Wednesday, May 11, 2005

forgetting

Hey..

There is one lesson from my English Reader that I havent yet forgotten from my school days. And ironically, it is about forgetting.

Human memory is one of those ultra-complicated unable to fathom secrets of biology. It 's capacity cannot be assessed in any unit and any scale whatsoever. And what's worse, it is virtually impossible to control what is retained and what is not inside that storage area. That is the saddest part, since there are certain things that you wish got wiped out of memory ...

The tamil writer Sujatha Rangarajan in one of his artciles in the recent Ananda Vikatan has written about how he has started forgetting some of the very simple facts as he is growing old. He states that with the ageing, he is able to vividly remember of his childhood days but finds it tough to recall the name of the woman who opposes Rajni in Padayappa! It is not very unusual for us to hear about old people forgetting stuff so easily. It is common to say 'Oops I forgot.. I must be getting old'. Amnesia is a joke in the movies and Alzheimers is dreadful and hopefully Regan was the last one.

But is forgetting to be worried about ? Or that awful ?

Coming back to my school lesson, the author goes on to say that Forgetting may be one of the biggest boons that God ever gave us. The only caveat to that is it cannot be invoked at will. If we turn around pages of history we find that many of the battles have been fought because society has always found it tough to forget certain events. If we look back at some of the friendships & acquaintances that we have lost in our lives, there will always be a significant percentage that we lost because we just couldnt forget some stuff that has been said.

It is too bad that we can manage to forget silly answers in a examination hall that we try too hard to remember, but cannot seem to erase from memory some of the episodes that we try to forget so hard. Having a Selective Amnesia seems such a neat idea as long as we get to select what needs to be remembered and what not.

Infact our politicians bet a lot on forgetting. They keep dumping one scam over the other and rely on the fact that people do forget. Bofors, Fodder, Airbus, Stock market, Postal, Stamp paper, wealth misappropriation, Military coffin - and still same set people go to the Parliaments and Assemblies every other election.

As a individual, as a group, as a society, as a country and as a civilization forgetting needs to happen. Forgetting gives more gains than remebering in cases. A country needs to consciously forget tragic events of history that only provoke revenge; A society needs to consciously forget the angry words uttered and injustice done centuries ago that only kindle hate; An individual needs to consciously forget the failed love affair that only drives him to sadness and grow a beard ... ... ...

Iam not sure if I would wish for a rewind button if life were recorded. But I sure will wish for a erase button.

Chao..

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I for one will surely wish for both the Rewind & Erase button.

Anonymous said...

Siva -

The reason why we do not forget certain events in history is because there is someone or the other who keeps reminding us of it for their own selfish benefits. We want to forget, but they just don't let us!

Each action in our life is a full commit transaction! There is no undo or rollback. There is a tamil saying, Vaarthaiyai vittutta alla mudiyaadhu. But, then if we keep to that, we will all be acting. So, there is a thin line dividing openness with abrasiveness.

What that line is? Hmm ... Differs from person to person. But, once that lakshman rekha is crossed, it needs a war! But even the great Rama questioned Sita's chastity after her return. Things will never be the same again...