I Forget, I Remember-A Tale of Memory

By Papri Rudra

What happens when you forget? Tulika has woken up from a sleep and cannot remember where she has come from. Does no one miss her? Is she the vital slice of someone's life? These questions do not let her sleep at night. Frantically she searches for the missing pieces. Even as she struggles to remember, there are visions her mind refuses to forget. Caught between the two, Tulika begins her quest. A quest like no other for it is a journey into her own forgotten past! However, a path of memory is never an easy one to travel. Will she find what she is looking for? Most importantly, will she ever be able to find her way back?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Papri Rudra
• Release date: Oct 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005138264

Papri Rudra

Papri Rudra is an ERP consultant, working in the field of Information Technology. She did her engineering from NIT, Durgapur, and her MBA from IISWBM, Kolkata.Her mother tongue is Bengali but having spent her childhood in Bokaro Steel City and having lived all over India, during her career, she is fluent in all the three languages-Bengali, Hindi and English. She also lived in US for a while, where she lived and worked in three different states.The written word is something she loves to be around, be it reading someone else’s work or scribbling something herself. She has published five novellas so far and hopes to find inspiration for more. Her books can be found on smashwords.com and kindle.An avid reader herself, she believes that the most common place things in our lives, are not always as they seem and that there are interesting discoveries, waiting to be made, about each one of us.

Book preview

I forget,

I remember

-A novella by Papri Rudra

Table of Contents

Smriti

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Smriti

Chapter VI

Smriti

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Smriti

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Epilogue

Appendix

Time is memory,

Memory is Time

Like a river it flows.

Part of it sparkles,

While another part dims and darkens.

Does a river ever get lost?

Maybe it does, until it reappears.

Is it the same river then?

Though changed, it is also the same,

But then rivers are always changing ,

even when they seem the same.

The flow , they ebb.

They pool ,they scatter.

Not only minds but also hearts-

They forget, they remember!

CHAPTER I

[Excerpts from Smriti’s diary]

The morning is beautiful. The river looks even more beautiful in this morning light. It is not even dawn, but all nature seems to be already awake. Everyone else in the house is still sleeping, except me. I do not know why I must get up so early every day. I wonder if I always had this habit, of getting up early or is it a habit that I have acquired only recently.

There are a hundred other things that I wonder about. All around me, I see people who are worrying about the future and yet here I am, worrying about my past. What was my past? How was my past? Who am I? and What am I? These are the questions that keep nagging at me.

It seems that I have lost my memory. My age, I am told, should be somewhere between twenty and twenty five and that I was found by a gardener, on the bank of a river, in an orchard. A hundred questions were put to me when I woke up, but I could not answer them. I have absolutely no idea, as what I had been doing before I woke up and as how I came to be in that river. I have racked and racked my brains, but no thread of memory comes to me.

The people in whose house I woke up were good people. They took care of me for a while and then took me to the Jheelpoor Ganesh temple, to live with some other girls and help them in the daily chores. Days were peaceful there. A big temple has a lot going on around it and I soon became a part of it.

They gave me a name- Smriti. Sujata di suggested it and so I became Smriti. Maybe, she hoped that by naming me ‘memory’, my own lost memory would be revived.

CHAPTER II

Tulika loved the mornings. They symbolized to her, all that was fresh and optimistic. She was at this moment absorbed, in admiring a particularly beautiful one. This morning, besides being a beauteous one, also was a very important one, for it was also a new starting for her.

A new day is always a new opportunity, so Uncle Hari had been wonted to say, whenever she had been less than her normal, cheerful self. She had loved this saying almost as much as she had loved the person, who had been in the habit of saying it to her.

There had been something quintessentially avuncular about Uncle Hari, she thought fondly. Tall, jovial and a generous heart. These were the qualities that leapt to your mind when you remembered him. Yet, beneath that warm countenance, there had lurked a mind, fully practical and well versed in the affairs of the world. Uncle Hari had always prided himself on the fact that he dealt fairly with men, be it in his personal or professional life. On this point, Tulika found herself realizing sadly, that he had been sadly disappointed in his own son. Shekhar, Uncle Hari’s son, was everything that his father wasn’t. Uncle Hari had always had the deepest respect for human relations but to Shekhar, all that was passé. He was ready to make any relation if it suited him and break it up when it stopped doing so. And that, she thought bitterly, was exactly what he had done with her. He had married Tulika, because it had been expected of him and later, just walked out of the relationship, because he had wanted to. Of course, she had been hurt. Hurt badly and angry too but somehow, that did not seem to matter anymore, maybe because it all seemed so far away. Yes, far away, that is how it appeared now. Not something that had happened in real but rather the echo of something that had happened and was done with. It intrigued, even amused her to think that Shekhar’s infidelity had once bothered her enough, to drive her to even attempt suicide. That attempt however, had not ended her life, rather sent her on a long sleep or maybe, it should be called a journey, from which she had but only recently returned. The only annoying thing about this experience was that though, it had left behind some physical marks on her body; it had only left a wide blank in her mind.

The doctor’s words rang in her ears. "Mrs. Dutta, we have every reason to believe that you had lost your memory, in that accident, one year back and that now, this second accident has brought it back. I know it sounds strange but that is how it generally is, in such cases. You might never remember as what happened in between.

The good news is that you have emerged unscathed from two major accidents, without any bodily harm and can resume life, from your suicide attempt a year back"

At this point, he had paused abruptly, as if realizing how inept his words might sound to her. How do you tell someone that a slice of her conscious memory was lost forever?

