Un-Almond

‘Main Kaha Hoon’ a dialogue that had the ability to give the much deserved twist when the movie would turn dull. The 80s and the 90s were filled with movies having these memory loss sequences.  Sometimes it would even mean a comedy situation wherein one hit on the head would be a memory loss and a repeat hit on the same spot would be regain of memory. Over the year this twist became too very repetitive and eventually died a natural death. Off late, when I was watching Judwaa-2 again I came across this phenomenon where the villain losses his memory upon a hit on the head by the hero and eventually regains memory by a hit on the same spot. While these memory losses and regains used to be the game-changers, the importance of memory was much more beyond movies.

During my childhood, the importance of memory power was critical to an extent of intelligence been mistaken to memory power.

At school, being a mediocre student had quite a few challenges that only the mediocre students would understand. In school usually there were 3 categories of students.

The first categories of students were those that studied for percentages. They were absolutely oblivion to the phenomenon called FAIL. They were the scholars of the class. Favourite students of all the teachers and even the preferred monitor types. These were those folks who were used as examples of the parents of category 2 & 3 students. They were seemingly the elite class population.

The second categories of students were the extreme opposite. They were the perpetual repeaters of the class. Their parents didn’t really have much expectation from them. Even if they would pass the exam it would be time to celebrate. A typical back-bencher and attending school because they were sent by their parents. This category would actually know the importance of 35 marks in the exam. On a lighter note, the underprivileged type.  

The third category was my category, the mediocre ones. They were neither scholars nor perpetual repeaters. These folks had too much of society pressure of entering the elite class and a constant fear of not slipping in the underprivileged class. We used to get worried when the scholars would keep taking supplement after supplements during exam while we struggled to fill the main answer booklet.

The third category students usually had to undergo too many therapies to ensure we also become scholars. One formula our parents used on us was to soak 2 almonds overnight and give us to eat early morning. Almonds were known to increase memory and we all had the dose of these tasteless almonds. While the times were changing and the thrust was moving towards understanding things, still this by-hearting potion was part of our routine. Our parents failed to realise that our low grades were primarily because of lack of interest rather than lack of intelligence.

Bottom line all ate almonds, either to sustain their performance or upgrade. It was a part of our nutrition and played wonders in our life. As we grew our memory power got so strong that we started remembering everything.

Good events, bad events, achievements, failures, heart-breaks, betrayals, kindness etc. We started remembering it all.

In my profession, one challenge I usually have while conducting workshops is to make the participants unlearn. People seem so much convinced with their own thoughts and their own ways of working that seldom they are in mood to consider any type of change in the regular scheme of things.  One usual anecdote used during workshops is the Chained Elephant syndrome. The story goes as follows.

As a man was passing by the circus, he suddenly stopped amused and confused by seeing that a small rope was tied to the front leg of elephant to hold him there.

He thought to himself, “No chains, No cages. It’s obvious that such huge elephant can easily break this small rope and be free anytime he wants but for some reason he did not.”

While he was thinking, trainer passes by him. He stopped him and asked, “Why this elephant just stood there and making no attempt to get away?”

 

Trainer replied, “Well, When he was very young and much smaller we used the same size rope to tie them and at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they started to believe that they cannot break away and this rope can still hold them. So they never try to free.”

Like that elephant, many of us go through life hanging on to belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed once before..!!

It was the memory of the elephant that kept giving him messages that in the past he had tried breaking free but couldn’t hence the trap.

 

The problem is we are all trapped in the memories of the past. We move from an old house to a new house and keep missing the old house, people and the ambience of the old house. We move from one job to another job and we end up either comparing the new job to the old one or keep missing the old office group. We move on in relationships as well, in spite of moving on we don’t move away from the memories. We are neither present fully in the current relation nor in the past. It seems challenging to get-off the old memories.

I happened to meet an old friend of mine who have been an avid photographer. While I was enquiring about her photography updates, she informed me that she had limited her photography to bare essentials. Upon further probing she mentioned that while she was used to clicking lot of pictures while travelling in order to create memories she was actually missing out on experiencing the places, smelling the soil, feeling the air, touching the stones, grasses etc. She was actually missing out on just closing the eyes and getting absorbed in the new place. This gave me a new perspective on creating memories vis-à-vis having an experience.   

Memories traps us in the past, experiences evolves us for the future.

Until sometime back I used to really get upset with people who would perpetually keep forgetting things and activities. It was such a bad sign of been irresponsible and revealed lack of focus in what they did. Their forgetfulness would make them non-reliable as well. However now I feel that these folks are so much blessed that they just keep forgetting things, no baggage from the past. Everything for them is new and fresh. Going back to the game changer scenes of the 80s and 90s, today I keep thinking that a person having a memory loss, is it really a curse or a boon?  

I am now searching for a new dry fruit which would be an antidote for all the almonds eaten so far.