Re-living memories...is it fair?

Sometimes an old song, or a whiff of perfume, or a phrase makes a memory come alive...and we take a long, deep wallow in it. Things return to that state of time - our mind, our relationships, our commitments, all take a leap back in time. Briefly, I agree, but there it is. Memories, I have found, are potent. They can play our emotions like a harp...make us re-live our first heart break, our first ecstacy with great fidelity. And then, in time, we start tapping in to our memories like a favorite DVD collection. Calling on to happy, content moments in the past when the present doesn't seem to live up. And this, is what I have been thinking about. Is it really fair?

You know what the wise ones say right…memory shows selective pictures. We choose to remember what we want, abstracting only the good out of a perfectly normal and as-shitty-as-today situation. Remembering the romance from a relationship that had the usual share of tensions, remembering the freedom of a childhood that was equally frazzled with bewilderment, remembering the strength of a youth that probably had more than its fair share of mistakes. We command only the favorite pictures out of the album of our lives…and then, leave the present for a deep escapist dip.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact of being old enough to have memories now. But I do also get wary of using them as a cop out…or an unfair comparison to the present when things aren’t too good.

This was brought home to me on coming to know about a friend who seems to have blurred the lines between the past and the present. Jeopardizing her current marriage of six years for a friend whom she’d willingly chosen to let go of earlier. Why? I really struggled for an answer… Why, when she had decided consciously to marry another, is she going back to him? Out of boredom? Is it because the routine, responsible life of the present does not compare well with the constant “hanging out” of the college days? It may sound trivial, but I’ve known ennui to be a dangerous state…

But then again, I think, what of lives where the present really does not compare well with the past?

In either case, maybe, the question is of disillusioning ourselves; of letting go of our present, letting go of conscious, active, living. Deriving momentary pleasure or succor from the good times is okay, I guess, but make sure you check out before the time zone changes…

Strangers in the night...

ek mukhtasar raat, ek mukhtasar baat
do gumnaam ajnabee, aur ek mukhtasar saath...

benaam sa yeh rishtaa...
kuch adhura saa, kuch mukammal bhi
kuch unchhua, kuch haasil bhi

na aagaz, na anjaam
na waada, na wafa

bas, do ajnabee, aur ek mukhtasar raat