An Alien Emotion

As I am writing an article for this blogazine for the first time, I’d like to start with the usual preliminaries. I’d like to say that I’m honoured to be a part of this online magazine, which will hopefully be entertaining enough for all those who are going to read it. And now back to business.

Unlike my fellow writers, I’ll not be writing on this time’s theme (which is nostalgia) but on a topic, which is its exact opposite. I think I’ll call it Un-Nostalgia.

(Note: I will be using this word, though it might seem crude, as I am completely ignorant as to what the antonym of Nostalgia really is.)

Actually, I find nostalgia strange. It is an alien emotion for me. Rarely am I nostalgic, nor do I find much to be nostalgic about. I am 17 years old, and my life has been too short to be really reminiscing about things, which might have happened only a few years ago.

This, combined with a pathetic memory, has added to my friends’ chagrin. A lot of times, this has resulted in certain emotional moments leading to naught. When asked to relive precious occasions, I am at a loss for words (in this case, thoughts) and this almost always leads to a glare from the person whose request I could not heed.

There are really few things, which I get nostalgic about, football leading the list. I can remember who scored the winning goal in a Chelsea FC match, but I will never be able to remember all the happy moments of a friend’s birthday.

I have often thought of my brain as a kind of RAM (Random Access Memory), things just get erased as soon as my mind is switched off (read sleep and not dead). My brain seems useless for remembering or cherishing past events.

An excerpt from my life,

Neenad: Hey, do you remember the same thing happened with us, too.

Shridhar: Yeah? Did it?

Neenad: Yes it did happen to us. Remember that day when ……. (Goes off on a tangent) (At the end of the narration)

Shridhar: (With a blank face) No, I don’t remember.

Neenad: (With a glare) It did happen.

Shridhar: Oh, maybe. (Accepting defeat)

Neenad: You are hopeless.

Oh well, hopelessness is something I can relate to. So, I bet you can imagine the bewilderment on everyone’s face when this happens and that is also the reason I cannot relate to Bollywood movies at all, however realistic they might be. Most of them are based on some kind of nostalgia or the other, where the hero is usually choked with emotions at the end and almost all of them cry their hearts out. And certainly, my heart does not yearn for past events.

So, I guess reminiscing and a longing for the past to be relived is not my cup of tea and neither is it a piece of cake for me (It rhymes – that’s as poetic as I can get). I guess it’s time for tea and that’s why my subconscious stomach is mentioning cakes and tea. Here, I sign off to service myself.

- Shridhar Rao
shridhar.spitfire@gmail.com