Forwards And Backwards

   "Living backwards!" Alice repeated in great astonishment. "I never heard of such a thing!"
   "-but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways."
   "I'm sure mine works one way," Alice remarked. "I ca'n't remember things before they happen."
   "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked.



from Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
Lewis Carroll, 1871.

:::

I said my first un-goodbye today, and it made me really, really sad. It's terrible enough to feel sad, but it's worse to not be able to cry when you're sad.

As has been my habit for the past three and a half years, I celebrate my completions and ends - of essays and final papers and trimesters - by treating myself to a fish curry from Mughlai Curry Corner; so after my one and only final paper of this trimester today, I went straight down from Kelburn to Mughlai's.

The two guys (prolly brothers) who owned and managed the joint recognize me (as the Chinese girl who had once asked from which movie the song warbling from the speakers came, and could name every movie star they pointed to on the cover slips of the box of CDs they'd subsequently hauled up to the counter), although I've never found out their names, nor they mine. I suspect it's because we are all the painfully-shy-and-reserved sort.

They smiled when I entered their little takeaway place. The owner (who looks like Rani's boss in Chori Chori) said hi, how have I been, and how long it has been since I last came. I couldn't help it: I said, "This will be my last time here; I'm flying back home next Friday."

"Have you finished your degree?" he asked, and I said yes. "Good, good. How long have you been here? Five years?"

"No, three and a half years," I said.

"Good, good," he repeated. I could only smile ruefully in reply.

They took a longer time today to prepare my order. No matter. I like sitting in that tiny waiting area, staring at the walls and greedily inhaling the heady scents emitting from the kitchen. (More olfactory-based memories in the making here. Smell, being mostly closely linked to memory of all the senses, makes for prolly the most reliable form of recall, the most sensitive trigger, and the truest memories: I hope these scents will remain indelible in my memory bank for as long as possible.)

They've added four posters of film stars on the two walls this year. First, it was a Salman Khan pin-up (from Tere Naam - thank Goddess he's clothed) and a John Abraham-on-a-bike poster (prolly from Dhoom); now there's an Aishwarya poster, and one of His Royal Babeness from Mohabbatein, straddling a chair in his preppy, be-spectacled look (the one Jaya is sooo crazy about), pretending to play a violin.

The last time I went, they had old copies of Stardust lying around (which I read from cover to cover, even though I prefer Filmfare), but now they have current copies of the NZ Herald (and they've also stopped playing Hindi music on their speakers).

As I sat there this evening, gazing blindly from poster to poster, I wondered what I should say to them when I collect my order. Strangely enough, it had never occurred once to me to just say goodbye. Maybe I had wanted to say my goodbyes in Hindi, but at that time, I had no idea what goodbye is in Hindi (and come to think of it, I still don't).

Finally, the owner placed my order on the counter. I went up to the counter and he told me they'd added gulab jamun for me, and thanked me for my support (I still feel bad about it because it's not like I go there every week, or even every month). A smile found its way to my lips - a really huge smile.

"I love sweets!" I told him. He smiled.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"Singapore."

"Singapore - I like Singapore."

"Me too," I chirped, without thinking, "I love Little India!" Then I hesitated. "Um, how do you say it?" I muttered, racking my brain for stock Hindi phrases I'd learned from movies, then screwed up my courage and took a deep breath, and said, "Khush raho."

(On hindsight, that might've been - I don't know - out of place? But it was the first phrase that'd popped in my mind.)

He repeated khush raho, and said something else so softly that I didn't catch and stuck out his hand, which I shook.

"Goodbye," he said, then fell silent. I fell silent too, wanting to ask and say so much more, but didn't know what or how to. Maybe he was feeling the same way too. Sometimes, it really sucks to be painfully shy and reserved.

Then, suddenly, I knew what to say - and it wasn't 'goodbye'. (I do not like saying goodbye, and certainly did not want to say goodbye.)

So I smiled and said, "Phir milenge."

He started smiling too, and replied, "Fir milenge. Come back here when you visit New Zealand in the future."

"I will. Thanks again," I said, and he repeated, very softly, khush raho and fir milenge, and something else I couldn't catch again.

Then I walked out, without a backward glance, with my last fish curry dinner from Mughlai's and, once again, the sweet bitter-sweets of another Last.






But - 'phir milenge': it's the breath of a promise of what could potentially be the first of my forward memories, and my first step to living backwards ...