Watermark

Sometime back, while trying recollect the name of a Chinese restaurant in Koramangala which existed circa 2003, I got stuck. Despite different mashups of the various terms used typically for Chinese restaurant names, nothing sounded right. It was a small mom-and-pop joint and since the net didn’t then feature all the resources it has now, I was well and truly stumped. It was quite disappointing since we’d had many a meal there. It didn’t help that I have this ‘thing’ about remembering such places, events and people. I feel as though I have betrayed them in some way. Yes, weird, thank you. :p  The book, for once, couldn’t help either. I finally got the answer by checking with a friend who’d been in Koramangala long enough. Once I got the name, I even managed to get an image on the net – Szechuan Garden. 🙂

A few days later, I watched Pakal Nakshatrangal, a movie about a script writer – director played by Mohanlal. The narrative is from the perspective of his son, an author, who writes his father’s biography, and in the process tries to solve the mystery of his death. The movie begins with the demolition of ‘Daffodils’, the cultural hub of the previous era’s intellectuals and the scene of Mohanlal’s many exploits. There is a sequence in which a television newsreader reports this and we can see different people viewing it from different places reminiscing about their experiences there. A group of people connected by a place.

A place or an event in that place – that means something to a set of people – something only they share. And when they cease to exist, the memory disappears. Its as though whatever they shared never existed. A bit like the Garden State quote that I often end up using “Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.”

It reminded me of another Malayalam movie I’d seen a while back. Kerala Cafe, an anthology of ten short movies, with the place – Kerala Cafe, a coffee shop in a railway station, serving as the connection. But more than that entire movie, I remembered my favourite – Island Express, written and directed by Shankar Ramakrishnan. (Part 1, 2, seems unedited, and has incomplete subtitle help!!) [Spoiler] The story is about several people who were in some way affected by the Perumon tragedy in 1988, and their meeting at the fateful place a couple of decades later. Its narrated by Leon, who  lost a lot himself, but makes a photo-book of it after seven years of efforts. I realise that Leon’s phrase, that remained with me long after the movie, is what this thought is all about.

As time passes, and life moves on, some of us are left holding the memories of these places, sometimes by choice, sometimes because we have no other choice, and sometimes by chance. But there’s no doubt about the transience of it all. Its after all, a matter of time. Perhaps the entire idea of a lifestream – the things I share here, and everywhere else is all about the phrase that Leon uses – ‘a memory with a watermark’.

until next time, memories without shelf-lives