My social research engagements often involve ‘remembering’, usually in a group, looking back at what we expected would happen about a particular issue in our younger years, and then assessing and comparing what actually transpired.
I am still in the early stages of learning how the act of remembering can help in data collection for social research, but collective remembering is something we do in many situations beyond research as well. Of late, I have been trying to digitally preserve photographs from age-old albums that my mother used to maintain. Occasionally, I share scans of these photographs in a natal family WhatsApp group. Every photograph shared brings forth a story or reminiscences from the elderly members of the group about how things were. Sometimes, other family members also share photographic gems from the past. For the younger generations of the family, these photographs and the stories associated with them can be a good way to learn about family histories.
These remembrances, oral lores, or oral traditions can be part of oral histories which may be an effective way of preserving our past. Remembrances or lores, telling and retelling of stories past, are an ongoing relay or cycle of storytelling, listening, and sharing further on. When an element of recording is inserted into the cycle, it becomes a social research method called oral history. But is this an accurate method for preservation? Of course, oral histories are imperfect, but that is part of being human and having flawed memories. Moreover, there is nothing perfect about written histories either – biases and errors abound here too.
The value of oral histories is especially significant for socially marginalized communities whose stories are often silenced, distorted, or wiped out by the dominant groups. The very act of remembering and narrating can be seen as an act of defiance against silencing. We need to do more and more of oral histories – narrate, record, disseminate, and even re-narrate our stories far and wide. When a story becomes like a living organism, the task of silencing becomes more difficult for those who want only one narrative to survive.
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Our memory mechanism can be both irritatingly and delightfully imperfect. Maybe we appreciate it more when we see someone close to us lose their memory, say, as in the case of people suffering from dementia. Last year, around this time, my mother Usha Dhall, then more than 91 years of age, began to suffer a slide in her state of dementia that proved terminal. She could not get the better of a struggle that had begun gradually, speeded up in 2019-20, and then flowed and ebbed almost annually. Up until a few months before the final slide, she had a blissfully strong long-term memory, though there would also be humorous mix-ups that she would be the first to laugh about. She regaled so many of my friends and family members with stories about her growing up years, the years she played competitive badminton, about her travels, stories of my brother’s and my growing up years, foods, jokes, and funny incidents from her younger years. She lived for nearly a century – which means, to put in perspective, she lived through 22 Olympiads! That seems like a length of time that beckons one to embark on a travel to another time, place, and plane. I wish I had done more and more of it with my mother (and father too) steering the spaceship.
During her last few days, she became increasingly silent, pepping up briefly for a few minutes of coherent conversation, and then withdrawing into herself, just about responding to a few questions. On the last day, she was silent and calm as a placid ocean. I wonder what would have been going on in her mind. Would her long-term memory still have been functional to an extent? Even as everyone around her fretted about her meals and medicines, would she be remembering her childhood days of fun and frolic on her home’s terrace far away in now what is Faislabad in Pakistan? Even if not fully remembering the incidents, would she be feeling the glow of the happy and sad emotions she would have experienced then?
When a person dies, the curtains are drawn on many of the stories that were part of their memory bank. Many, not all. Socially, the death of a person does not have to be the end of the memories and stories they used to narrate. Retellings and their recordings can help prolong the lives of the stories.
On a side note, reading, writing, and talking about memory and its imperfections have helped me make peace with several episodes of OCD flare-ups. It has been freeing to be imperfect, but that is a story to tell another time.
Read article on dementia When the Mind Disassembles written by Pallav Bonerjee in the March 2016 issue of Varta – Editor.
Dear eyes and ears
Of left-behind years,
Do speak your bytes,
Your giga, terrabytes.
Do tell us how it was,
Implacable reasons,
Scarcities and frights.
The inchoate cause
That waited for time
And place later, was
Like seeds on pause
In sprouting’s rhyme.
Say now, let shadows
Find light in the nights.
Very interesting and well-written piece on memories and remembering.
Thank you Sanjib! It is not everyday that “Varta” receives a lovely poem as comment on a piece of prose – Editor.
Stories are most powerful … and it takes a life of it own ! We must preserve the stories of our marginalised communities for generations to hear, revel and learn from.
Dementia robs the ability to communicate properly, but the ability to weave stories continue in the mind. The stories can seem delusional, often morbid as in my father’s case, sometimes insightful as secrets are revealed like in my aunt’s case. But who are we to judge them? I doubt there are active stories running during the last few hours of our lives like we would like to believe. Perhaps a sense of comfort having lived a full and good life awashes us.
Poignant!! It is indeed very sad that we do not indulge in the luxury of just listening to how our parents, grandparents, the elderly people in our families were in their carefree days in this age of “hustling”. Their adventures, follies, regrets would definitely help us see life as it is really not the perfection curated on social media today.