What's that lovely little impression?

A Bowl of Rose-leaves | Reflections

‘Remembering’ Remembrance on Marcel Proust’s Birthday today!

Well, I’ve always hazarded a wild guess – an uncommon conjecture at that –

that, the Members and the Chair of the Nobel Committee for Literature, must have surely been inspired, influenced and swayed by the following lines from Eliot, before they all had decided, in such sweet unison, to award him with the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1948.

Here goes the lines -

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden. My words echo

Thus, in your mind.

But to what purpose

Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves!

I do not know.

Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves!

Such an impactful line that has a lot of resonances and reverberations to the burgeoning field of Memory Studies as well!

Now, for bringing out those lovely little impressions from our memory –

Well, what’s that particular song that you so relish down the ages, and that still resonates in your heart and soul even this very moment?

What’s that particular nick-name of yours that you so cherish, across the years, and that still stirs a chord in you even this very moment?

In short, what’s that ‘disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves’ moment for you?

Marcel Proust has this amazing penchant of taking us all down memory lane with his nostalgic reflections on one such lovely little impression sliced away from the past –

And what pray, is that lovely little impression?

Tasting a little cake dipped in his tea!

This lovely little impression was enough and more for the writer in Marcel Proust to bring out a vast interconnected array of divergent identities constructed through the realm of memory!

This dunking of a madeleine cake in his tea, thus resulted in his monumental autobiographical novel of epic proportions, titled, In Search of Lost Time, [originally translated as Remembrance of Things Past] that runs to a whopping 4,215 pages, in seven volumes.

Proust recollects with such intense detailed descriptions on his childhood experiences up till his adulthood in early 20th century aristocratic France! He simultaneously reflects on the loss of time and lack of meaning in the world!

That’s exactly the ‘disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves’ moment for Proust!

Now, what’s your ‘disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves’ moment?

What’s your slice of madeleine cake that occasioned a lovely little impression from off your past for you?

And if you’re a literary being, a true-blue literary being, do describe this dunking in as delightful a way as you possibly could!

It could be through a poem! Or through an essay, or through a short story! on your blog! or on your daily diaries!

That then is that lovely ‘disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose leaves!’ moment for thee!