A lot of our memory is visual or auditory, even dreams or childhood memories are best remembered as flashes of scenes, sometimes connected, sometimes sporadic...lately i've found that the strongest feelings come to us and more importantly stay, among other things, as taste...
Maybe being a punjabi has something to do with this overdeveloped, particular sensory experience or perhaps it's purely biological. This is how each one of us has first experienced the most important things in our life....the warm trickle of mother's milk and the consequent love and affection.
Also, sometimes perhaps the feelings are too strong or unpleasant ot be recounted as visuals and so, one would rather forget the look on a face or the tone of a voice...what probably stays is the aftertaste - that one cant do away with despite a conscious effort.
A fight, as an aftertaste of a chilli - unbearable agitation, so strong that the sweetest words cannot forgive the initial sting, promised not to go away for a long, long time. Love, as the first hungry munch into a hot jalebi....washes over everything else, sudden, warm, enriched with depth that quenches beyond the palate...indifference as the hardest bite, with awkwards angles that scrape the soft inner cheek as they are swallowed with tears.
This and much more that makes up for each history....and each one making one more aware of the other taste. the only time one thinks of the cold, refreshing gulp of water is when one is most parched!
No comments:
Post a Comment