30 July 1994 | Some Reflections
#memoriesfromdiaries 😍
[27 years ago] 💕
When I look back at my past diary entries, with every passing year, I now come to realise how our focus and priorities have kept changing every month and every year - for the better!
Just one cursory look at a sixteen-year old’s diary entry [my personal diary entries I mean!) and I find that, I’ve given a lot of focus on the food that was served to us in the hostel, and the sports, recreation and other entertainment that was available to us all through the year!
Although I’ve given ample mention of those class hours and subject hours that happened to us during our week days, still, they don’t seem to occupy much space on a teenager’s priority list I guess!
Added, packing a whole lot of events and incidents of a particular day into one single page was [and is] in itself a challenge!
That’s hence, I guess, only those events that I could recollect about the day alone, and events that I’ve considered important from my point of view alone, I’ve jotted them down, with all excitement on me!
The rest simply didn’t matter at least for me! Or rather, didn’t have space on my priority list, or to-do list!
One reason why, perspectives differ!
To each, their perspective!
Be it a memoirist who recollects her life on the page from memory for posterity’s sake, or an autobiographer who lists down the majorly events from his life on the page, one is sure bound to have their own points of view – focalization – to their very own descriptions of their life events - the way they’ve felt it! the way they’ve experienced it!
They may have their own biases, their prejudices, their whims, their fancies, their likings, their dislikings, their loves, their hates, etc!
But still, those were / are their felt experiences, unique to them!
These experiences have conditioned their way of life, their perspectives for them!
That’s hence Scupin Richard says with all conviction that,
We are the products of our stories we grew up with! We are the narratives that we feel, we breathe and we experience! And our narratives fashion a sense of who we are!
In short, we are storied beings!
And again, it’s uniquely our felt experience, as we’ve felt it! As we’ve experienced it!
As with perspectives, so also with opinions!
Celebrating alterity is hence, celebrating alternative perspectives! Alternative voices! Alternative opinions!
There’s aura in the alternative as well!
In today’s diary entry, I’ve similarly jotted down my experience with the Uppuma on the breakfast menu with the phrase - ‘I didn’t like’!
The words, ‘I didn’t like’ the Uppuma ‘served’ to me, could also serve as an indicator to my fondness for good food back then as a teenager (Something that I’ve never mentioned in my college year diaries in this detail, because I guess, the focus has changed by then!)
Added reason why, I was fond of Rajinikanth’s Petta!
When the Warden Kaali (Rajini) questions the mess people on the pathetic quality of the food served, the mess warden expresses his inability and helplessness to set things right, blaming the corruption rampant in the contract allocation for the sordid state of affairs and for the awful, woeful food!
Hence, one fine day, Kaali takes upon himself the responsibility of preparing lunch for all the inmates of the hostel!
By which means he captures their hearts as well!
Syncs well with a good ol’ adage, [albeit slightly sexist in tone], that says,
‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!’
You may want to read my little review of Rajinikanth’s Petta on our past post HERE!
Coming back,
Swimming was one of my favourite pastimes back then!
So I had taken eight ‘Swimming forms’ for me and my friends, this particular Saturday, and we all together, enjoyed swimming to our heart’s content!
Tea/Coffee was yet another addiction for me back then as a teenager!
The descriptions on food –
Uppuma for breakfast,
Curd rice, keerai & eggs for lunch,
Then, rava laddu for evening snacks, and
A special noting nay jotting for Yummy Ice cream for
which I had spent Rs.75/- even back then, that bespeaks to the craving for ice-cream
(especially the choco-duet and mango-duet varieties that were my favourites
back then) -
they indeed give a sense of the priorities in line for a teenager, namely, entertainment, chatting with friends, sports and games, tea and snacks, etc.
Recollecting on those good ol’ days today, I feel that one unique feature about us – humans is that, we keep evolving over time!
Change, then is the only constant!
Something that the bildungsroman novel does, by tracing the development of the protagonist from immaturity to maturity, or from childhood to adulthood!
The word Bildungsroman is a combo of bildung, meaning formation, [in German] and roman, meaning novel.
One reason why, the Bildungsroman was considered a novel that had moral, educational, psychological and philosophical value for young adults, since it depicted protagonists who bettered themselves every passing day and week and month and year, ‘putting off’ their childishness to attain maturity on them!
In essence, we press forward, getting better and better each passing day, by putting off our foibles, our errors, our mistakes, our childishness, each single day of our lives, and move on towards maturity!
Maturity then becomes a process, and a journey - that continues on and on, until the very end of our sweet lives on this planet earth!
The move is on!
Yes! the move forward – on the road towards maturity!
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