Keys

When I go home I lock the door and fling the keys wherever.

When it is time to go out it takes me 5 minutes to get ready and 10 minutes to find the keys. In our frenzied and hectic lives, I think we do the same with our memories. We create different compartments in our minds and keep them filling unconsciously with various memories, experiences, events, and feelings. We lock these compartments and let them corrode. In our mechanical and chaotic life, it rarely happens that the memories are revived when we are relaxing. Just so that our life doesn’t become too impassive our mind, oblivious to us, hides the keys to all its compartments in distinct places. These keys take us instinctively to past memories. You might have experienced this…

A gentle breeze comes from somewhere and leaves by opening one of the compartments of our mind. And then the mind takes off and circles around the similar kind of breeze experienced in the past.

The mind also conceals some keys in various odors. The scent of the earth after the rain might take you to the woods of your hometown. One key is buried in the sense of touch. The touch of the blanket made from my mother’s Saree still makes me feel her warmth.

Sometimes the keys are in different sounds. If we listen to even the sound of a swirling sea then the next moment we might find ourselves lying on the beaches or spinning in the waves of Konkan / Goa (might be Hawaii for you). At times you listen to a familiar song and immediately remember the memory of yourself dancing in a concert.

And at times the keys are masked in various names. If you read/ hear one of it then it instantly opens the locks and fetches the memories related to it – pleasant, ghastly, wounding, insulting, gracious…

One of the names may perhaps embrace the ‘master key’ and it stirs up all the memories.

And in the middle of all this suddenly we become conscious of reality. We grab our running mind, gather the cluttered memories, lock them in the compartments and fling the keys!