Remembrances of old flames and loves

Remembrances of old flames and loves !

Dinesh K Kapila

The trigger for this piece is a simple message posted by me. There was nothing remotely romantic about it. I was trying to know about an institution, maybe it was Vatika but got auto corrected as Vartika. A genuine mistake. Another time it was if I remember correctly, Pragyan or something, by mistake I typed it as Pragya. Forgot the N. I was inquiring about these institutions in a few groups, their address or contact numbers. My message box suddenly started buzzing and buzzing. Some who messaged me, I doubt they actually know me at all, In both instances the result was the same, some friends, strangers, acquaintances were messaging me directly. All men. Forget the institutions I was looking for, I seemed to have opened for some guys the floodgates of memories going back years and years, actually decades. A regression which was unintended but it seemed long buried memories were popping out all over. I never knew the power of the names Vartika and Pragya. My message box was full of guys saying, Hi, I am so and so, she was the prettiest in my class in Class XII or College or University. Or at this city or locality. Then the rhetorical or wistful question, ‘where would she be now’. Most messages were on these lines.

I would say both ladies would in all probability be grand ma’s and white haired, ok, white haired but dyed black, maybe the knee giving a niggle or the back. Heavy set. Oblivious that their names, even if inadvertently taken, had caused a storm of memories and taken some guys back forty odd years. Wifey was getting agitated as my message box would keep buzzing, I could only tell her that me, retired and all that, not really knowing many people in the city, getting all these messages, I feel younger and engrossed just reading the contents. And I do not even know about any of the ladies, but some friends obviously do, fixed in the memory box in varied places and times, they are the ones looking wistfully and longingly at the moon again with just one mistakenly typed name. And then where to share this happy old memory, not with their wife surely, well, poor Dinesh triggered it, let him get the full impact of the happy memory via a message. In some cases a series of messages.

Actually, I often wonder what makes a few men nostalgic in the romantic way as they move towards sixty years and beyond, what is the trigger which releases in them remembrances of times in the past. It’s as though some of them have girlfriends or some soft hued memories crawling around in their brains. They seem haunted and their memory box is of times which had a romantic hue. getting maybe more intense now, softer and maybe there is a thought, of an opportunity lost, way back then, the ‘if only factor’ playing out. As I wrote in my book. The Varied Hues of Life, in the chapter, My Varied Laws, ‘Kapila’s Law of Recalling Old School Mates’, ‘This applies to the guys. In any given scenario, at any reunion, specially virtual, in the recall of old school mates, specially girls, by the guys of that time, the dainty and the prettier ones are recalled first’.

There is certainly something about puppy love, it seems the memories stay strong for decades. Dhoop Kinare was a Pakistani TV serial way back in the late 1980’s. A friend, a decade or more younger, says the actress who played Dr Zoya was a crush. And this he says in 2026. The remembering is as though she is still not more than thirty odd years old, logically she would be plus sixty five years old today. The mind blocks all the logic it seems. Freezes it in a permanently young forever state.

Psychologists say most men lead stressful lives, as they age, the struggle is to stay relevant, active, connected. Women reach out to women and can discuss families, medical issues and adjustments. It’s a fact. Men don’t. Men discuss alcohol, wars, politics and sports and at times the opposite sex. Men do not articulate their concerns and the ‘felt loneliness’ as they get into their sixties. The Father, the Husband, the brother, it’s a role, somewhere men, not all, get solely entwined in these roles and feel the constant expectation. The turn to nostalgia and of passions from way back in the past could be a journey born out of this insecurity or complexity. The other possibility is also there, of men being simply men, with a few of them now bowing to the nostalgia in their minds as they age.

This fixation with the past can be somewhat amusing too. A group of now balding, heavy set, oldish guys once studied in a leading convent. A boys school. Strictly. Just some distance away was a school, also a convent, focused entirely on girls. Both schools in a tony part of the city. Forty plus years ago, maybe more, there was a very pretty girl, in Class XII, to hear these guys, she was pretty in Class X but prettier one year later. And then prettier. These guys were in the same class but as I said the schools were gender focused, The girl was the daughter of an army officer, she boarded an army truck daily to the cantonment. These youngsters would cycle like mad every day to catch a glimpse of her as she left the school. They managed invitations through mutual contacts to events where she could be present. They were infatuated. Totally. Now, forty or is it forty five years plus years later they came to know she was in Chandigarh to attend the wedding in a known family. That infatuation was still there, that innocence of a young lost puppy love was all too much to bear, phones were worked to get invited. Well, Love’s Labour Lost, they could not even recognise her at the marriage, heartbroken, somewhat sheepish and downcast, the reality check was too hard to bear. To top it they could not even tell their wives. That they were looking for an old flame and hence discreetly looking around. Though I could have told them another of Kapila’s Laws - Kapila’s Law of Looking at pretty women when the wife is around. The Law is - She knows, period. Always.

Maybe just maybe, they relate to the Japanese story, the saddest love stories are the ones where both hearts chose each other but life chose otherwise. No matter how they loved each other, but time and fate did not love them back. Maybe that is one possibility we can say, hence the nostalgia. Or is it another story from Japan, a man truly breaks for love only once, when that light or possibility goes out, he spends his life chasing its reflections in the faces of strangers, he may walk through the world but the deepest part of his heart remains locked in the past, the past he can never return to. This does seem a rational way of looking at it. The Japanese have a soul lifting way of looking at this phenomenon, of men getting nostalgic as the years go by and the evenings roll in. The philosophy goes if you think of someone at night, it’s not just a memory, it’s your soul trying to find its way back to them. Could be. Gives solace alright.

Talking of love, the right person makes you fall in love more than once, once with them, once with yourself and once with life again, they remind you who you are, what you deserve and make the future seem kinder. Maybe some men in their sixties feel this through their nostalgia. And some still hunt for love and youth and that is another chapter on this, Tales Cafés just don’t tell you !. In my book, The Varied Hues of Life. A gossipy look at it. And there is another thought on this, of nostalgic romantic hues, the feeling younger part. I was at a party where I met some guys, all plus sixty years as it seemed so, they were together through school and college. And suddenly they said at our reunions so and so do not come, we were all infatuated with them. As I asked, was it not forty years ago, one of them laughed and said, it makes me feel, ‘Abhi to main jawan Hun’, (I am still young). If that is it, go ahead.

I think I need to talk to women too, but it seems a more man related issue. Though once at a seminar, on the rights of women, a middle aged lady sitting next to me said emphatically, why are we not including love and marriage and unhappy marriages in the discussion but I stayed focused on empowerment and credit. Much much safer !. In any case I look forward to now deliberately mistyping a few names, maybe, just maybe, I get more reactions.

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