Since then, Tulika had been thinking. Yes, she agreed to herself, she had escaped bodily harm and felt quite strong now. Her friends had been more sympathetic than expected. She had even been offered her earlier job, as a school teacher, which she had accepted and was going to join soon. The meeting with Shekhar had been rather uncomfortable at first but it had not affected her as much as she had feared. In fact, she had been surprised to see that there had been a gleam of almost delight, bordering on relief, in his eyes, on seeing her alive and unharmed. Maybe, the realization that his actions had driven her to suicide and might have ended up killing her had sobered even a nature, as selfish as his. The divorce proceedings too had gone smoothly enough and as per Uncle Hari’s will, she had even received half of his property, while the other half had gone to Shekhar. Tulika grudgingly admitted to herself that relieved as she was, there was also a tinge of bitterness in all this. If only Uncle Hari had not inserted that troublesome clause in his will that Shekhar, if he married Tulika, would inherit everything! So much could have been avoided, she ruefully thought and sighed. Shekhar would have simply married the girl he loved and Tulika would have charted out her own course in life. Much as she had loved Uncle Hari, she had to admit that Uncle Hari had been injudicious in this one action of his. Like a daughter, he had always treated her, then like a daughter, he should have let her go. His attempt to force Shekhar to marry Tulika, simply because he did not approve of his girlfriend, had brought about more pain than the good man could have imagined. Still, Tulika took comfort in the fact that Uncle Hari had died before all this happened. He had not been alive to see the recklessness, with which Shekhar had plunged into his affair with Roma and how unpleasant Tulika’s life had become then. Tulika had done everything that she could do, to win him back but she had not reckoned with Shekhar’s obstinacy or with the hopelessness of her own condition. Finally, something had snapped inside her, and she had decided to end it all. It had not been a well thought out decision of course. Only a momentary impulse that had dragged her to the bridge and then the jump!

Tulika shivered a little. It had been a cool, wet day in August and the water had been cold, almost chilly. Oddly, the memory of that moment was still vivid in her mind, as if in stark contrast to the complete loss of memory that followed soon after. Perhaps I should have let him go right away, she thought. Why had I tried to hold on so much? Had it been her loyalty towards Uncle Hari, to preserve what he had wished to bequeath to her or was it some deep insecurity inside her that had feared the severance of the only family tie, left to her?

Uncle Hari and his wife Ratna had welcomed Tulika in not only their home but also their hearts when tragedy had first struck her young life. Having lost her parents at the age of nine, she had spent months, watching grownups trying to decide as what to do with her, until her father’s longtime friend and business partner, Uncle Hari came forward to assume her guardianship. There had been no turning back since that day. To Hari and Ratna, she soon became their darling little Tuli, an emotion she reciprocated unabashedly. It had never occurred to her that Uncle Hari should have dreamt of changing their father-daughter like relationship to anything more legal, such as his son’s wedded wife. She had known that he disapproved of Shekhar’s involvement with Roma but never guessed his intentions till he died suddenly, and his will made public. Rest, as they say, was history.

Tulika sighed but pulled herself immediately. I must not be despondent, she admonished herself.

The doorbell rang just then, as if symbolizing her last chide to herself. She opened the door. The face that greeted her ‘good morning’ was rather a pleasant one, though there was hardly anything, even remotely handsome or attractive about it. It was just a well-cut face, with a shy but genuine smile on it. There was an air of honesty and assurance, about this visitor’s personality, that endeared him to most decent folk, including our Tulika. Arun was tall, of medium built, with jet black hair that was neatly trimmed, strictly against the prevailing hair fashion. He was dressed simply but formally in full-sleeved light blue shirt and black trousers. In his hand, he carried two parcels, both wrapped in colourful paper and a small bouquet of yellow roses. Having followed Tulika into the drawing room, he now held out his gifts to her.

Happy birthday, Tuli! Arun wished her.

Tulika was quiet for a moment. With a shock not wholly unpleasant, she realized that this day, when she had actually been promising herself a new beginning, was indeed her birthday. A good omen, as Uncle Hari would have said.

Oh! Thanks, Arun. So nice of you to remember! I had forgotten completely. stammered Tulika.

But I didn’t. Come on, now open your gifts and tell me if you like them.

The gifts consisted of a story book and a box of Amul chocolates. They were Tulika’s favourite brand of chocolates. So were the flowers. Tulika had always held that there was something positively irritating about the blood red colour of the red roses. Red was too intense a colour, she had always felt, but yellow she had always adored. Warm and gentle. Maybe not as passionate as love but with all the richness of a genuine friendship.

Arun observed her face closely, as her pretty features became suffused with a happy light. Her eyes, he noticed, had dark circles under them but nevertheless, she looked better. What with a bad marriage, a suicide attempt, loss of memory for more than a year, a major accident, and a quick divorce, it was enough to make the toughest of men reel but Tulika had pulled through rather well, he thought. He earnestly hoped that the loss of memory, which she had suffered, in the past year, should have lightened the memories of her earlier pains, to enable her to start afresh.

Tulika was profuse in her thanks and Arun having consented to have a cup of tea, they now settled down, in her simply furnished drawing room, with cups of tea, in their hands. A glance around the room told Arun that it had already received some attention from Tulika’s aesthetic sense. It looked quite nice and comfortable.

So, how are things going? Arun asked, in a meaningful voice. He was already