I took my friend L to the most authentic desi restaurant in town. The food and ambience are both a real taste of India without the filters and adaptations that make Indian food very uninteresting to me. I had warned L that she will be the only person who was born outside India in that establishment but it had not prepared her enough for the experience. We found ourselves a table in the farthest corner from the kitchen and the place started to fill out fast. L stuck out and looked pretty lost.
Across from us sat an Indian couple and I knew the woman from J's kindergarten days. Our daughters we in the same class and I often ran into her at school. But that evening, I could not recall the kid's name or the mothers. I am not sure if she recognized me and had the same issue as I did with recollection. For the duration of her meal she kept her eyes on the food and declined to look our way. L needed help figuring out how to properly eat Masala dosa with her fingers and what ingredients went into each of the assorted chutneys.
At some point, we got busy in our conversation and I forgot about this woman whose name I struggled to recall. I was not even able to remember where they lived even though I am sure J had to be dropped off there at some point. It got me thinking about the nature of memory and how it has been for me. Clearly, I knew all of this detail about this woman and her kid - their names, where they lived and possibly had a phone number too. Then at some point, J and the other kid went their separate ways and these data points were no longer relevant. When did my brain decide to flush it out completely with no hope of restoration. I do remember a few other kids from J's kindergarten class - not everyone stayed with her in middle school or high school but some pieces of information about them stuck like a burr to the sock of my brain.
But in this instance it was completely, irretrievably gone. Why this and not the rest. Who gets to choose remembrance over forgetting. I have to imagine, this is now memory works for most people - in a somewhat mysterious and autonomous way. Somehow our brain decides for us that some memories are not worth the effort to keep and decides to clear room for better (or at least more relevant) things. Who is to say that the brain makes the right calls in delete versus preserve. I hoped that in days to follow, something would come to mind but it did not. The lady's face I could recall vividly and correctly connect her to J's kindergarten. The rest remained stubbornly absent.
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