Thursday 26 February 2015

Memory


Memory is a strange thing. It will find you in the most unwitting times, when you’re not expecting it. The tapping of the rain on the window, the discovery of a wrinkled leaf pressed between the pages of a book, your favourite song playing on the radio as you drive back home after a long day at work, the rustle of a sari…
The rustle of a sari — I remember ma wrapped in a sari — of her quietly walking into my room; the crackle of the starch as she sat down beside me when I was half-asleep. She always looked beautiful: long dark hair falling on her face, which she tucked behind her ears before pulling the chaadar away from me. The fan always stirred with a lazy whrrr and the sunlight from the window filled the room with a lovely light. I remember her eyes gleaming, her face lit up, earrings pinched to her ears, her spectacles sitting at the crown of her head like young girls with shiny hairbands. I’d mumble, whine, curl my toes and cringe my nose, hold my throat and cough so loud that I’d almost scare the pigeons off the window pane. But my drama was pointless—somehow, she always managed to send me to school.
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My father had big, strong hands — the kinds in which my tiny chubby hands would disappear every time he held them, and I’d always feared that they've been eaten up. So I would wriggle my hands out every time, just to make sure they were still there. I remember going to school, skipping and hopping with my hand wrapped around his sturdy finger, my long hair galloping on my back, the pleats of my skirt ballooning with every thump of my feet, my shoelaces untied, and my socks which my mother made me pull up every morning before sitting in the car, sagging at my ankles. Very few kids like going to school. I probably belonged to that “strange” lot. I loved the drives with my dad before he dropped me to school. We would sing songs throughout the journey. His big, puffy red cheeks which I always thought were filled with cotton candy, his thick black moustache which curtained his smile, his wisp-like curly hair spiralling out and spiralling in by the wind from the pulled down windows, his thumbs drumming on the steering wheel as we sang: “I’m Henry the 8th I am, Henry the 8th I am I am, I got married to the widow next door, she’s been married 7 times before and every one is a Henry. HENRY. Henry the 8th I am I am, Henry the 8th I am!”

These excerpts were a part of a collaborative project titled Memory: A Visual and Musical Performance for DesignxDesign closing party at Alliance Francaise, New Delhi, 2015.

{memory, childhood, stories, Diaries, autobiography, notes from memory, prose}