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Yesterdays



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

Comments

  1. DeepikaApril 28, 2023 at 9:29 AM

    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

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 28, 2023 at 9:34 AM

      Exactly. 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.

      Delete
  2. CareenaApril 28, 2023 at 10:04 AM

    Thoughtful post. Yesterday can be anything i want it to be so lets just move on~~

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 28, 2023 at 11:22 AM

      What else? We have hardly any choice unless we want expend our energies in rewriting the past.

      Delete
  3. Yamini MacLeanApril 28, 2023 at 4:31 PM

    Hari OM
    All 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

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousApril 28, 2023 at 5:20 PM

    Very true -christine cmlk79.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. Harshita NandaApril 28, 2023 at 8:17 PM

    How very true sir, our yesterdays stop at that singularity

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 28, 2023 at 10:40 PM

      If all of us realise that, life would be much happier.

      Delete
  6. WaterApril 28, 2023 at 11:47 PM

    very 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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 29, 2023 at 7:38 AM

      I mentioned feet of clay metaphorically. You're right, history won't ever hold life back. It moves on.

      Delete
  7. AmbicaApril 29, 2023 at 7:42 AM

    Yesterday 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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 29, 2023 at 10:01 AM

      May your koel return to sing for you again and again.

      Delete
  8. akash guptaJanuary 15, 2024 at 6:27 PM


    Well 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

    ReplyDelete

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