A Love Letter to Nostalgia

A few days ago, I was searching for something in the old wardrobe and saw my parent’s wedding album.

When I was a kid, I always regretted being not there and determinedly decided that I would make sure that my kids get to witness my wedding. Brings a stupid smile when I think of it now. But, hey, why not?
Well coming back to the wedding album: It was the pictures that I loved the most, the coarse feel of the slightly saturated pictures neatly arranged gives an almost nauseating nostalgic look which slyly creeps into me, making me feel I want to live in the bygone times. It is the frozen memories of the past, well hidden from the wheel of time.

I go to greater extents and take risks to preserve the photographs of my people. I greatly pester people for their photos, for which many don’t have a clue why I should go gaga over photos. And believe me, especially since I got an iPhone, whose OS so neatly organizes everybody’s pictures according to their name and face, I’ve been collecting some more. I love the look of genuine confusion when I randomly ask them to send a picture. But this is the digital era, where it doesn’t take us much to preserve a picture. What really drives me are those photographs from decades back that you can touch, hold and must make an actual effort to preserve.

Somehow, I feel a magical connection of going down the memory lane and reliving them when I see the photographs. When I see those pictures, I see their childhood and adolescence unfolding before me- let me get a glimpse of all the missing pieces that I had only imagined. They affect me in a strange way; I feel neither sadness nor anger for having missed living with them in their yesteryear lives. For I always love to grow up with people.

When I see my parents wedding album, I get a thousand thoughts. Well, for the first thing, it is love before marriage, then accepted at last by their parents and an arranged marriage. I wonder how my dad would have felt being the groom, knowing that he would be spending the rest of his life, with the person he loved so much. Did he really think then, that he would have a son, who would be writing about his wedding on a blog? How would have my mom felt? Had she ever looked him into his eyes and smiled with a mischievous twinkle full of love? Did she ever have the clue that she is going to be the mom of two sons, who look up to the treasure of their cherished love and wedded bliss?

Well, the photograph speaks, each picture has a thousand stories to tell, if you’re ever a willing patient listener, listen to someone ramble about their youth and blessed will be you, if they have photographs with them when they tell their tales of loved and lived lives. But for me, photographs are just not the magic alone. It is their youth and more importantly having lived their youth in the 80s which I personally consider the golden/classic/ best of times in life.

I am thoroughly in love with the art and literature of the 80s. Be it the movies/music/pictures/literature/persons/advertisements/series nothing beats the magic of those times for me. Maybe the black and white or the technicolour print gives a lived-in authenticity to them, and till my ten years of age, I believed that Life was in black and white or in grey in the 70s and 80s. I visualize how the mountains, lakes and greeneries would have looked in black and white. I visualize life in the metros, sub-urban, abroad and villages alike. I visualize how people would have spent their young and old life in the 70s and 80s.

I feel a tugging at my heart with a painful lump forming in my throat and I sigh heavily till the tingling tinge fades away in me. How much I wish, I want to live my life in such a period. I get jealous at people who have lived/spent their youth in those times. Certain Golden olden movies rekindle my longings and stir my heart, making me nostalgic for the past which doesn’t belong to me, a past I partly own. I smile knowing inside that, though I didn’t live then, I belong there completely.

For the simple reason, I believe life was simpler then, people were, I believe, inherently good, and people had time for life’s little things, everyday chattering were part of life then, people had time for humane interactions; families had time for dinners and for gatherings at terrace after dinner, casual acquaintances was more happening than social networking. Neighbourhood gave people to come together and rejoice in camaraderie. Life was less mechanical, people certainly had the humane touch and more than anything, people wrote letters. Yeah, I know, I whine here. But accept me. Just once in your life, realize what I’ve fallen for. Take a paper and write a letter to a dear one, at least a text mail. You will know the magic for yourself.

That was the time when life was not commercialized. I greatly believe that the art of those days celebrated love, people and the human spirit. I believe I might be made of that and made for that. To quote Loki, “A man out of time”.
Even the way we consume art has changed so much over the years.

Gone are the days you find houses with libraries, or even books for that matter. There are an array of channels to be watched, contents to be streamed, franchises to be devoured and they are everlasting. I remember the time when TV was made up of a collection of moments that are not ours to keep. The pain we encounter throughout our days spent on it comes from the illusion that some moments can be held onto. Clinging to episodes and movies that were never ours… Everything was fleeting.
I remember once, I missed an episode of Pokemon because there was a power outage for about 2 days.

And I had no idea what happened in that episode. It tore me apart then, knowing that I’d never get to see it; because back then, any media content we consume were single-serving. They were like a ripple in the water. And everything in the world felt temporary, except what we feel, because our feelings then, were perpetual. I guess that’s one fault in the world right now; that our media contents are now perpetual, but our feelings are fleeting.

I precisely conclude I’m a person who still lives in the black and white times, pen and paper days. At least the technicolour days. Well, a little hypocritical of me to say that, because I prefer to type rather than write. I’d still watch the new Avengers movie. The new Black Mirror episodes. But my world still counts in the 80s and 90s. I take everything possible of me to preserve the moment I share with those around me.

“To those hearts, fluttering their dreams in the youth. Sing poems of life and love and celebrate them. ” – It’s from one of the Kurals. Fascinating, isn’t it?