Down the Memory Lane - 1

How many times it has happened when you are walking down the street or driving and you hear a tune and it brings back a flood of memories of days gone by rushing back? Sometimes it is just a thought or even a certain smell or the way the clouds are in the sky or the way sky looks. I am sure we all have lived through these moments that bring a smile to our faces and an extra spring to our steps. Now one thing I always wonder about these memories are how come all these trips down the memory lane are almost always positive - very rarely do we remember the struggles, the travails or the hardships of days gone by. Instead it always is the friendships, the food and the fun that comes rushing to our minds. Is it a human way of optimizing our existence and keeping just the most life enforcing parts with us and discard the rest of it - an Evolutionary Theory for Memory per se - and what role does it play in our own evolution as a person, development as a human being? Anyway, I am not going to go all Freud on you and try and delve into the deeper mysteries of the human mind, though I wish I could do that, but rather I wanted to share my amazement at the power of mind and memories in shaping our current view point of the world and our lives.

You must have heard this argument a gazillion times where someone compares today's music, pop culture or any other aspect in vogue and dismisses it with a generic statement on the lines of "Oh! This no way compares to the XYZ (fill in whatever you want to here) of days gone by". Now we have heard this in 80s as a kid when dismissing the music scene of that time compared to 70s, same thing in 90s compared to 80s and so on. Now those same dismissed eras are coming back and have provided all of us with masterpieces compared to the drivel today - here we go again. Now who is to say that a Choli is better than a Sheela or a Munni or Tamma Tamma or Jumma Chumma scores over Paisa Paisa or any of those Himesh Reshamiyaa songs. And this discrimination or nostalgia is not restricted to the music scene only - the mangoes were sweeter then, or the Sun was brighter, which though may be the case or that Dhyanchand was better than Dhanraj or whatever else catches our fancy at any time to be compared. Irrespective, with a few exceptions, the past always wins except for when we are comparing say a clear cut winner that either didn't have a direct comparison or beats down the past options handily. And have you also noticed that most of these arguments hailing past is best almost always are about softer aspects of life and never about material and / or fact based aspects. 

So why do we play these games - is it to lull ourselves into thinking that we have had a charmed life so far and feel happy about it or is it just because we don't remember any better or is it just a way of protecting ourselves and gaining inspiration to do better in future. I think it is a combination of all three.

Consider this, what I have seen most of the time is that a memory of something is much more powerful and pleasant than the actual thing - it is like playing a song that we remember hearing as a kid - Hawa Hawa anyone? - and we have this grandiose vision of the quality of it, but if you really listen to it again, more often than not you will find that it was mediocre to say the best. Not trying to spoil the memories for us all as these are but small aberrations.

Enough said already. My goal was not to go into the semantics of why memories are so powerful and what they mean but rather dissect some of them.

Don't we all get nostalgic at times? The earliest trip I can take down the memory lane is probably to the time when I was a couple of years in this world. Now that is a neat thing if you really think about it - but it is not more than a collage of sights, sounds, smells and backgrounds fairly indistinguishable from each other. But one thing that we can all relate to are sports, movies and music of our times. I have been lucky and spoiled to have discovered some great ones early in my life. And needless to say that I truly believe that some of them helped shape the way I think and who I am in life. And don't laugh:), there was a recent article published based on a series of studies providing proof that memories do help determine where one will end up. I remember reading Malgudi Days among other books as a kid and what mesmerized me was how simple the writing was and still it captivated my imagination. That told me that we need not complicate things to make them compelling. I believe that is a very powerful lesson. How many times with our analysis and zealousness, we complicate simple things in life and make it so much harder. If it was only as simple and straightforward as it was for Swami and friends then a lot of issues will resolve itself. And to think that we all start that way to begin with but somehow our outlook gets clouded on the way.

On the other spectrum are Oscar Wilde and Sir Vidia - every line that they write is full of complexity and a quote by itself - and that goes to show that when you really have true mastery over your art, you can make complex things look so simple and bare bones that we can all connect to. Look at what goes on in Mr Jobs mind and you will know what I am talking about - he is the techno version of Sir Vidia or Oscar Wilde. Now that is another one of my theory that I would expand on one of these days. But coming back to the memory thing - what I was trying to say is that keeping things simple most of the time is the best way forward - as only a few of us can lay the claim to be geniuses we are better off keeping things as simple as possible.

I will leave you to munch on that 'simple' thought for some time. But as the number 1 in the title indicates there will be more trips down the memory lane - starting with my thoughts on books and music and movies. And this time it will be a faster turn around. So bring on your thoughts and trips.

P.S. Look forward to your comments