Reminiscences?

Its funny how the brain works. No, I am not referring to the left half of your brain or the right, the upper cerebellum or the lower cerebrum, I am referring to that tiny little department tucked away into those dark alleys of your brain, with the sheer confidence that it has concealed itself from your prying gaze forever. Yes, that one. I am talking about the Memory Department.

Its rather funny that I should be struck by it today, for today was no different than yesterday, or for that matter the day before that. I was reading through a rather riveting novel, in which one of the protagonists (???) was traveling through the rain swept plains of undivided India, marvelling with childlike wonder at the bizarre spectacle that the flooded fields seemed to a Sahib like him. And quite unexpectedly, I was carried back to a similar memory from the lost shelves gathering dust in the Department, a vision of flooded plains, and a bamboo shack floating as in defiance to the mighty wrath of nature. I dont even know how much of what comes floating back into my mind actually took place, and how much has since been embedded , thanks to the idiot box. It is so faint, a wisp really, and yet, I can still remember every damn detail of that shack floating in the field. The dull brown clumps of bamboo, everything. The surrounding details might have been constructed by unseen forces, but that shack I can vouch for. So poignantly beautiful a simple shack can be.

And when I cast my mind back along the stinky, abandoned by lanes, hidden deep in the mists of time, I notice, what I have seen all my life without noticing, that I have forgotten so much that I would deem unforgettable at the time of their occurrence, and yet I remember so much that I would be the first one to relegate to the category that we humans label by disgraceful words like trivial.

When I asked my dad to turn on the world news when I was five to impress a rather patronizing bhaiya who lived across the lane and was visiting my place for dinner. Or when I puked over my english exam in class 2 after getting overexcited about a bee that had entered the class, and afterwards I distinctly remember my teacher telling me with a lot of regret that I had gotten 97 as I had misspelt "King" as "Kink" (yeah, I was born horny), in five places. Or when I sat gaping open mouthed at Her during my class 12th board exam, noticing how small her hands were, noticing how the corners of lips pursed upwards while she solved her maths papers, how beautiful she looked sweating in that thin sliver of light illuminating her face.I remember a particular stone in Rue Moufettard for no particular reason. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it, and yet my glance fell on it every single day when I went to buy the paper.

And I remember now, this same thought passing through my head last year, as I was contemplating whether to blog about it or no, and then the rain, and me rushing back to the TV room just in time to see some Dutch guy fouling a Cote d'Ivoire player. And I was infuriated.

But anyway, I think I am rambling.In queen's english no less, but I am. Does the brain have a system, a method in its madness? How does he (forgive the gender bias) select which ones to archive and which ones to cast away? God knows, or does he??

Come to think of it, I remember having said that too. After being asked by my class 8 sanskrit teacher why I thought I was mentally unstable enough not to take a bath for a week. I dont remember what she did to me though