Sunday, June 27, 2004

A return to the idealized past

It’s been a week now and things have slightly become better. But as Frost said “There are miles to go before I sleep". It's in these difficult circumstances that I remember that wonderful movie I had seen a few weeks back. Got to give the devil it's due.

Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, Eternal Confessions of the Spotless Mind written by the redoubtable Charlie Kauffman is the story of two people who have been in love just sometime back till they suddenly realize there is no fire in their relationship. Deciding to undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories, it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.

Now let's come to my Aaha experience. Imagine the implications of a memory erasure - just think how it would feel waking up one morning to find out that a certain part of your past has been completely wiped out. The first situations I can think offhand where this would really help me are:

### I wouldn't need to buy people a lot of presents. The second half of the calendar year traditionally has me GIVING more than GETTING - If only I could forget that I had ever received :-)

### I would not need to be reminded of the various times I goofed up. For starters, How about the last time I loved a perfume so much that I presented it to my aunt failing to notice it was one for gents. Or how about wiping off going out on my first date to a Hindi picture without realizing she doesn't know the language and whose original I'd already seen in Tamil?
I am sure there are million other practical applications for this magical memory erasure but hey, I don't think it ever should be used to wipe away recollections of a happy-once-sour-now kind of relationship. After all, u win some u lose some - Life should go on.

Leaving you with some wonderful lines from the movie. These lines are part of Alexander Pope's stirring poem "Eloisa to Abelard"

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

2 comments:

Ekta said...

hmm..sounds tempting..maybe just for the sake of experience we should sufer from amnesia for a day and experience what life's like!

Btw one movie which apprantly is a must see is Monster..for the sheer brillance of the transformation of Theron babe...suppsoed to be awesome!

Anirudh said...

Megha and me were talking about a similar thing some days back.. she was referring to the "pensieve" (also a pun on pensive..so pensieve makes you less pensive etc..)in one of the Harry Potter books , which essentially allows to download all your memories so that you can concenterate on the task at hand ..