Who, what, when, where?

‘the advantage of having a bad memory is that you enjoy the same things again and again as if for the first time’ …or something to that effect-

Now! Who said it???

Forgive my poor memory…but ever since I read this line- a day or two ago, I am not sure, I no longer feel apologetic about it. In fact may be I am down right blessed with the ‘always first time’ syndrome…

Preoccupation, absent-mindedness, blankness, confusion, distraction, forgetfulness, fugue, amnesia, Alzeihmer’s…all with their own degrees and variations form the memory rainbow, or rather its negative.

When was the battle of Plassey fought?...Battle? if any, it was fought with my memory during the history exam … gulping and swallowing wouldn’t help clear the stubborn vacuum in the head.. Have you not tried to recall in despair the corner of the text-book page in which the map of Africa’s copper mines nestled? Or fiddled in vain with the O or A which would shape the one word answer to the objective question? Or prayed to a vague deity to enunciate the decisive words of the geometry theorem which awaited application? Who hasn’t had literal nightmares of exam blankness?
‘NOW, where did it go?’ (what else, the scrap of scribble called a receipt)…cause for domestic rifts, hot tensions…it can also be the long unused duplicate key suddenly in demand which spews forth a spume of domestic arguments: the fact is that the mind has quite deleted such a key from its screen.…
Leaving the tap open, not switching off the fan, leaving the front door key in the keyhole are some of the more elementary memory lapses; forgetting the milk boiling on the stove and turning neighbourwards for the burning odour is better than elementary forgetfulness; burning your own words and wondering ‘did I say THAT?’ ranks higher;
Forgetting faces, names, one’s own mobile number ( and recharging another’s)…-who hasn’t wanted to punch this monster called Memory, at some point in life? Like bank deposits, it comes in terms of ‘short’ and ‘long’, perhaps ‘medium’ too, even ‘fixed’-floating too maybe.

Coming to think of it, so much hinges on memory…and it starts off early.

The grandma coaxing the just-begun-to-talk baby to show off his memory skills before others; remembering birthdays to cement bonds; retaining quotes to impress a gathering; acting in plays; winning quizzes; recalling long-ago incidents with precision-reincarnate beings probably outdo all others as they effortlessly interweave two lives of their own.
Photographic memory; elephantine memory…by a quirk of fate, memory has notched for itself a niche higher than say reasoning or feeling. Number memory evokes haloed awe. Those who can recite the value of ‘pi’ to the 10th decimal place are gaped at; why, those who claim to have memorized 25 telephone numbers are touted as talented.
No wonder, techniques to nurse stunted memory health abound. From constant repetition, to self-designed clues to memory aides and memory capsules, the world would want to retain as much information as possible. Modern gadgets come with memories of their own-can we then say that the world is one big crisp memory chip; bite into it for comforting pleasure. Saved telephone numbers, saved music, saved conversations…all in their hideouts, not taxing the memory like with the aforesaid receipt. Wonder where the saved memory-energy goes… to remember where to retrieve the various saved data?

A person losing his memory therefore makes interesting story matter. In two (or is it three) TV soaps that I watched recently, a fall brings about amnesia in the protagonist. From there on, the scope is endless…the story can meander as it is willed to until one day, errant memory latches itself back to the protagonist’s brain and the story can find deliverance.

Not all amnesia is fiction though; memory loss with aging is real. A pained brain shutting off memories is real too. Fugue resulting from acute mental stress is real too. A person totally losing his sense of identity and living as another is real too.

How awful! How can one live without that major component of one’s personality?

There lies the beady-eyed shriveled bundle of Granny. A rich, competent, beautiful woman in her heyday, she is ignorant of what is going on around her-blissfully indeed. She has the happy choice of calling any person before her by any name she wants. No one points a finger at her. Hushed comments about her sorry state and baby talk with her are all the indignities her amnesia costs her. So what! Wouldn’t we wish we all had such a diplomatic passport when Memory tortures us with responsibility?
Public memory is said to be rather short and no one is the worse for it. Doing good and letting it flow away in the river may be the age old ethics of humility, but doing poorly in their responsibilities and counting on the voters’ fallible memory is a politician’s strategy. If it were not for humanity’s collective forgetfulness, would history repeat itself? The Osho says that a truly spiritual man does not hold on to experiences or memories. He just sheds them on his path to evolution. Did I say evolution? ..Did species not have to forget their obsolete survival kits before acquiring new techniques to survive?

I have a friend with a rather sharp memory. He doesn’t forget the smallest details of the remotest events; no words –good or bad-once uttered leave his memory. Utterly reliable, his word once given is like for life. For him memory is the cornerstone of life. But an argument with him can be ruinous to mental health-mine that is; when my memory plays truant, or I change track or I have simply outgrown an idea, he is prompt to haul me up for inconsistency of thought. ‘six months ago, when we were discussing this and this you said this..’ goes his argument. It vexes me no end to be pitted against a formidable opponent memorywise-but I have my doubt that he uses my frail memory to cook up things I never said… doesn’t memory often not reproduce objectively but adds its own seasonings and preservatives? The mood of the moment, the ambience, the context of a conversation, why, even the weather may spice up the memory of a certain event of long ago.

Who, what, when and where can be the hardest locks to pick-and not necessarily the most essential in life. 'Write kindnesses in marble and hurts in sand' said someone...dont we more often do the opposite-thanks to that mischief making faculty called memory? If gratitude and loyalty are borne of pleasant remembrances, the average human has more affinity to saving to memory wounds and insults which only fester with time.
Like half the world is in light when the other half is in darkness, the world works half with memory and half with forgetfulness. I uncovered this truth on my own just now but it is possible that one year from now I rack my brains trying to name the philosopher who said it…