The politics of memory!!

Hi, all. Since nostalgia seems to be the mood of the season, I thought I'd jump on to the 'Oh-it's been-5-years' bandwagon!! 5 years!! Hmm ... that part is undisputed ... the most of the rest, however, is not ....

At the farewell party, I found that everyone (including moi) had a few memories that had 'stuck' ... be it shifting in to hostel with box, bucket and bidi [oh, well ... box and bucket anyway ...:)] ... or midnights walks to Goutham's after having negotiated the risk of getting impaled ... most of us have had moments which have somehow gotten imprinted on the cerebral hard-disk a bit deeper than others ....

Till here, its all fine ... warm and fuzzy .... But what about the rest?

Just like these moments that have inadvertently 'stuck' are there not moments which have, very conscously, been 'un-stuck'? At the risk of sounding like a moist towel, I'd say in our own private ways, we remember NUJS in more ways than what we would care to talk about at parties. And if these memories do exist, what is changing? We are leaving college, sure ... but just because we are leaving college, will our memories change? Fade ... yes ... change .. maybe, not ...

The whole point of this post, however, has been lost in my incoherent rambling. The point is ... or at least I think it is ... that surprisingly little will change ... sure, our entire pattern of life will be overturned ... rsponsibilities shall change ... but at the end of the day ... is that who we are? Does what time we wake up in the morning or when the next deadline is, really define us? I think it doesn't. I think very little will change, because we still are who we were 5 years ago ... and we'll remain the same ... Perceptions, attitudes and circumstances change - the core remains the same ... I think we are who we choose to be, and we remember what we choose to remember. So, the question really is, what do you want to remember?

Closer than you think!!

There are very few things that amaze me more than our changing perceptions of what we want from life. One minute, we want something .... the next, we get it ..... a moment after that, we are happy ... and the next, we are back to the soup-table asking "Sir, can I have some more?".

And it doesn't end there ... even when we are asking for that 'something more', we (or at least I) am mostly wondering "Do I really want this?" ... Asking questions is never bad, or so I believe ... but in this case, I cant help but feel that I am asking this question because of the wrong reasons ... I am not asking from the point of view of "As in, do I really need this?"; rather I am thinking "Can I get something better?" There's something wrong with that maybe, but I'm not sure what exactly ...

Be that as it may, we still go on ... like some futuristic guinea-pigs in an Aldous Huxley novel - ourselves the subjects (victims?) of the new experiments that we conjure up to torment ourselves ... knowing this, but thinking "Can't I think of something better?" ..... Scary ......