A Closet full of Memories

It’s that time of the year again!! Festivities round the corner. Diwali it is. The markets are abuzz with activities, shopping is on our minds, adverts on television say the same too and people like me? (yes! we working class) we are awaiting for our share of some unadulterated holidays ;)

But it’s that time of the year too when you are nagged by your mom to clean your room (okay, that’s only in my case. May be you are saintly enough to clean your rooms without any nagging). So, yes I had to do the cleaning thing. Sigh.

Howsoever, hard I lie that I found the act boring, let me tell you, I did not. Strange. But after the initial laziness, I loved it. It was as if I had opened the doors to ‘Memory Land’.

Memories. Beautiful, Harsh, Melancholic, Euphoric, Angry, Poignant, Exciting. All of them, one by one. The closet I cleaned became my time machine taking me back to all the emotions that I had once lived. Accompany me down the memory lane.  

Golden Carefree Days:

The pictures on the left are the case studies and notes I studied under various subjects for gaining my Post graduation degree in Management. I have them all. Still. Properly arranged - subject wise. And when I opened them again, I was back into that classroom surrounded by friends, reading those case studies at the last minute just before the Prof. was to arrive, my best friend trying to dissuade me from studying by trying his monkey tactics, happy carefree faces around, teasing friends by pairing them with weirdest people, making fun of the profs. calling them funny names, scolding to the late comers, suppressed giggles, scowls of the professors, undone homeworks and group punishments, so-called group study, free riders in team presentations and googling (that means conducting a google search) for every other topic we had to speak or work for.

I was right there in my classroom. Those two years swimming through my eyes. I lived those golden carefree days once again just by seeing my notes and case studies.

Passions: some alive, some long gone

And this picture speaks about my initial passion which has now developed into a full-fledged hot love affair. My writing. My earliest essays they are. Mind you, they are from school. Sigh!! And then there was this short-term affair with Photography which I had for some time and with whom I have mostly parted ways. (that is if you don’t count these snaps clicked during safaai session as photography). These photographs were clicked and submitted for various photography competitions of which some I won and yet others I lost. But these writings reminded me of the passion cultivated during childhood days and dreams of being a writer harboured since so long.

Collections & Habits:

Okay, so I have a confession. I have a ‘thing’ for diaries. I love them. I love hoarding them. I love preserving them. I might not use all of them, but I won’t give away a single one to anybody. The picture on the right is a part of my collection of diaries over the years. I have diaries for writing each and every type of event. I have one for writing my daily things, one as a to-do list, one for lashing out, one with learning from life etc. etc. etc.

The blue one with my name etched on it is ‘Positives Diary’. Yep, I write good things happening during the day in this one. It can be the smallest of the small things like eating my favourite icecream to the biggest events of my life. The reason I created this habit was to see positives even in the smallest happenings of my life, so that it would help me become a more optimistic person everyday. And that handcrafted green diary? That’s a special one ;) I write my most beautiful thoughts in it.

Going through my old entries in all these diaries, I unfolded some long forgotten events, resurfaced some old animosities and recreated some old friendships. So you see! I have my life written in black and white. Well, mostly ;)

Gifts and Greetings:

Ah!! The greetings, the Roses and the smiles. Yes! I have every single rose and every single greeting card ever received in my life beautifully preserved in a yet another diary ;) I told you, I have one for every event. These roses might no longer be fresh and the cards might be old but they still carry fragrant memories of some great friendships and good wishes.

And then there are these gifts received over the years. Every single precious gift, carefully preserved, some even along with their wrapping papers and ribbons. And on the right (the pen) is one of the most valuable gifts I have received, which was for complementing my passion for writing. Every single gift I touched took me back to those beautiful moments when I received them. Smiles. Tears. Of happiness. Of bliss.  

*****

Just cleaning my one closet took me almost a whole day because more than cleaning and getting rid of old things, all I was doing was reliving them, reveling in their magic and dipping my soul in the rivulets of past occasions. I hardly let go off any things from that closet or for that matter even from my heart. 

And at the end of my so-called cleaning spree, I had just removed the dust gathered on my past memories making them smell fresh and crispy in my heart once again. I realized I am a hoarder in truest of sense. I not only hoard things but memories too.

That’s just about me. But, what do you do? Do you hold on to memories too? Or you have let them go with time?