Memory.

The full stop in the heading was intentional. Memory is not just a word, it’s a never ending sentence…but with these few memories I wish to enchain the past and stop it from fading.

There are a few things I shouldn’t forget.

My first school birthday party, the first time an eagle almost landed on my head, the big doll with blinking eyes that I never really played with, the first pup who widdled into my life…there’s so much that I was forgetting

And now I wonder because my memory stretches far. I remember words, expressions and smells and sometimes I feel I remember what I wanted to happen as what happened. Does that happen to others too?

And filling spaces between memories of relationships are memories of certain books. The time I first read them is firmly drawn in my mind and every time I see their cover or read about the author that memory comes rushing back…

Richard Bach:

I am in class 8 or 9, so I must be around 13 or 14. I am going back home from my yearly Delhi visit, travelling in a state run, non-ac rickety bus with my mom and I am reading The Bridge Across Forever. The searing heat, the dusty wind the torn butt-aching seats are lost in the background while I read about Bach and his soul mate Leslie. At that age the mere fact that I am reading a love story makes me feel big enough to unscramble the awaiting adult years…wish it were that easy…

Then as I read I realized that its not just a plain vanilla soppy love story it also talks of the many spiritual dimensions of this love… I am in absolute adult-understanding heaven! Of course now I realize why soap operas with villainous aunts and conniving cousins never ever entertained me again…

It spoilt me forever… made me expect more out of books and people. As the wise say: expectations lead to disappointments but that’s another story.

What I remember: Leslie and Bach accomplishing the astral projection of their bodies in shimmering souls and seeing their beloved cat also do that along with them!