My life has always been an unscathed journey of jotting annotations within meaningless scribbles on the back page of a notebook. A few months back, when I used to work at an art curating organisation, I came across a gallon of old antiques (paintings, books, manuscripts, sculptures etc to be specific) from bygone centuries. I have wondered then, what memories do these elements hold within themselves? Do they fumble syllables to escape or recollect of past once they are stacked in a dark room for further scrutiny which we also coin as 'Archiving'?
Memories have their toll of exhaustion. Memories tire. Memories burden our heads. Momentarily we confuse the lightness of nostalgia to be our kin. However, they feed on us. Feeds upon the flesh of the left behind days distorting our hypotheses. This is something I draw out as a conclusion when the memories of the past days wrench my limbs and thoughts. As severe the grip of the past clutches my throat, the more I escape with pessimism.
However, as the dusk rolls down with the dozing sun, I lean over the terrace railings to look down and gaze at a small patch of algae growing on the wall of an emptied abandoned house. The house used to belong to a family of four. A lot of people came to stay as tenants in that house after the owners left. Yet the intrusion of a batch of foreign beings couldn't taint the existence of those who owned the space. That's what memories do. They never let the lot go vacant. Occupancy leads themselves to one's body as a growing fetus.
When I was 8, I went to Uttarakhand on my family vacation. Most of the hilly routes, hushed snow-capped mountains, woolly jackets, untied shoelaces, and the crackling sound of the bonfire wood have been brushed off from my memories. I do remember the earful I used to get for puking at higher altitudes for my motion sickness. I never mind them though. What made me laugh after 16 years of that trip is that I still remember the song or a few sets of songs our driver used to play in the car all through the course of our journey. His name was Vinod, a jovial man who told us how he got married recently then and showed my parents and grandparents his wedding picture which he carried in his wallet. I remember, that how he used to play those same batches of songs again and again every day on the stereo, without pausing a bit. Surprisingly we never got bored of it. To be very honest, we did take pleasure in those 'pahadi' songs.
A few days ago, while I was going restless in my bed as I was failing miserably to sleep in the night and the dawn was about to break, I was suddenly reminded of those 'pahadi' songs long gone and lost in the sharp bend of the hilly roads of Uttarakhand. Shuddering in my memory lane, I took my phone and typed the songs describing their scenarios on the search bar on YouTube. Oh, let me mention it here, my dadu(s) were so pumped up with those songs that while returning from our trip, they bought a DVD of each of those 'pahadi' songs which contained music videos of those songs as well. They worked as a useful round of detox for our post-vacation blues back then. Surprisingly, I managed to get or successfully managed to find two of the songs from that playlist on YouTube!
Watching them after a fair good decade of highs and lows, misery and magic, loss and longing, I was struck with a gush of mountain breeze; projecting me chunks of visuals which I believed that I almost had forgotten. I do remember those sharp bends embedded in my memories like an affectionate dose of a lover's kiss. Have I ever thought I would return to those days when I was accompanied by a group of complicated yet caring beings? Or have I ever thought in my slightest moment of inhibition that most of them won't be around me anymore? Nevertheless, this time memories didn't threaten me with their sharp claws deterring me from falling behind. It held my hands as a sign of strength. Memories are a token of reminder of your days of survival. It tells you once in a while and lets you shine in glory about your mark till the end of your race.
In the bleakest moments, I still remember the way I fell asleep in my grandfather's lap in the car soaking in the October sun rushing like a fountain on my face and fist resting on his old knees. I remember my father, nagging me and my sister to wake up early so that the three of us could take a walk around to sink ourselves in the scenic magnificence of the Garhwali aura. Those moments have gone along with the wind. I don't know where those DVDs are, nor I don't know where Vinod is. Still, the songs on his playlist kept the last strings of our handful of shared days, which I won't ever get to live again. My gratitude to him, the sharp broken roads of Uttarakhand and my deceased kin who let me live in the bubble of happiness so that their absence can continue to breathe with my trudging existence. They live as long as memories live. Memories never die. They fill in the silence when words fail. They fill in the void when love fails. They fill in the joy when life fails.
Here are the links (tap on the names) to those two songs which I found on YouTube:
1. Pahar Chuti Ge: This is a song about a little boy leaving his hometown behind and taking on a journey to the city to work in a roadside hotel as a service boy to make ends meet for his family. The song projects child labour and also one's agony of ending ties with the comfort of childhood innocence.
2. Meri Pitro ki Basayi: The song is a lament of Garhwal and its lost glory and culture as the singer recalls the greatness of his forefathers and the river of Uttarakhand.
Note: These are my observations which I have deciphered from the videos. Any other surmise is heartily welcome.
Shrestha :')
