What is the oldest memory of your life?
How far will you be able to travel back in time?
Most of us will certainly be able to trace it back to our childhood. But, how much do we really remember? Have you really kept track of all your past years? These were the questions that kept pondering me for sometime. And what I realized is “NO”! Certainly not!
What I am able to recall are only those few specific moments of my life that got impressed on the otherwise large plain sheet of time and life. What happened to all other moments of my life? They just exist as a reason for my present form and existence, kept alive either in the form of documents, certificates, mementos and things around me.
I realized that I can never recall my life in complete sequence from one point to the other. I can’t take two reference points and narrate everything that happened between those two events, every moment. I surely have lived every moment of it. But none of them exists anymore. They only exist in small disconnected pieces, like a bunch of small threads. No matter how hard I try to put them together, I can never weave my life out of them.
I am reminded of a scene from the movie “BluffMaster” where Boman Irani tries to explain Abhishek Bachan that life is not about the number of years we have lived, but the number of moments we remember out of them. Great thought of course!
Thinking why I am sounding so philosophical? Well, I am not actually. It’s just again a moment in my life which triggered these thoughts. Recently, the News channels celebrated 20 years of the patriotic song “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”. It was first aired on Doordarshan on the 15th of Aug, 1988. And it was certainly one of the most beautiful songs ever composed. Watching the song brought back those old memories. It was so difficult to believe that 20 years have passed. I don’t remember if I watched this song when it was first aired. But I have certainly watched it some hundreds of times and have loved it every time. The reason could also be the stars that drew all my attention. But come to think of it, the composition itself was melodious enough to satiate your senses. The freshness of the song transcended across times and even today sounds as refreshing as ever. It still seems like yesterday when the song was played before a 5 pm movie or after the 9 pm News.
20 years have passed and I only remember a few days.
Well said
very well narrated