An avalanche of memoirs

I have to go back to code in a while. I work round the clock these days, with short breaks here and there. It keeps me busy; away from thoughts and memories that I want to keep a distance from. In late evenings, I take a stroll in my pajamas to a very posh street of Pune; hardly a minute’s walk. I am either in a corner of Café Coffee Day sipping on my favorite hot Cappuccino and staring at the 3.2” screen of my mobile phone, tweeting and browsing tweets, or on the stairs of the grand Mariplex Gold Cinemas mall watching people get impatient for the red traffic light to turn green and the ensuing sigh of relief when it finally does. Times have changed; they always do. It will be insane to root for any similarity between the life of today with bountiful aids of the twenty-first century advancements and the oblivious days in a then remote village of a developing country. But there are moments like today when one gets submerged into an avalanche of memories, compelled to ponder over the differences of yesterday and today. I have been shaped through this evolution of time; matured through the hardships of the life of yesterday and coddled by the comfort of the life of today.

I have a choice between two huge departmental stores when I think of groceries and sometimes I even hop into both on the same day; and I even own a membership card for both. How is it different from walking down the dusty road to a grocery shop about half a mile away only to get half a kilogram of sugar because we were out of sugar to serve tea to the guest, and savoring an orange flavored chocolate ball on way back home? More than often, when I make instant wise decisions to dine out today, I make sure I have my shopping card in my wallet, rather than cash. How is it different from flipping through the pages of notebooks looking for a ten-rupee note placed the earlier week in order to go for a samosa treat at a roadside cart shop in the nearby square? The weekends are fun when I get bored in the ten by eight cell of my room, switch start my bike and in half an hour, find myself reading my favorite book in a quiet corner of an abandoned seventeenth century fort, twenty miles away from city. How is it different from planning a vacation twice a year, traveling for two hours on a steam engine and then walking three miles in scorching sun, stopping a couple of times under the shade of aged banyan trees on way, only to reach a relative’s place mere twenty miles from home?

The life of yesterday involved me; today I am either the initiator or the customer or a mere spectator. It is only natural of me, when I select a few mangoes at the store and get them weighed and tagged with a bar code, to recall those days and nights in the mango orchard in the outskirts of the village, guarding the mangoes with my kin. Hundreds of mangoes were gathered over a day, scores of them quarreled over and gulped, hands washed again and again in the same water logged in the nearby paddy field. The mud-soaked dress and dirty hands went ignored all day, and nights were even more fun, hushing up and peeking out of the cottage waiting for the well-known lady ghost who supposedly roamed with a torch at midnight. How is it different from vacuuming the slight dirt on floor, washing hands so often with a liquid soap and getting back to the couch to watch the “most haunted places” series on Discovery channel? Life has, for sure, moved at a faster pace than I did. It has taken a giant, a really giant, leap from borrowing a VCR player from a local shop to watch a recent movie to the cozy cushioned seats of the multiplexes that I can book tickets online for, and for sure the 3D glasses.

The calling of a friend’s name from our bicycles outside his house and that too at the top of our voices so that his mom will get irritated enough to let him go, the paper boat competition in a road side temporary water stream after a monsoon shower, the witnessing of weird shapes moving in dark and the scare to death when the kerosene oil lantern went off during evening studies, the days long cycling from village to village to distribute a relative’s marriage card and the list would never end; the individual memories that gushes in this avalanche now. It is only human nature to desire for what I miss, but not at the expense of losing my today. There is a certain liberty that I am hooked to, that makes me crave for an escape from the incompetency of today but then tugs me back to its comfort and indolence.

The green lush of paddy fields, and the mud houses in the village, whatever is left now, still entices me today. And when I crave for the tranquility in air and the panoramic feast to eyes, my status on Facebook says “I need a break”. That’s the restful me inside. I have undergone a metamorphosis, induced by the hallucinations of technological and social encroachments all these years. I am either living the hallucinations or reeling under its after-effects; the life of today is now my habit. A click of a button at my desk does half my job; my favorite book arrives at my doorstep adeptly packed and couriered, access to my favorite wine is only the distance to the refrigerator, I don’t have to go to my neighbor’s house to watch the prime time soap and my friends in the States can call me any time, free of cost. There is too much at stake to advocate against the life of today. The green lush and the mud houses are only a “break” for me from my routine, unfortunately.  I might love it, but I cannot think of my life as a life of yesterday. But yes, I do miss them.

Imperfections at both ends. While I have to reach out for my mobile phone as soon as I wake up in the morning to check my Facebook and Twitter updates, I desperately need the serenity of a rural dawn with the crimson sun. While I need to play loud Akon’s creativity in weary afternoons and plug in my ear phone for Pink Floyd’s creative creations at night, I would prefer the busty village girls singing the countryside folklore on their way to fields to the zero-sized over-smartly dressed girls at the mall bitching about their friends. The chirping of birds is more soothing than the conking of cars at the signal; the life of yesterday was more beautiful.

I know a blend is not possible, because technology kills nature and knowledge kills innocence. Today has risen from the death of yesterday, and the cycle repeats every moment. But awareness of this brutal truth is not going to make memories of the past any less substantial. This avalanche passes by for today, but it will come again, some other day in some other form with some other memories and raise the same questions again. The same questions will emerge significant once again, and once again subside. Life goes on, leaving behind memories; and times do change.