
ReplyDeleteExactly. It's all relative. And the place changes too. The river in my village which is the sweetest memory in my consciousness is today an ungainly sight. Reality shifts. Memory confuses.
DeleteThoughtful post. Yesterday can be anything i want it to be so lets just move on~~
ReplyDeleteWhat else? We have hardly any choice unless we want expend our energies in rewriting the past.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteAll our yesterdays, regardless how we choose to recall them, result in who we are today. It is in the today that we can take responsibility, if we so choose, as to who we leave in this moment and who we become as we move forward. Ah, the great Singularity...Tat Twam Asi! YAM xx
Yes, all is one!
DeleteVery true -christine cmlk79.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteGlad you visited.
DeleteHow very true sir, our yesterdays stop at that singularity
ReplyDeleteIf all of us realise that, life would be much happier.
Deletevery true. Our history is on the pages and our present is still in the ink awaiting its fate to become the valued words or less valued one...Life never stops on history but moves forward towards future leaving its imprints in the past for admiration and praise and a path paver for my present. Yes in past clay was used later on we started using various metals including gold. Enlightening.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned feet of clay metaphorically. You're right, history won't ever hold life back. It moves on.
DeleteYesterday no more. I live by this principle, only Now is important. And like everyone else, I love the song of Koel. For many days, it would sing on a tree near my house, seems to have gone now.
ReplyDeleteMay your koel return to sing for you again and again.
Delete
ReplyDeleteWell done! Your travel & tour articles are both informative and easy to follow. Loved the real-world examples. Keep up the excellent work!
Delhi to ayodhya Flight