One of my favorite Japanese movies, After Life, asked people if they could take only one memory to after life, which memory would they choose? The director, a former documentarian, mixed real life and actor's responses together, so it's not obvious which ones are fake. Sometimes you think you want to hold on to one memory, whereas there are many others which would probably give you more pleasure when repeated again and again through out eternity.Back in 1978-79, we used to live in Dhanmondi, just north of the Abahoni math, or the field where the Abahoni football team practice. My late boromama (uncle), who lived in Canada, was visiting us. We successfully pursuaded him to buy us jhal muri, a concoction of puffed rice and chanachur mixed with a lot of spices and tomato and split peas. This was the first time, I had street food like that, and I have a vivid memory of eating my first jhal muri. Every time I have jhal muri, I remember the first experience, especially since it was an unexpected surprise.
Summer of 1996, my aunt Hashi khala and her husband came to visit me in Bard. She was leaving for Bangladesh, and wanted to see me before leaving. We were sitting at the garden overlooking Hudson river, and it was a gorgeous afternoon, and we were enjoying the warm breeze and I was happy because my uncle got a good job after two years, and she looked really content. My aunt never returned, and met a violent death in Dhaka. But my last memory of her was how happy she looked that afternoon.
October 2005. I was in Pokhara, Nepal with my school friends. One night we were standing outside a music store which was playing a beautiful instrumental piece, and I couldn't find out the name of the composition because the owner was not in the shop. The boy from the next shop came over and said that it was from a CD called Buddha Bar, but didn't know which of the 8 album this music belonged to. I remember that moment so vividly, this weekend, I previewed all 8 CDs (each of them double CDs by the way) online in hopes of finding that particular music. But it's been three years, and my memory failed me completely.
November 1999, I was visiting Paul in Phoenix, and the hotel that we stayed in (Buttes) had this shampoo smell which I never encountered before. It was called Juniper. I liked the smell so much, I brought back one of the tiny bottles back to Bangladesh. Some point in 2002, I used it up, but for a long time, I could recall that smell. I haven't been able to find any product with that smell anywhere in my numerous travel destination. But at airports, I make a point to check out beauty product stores in the hopes of finding one stray bottle.
My sister and I shared a room when we were growing up, and one time, over couple of nights, she told me the story of Count Dracula. The thing that stuck with me, was that vampired entered through open windows with curtains. For about 10 years after that, I couldn't sleep in rooms with curtains and open windows. In the middle of the hottest summer, I would shut the windows before going to bed. And I invariably chose the side of the bed away from the window, so maybe Dracula could bite someone else before me. I had to consciously break this last habit.
Do we have a choice of which memories we retain? I am glad we don't. Sure makes life interesting.
