Nostalgia is a bitch

 

An aunt recently wrote about the travails of moving house. She wrote feelingly about the dilemma of keeping or leaving things, of the weight of memories triggered by a forgotten photo that fell out of a bunch of dresses. While moving is par for the course for individuals or families in certain walks of life such as the armed forces, government service (especially in India), the diplomatic corps and the “global manager”, who move houses the way others change shirts, most of us go through life with perhaps one move at best.

Even this one move can be an extreme life moment, one that leads the mover to frequent bouts of lachrymosity and walks backward into the mist of time. I have been there. Even 18 years after moving, to a larger house (with my own bedroom!), I still pine for the old family house where our family of five squeezed into a tiny “half flat” and made it home, full of warmth and fun. As a matter of policy, I have stopped going to the area in which it is situated. The rush of memories makes me dizzy.

Nostalgia is a by-product of houses which have become homes. Of strangers who briefly became acquaintances, if not friends. Of a pastiche of visuals, edges blurred by time, which instantly raises a lump or a smile and vanishes into the ether. Nostalgia is a crutch for the displaced, offering a tiny ray of comfort for those who leave home by force, due to war, famine or other catastrophes.

I have lived in 5 different countries in my career. And the cities that I have graced with my presence – Kolkata, Paris, Amsterdam and Lagos among others – have all given me an armful of nostalgia, through which I can rummage and pull out a memory or two at any time. But in nearly sixteen years in Dubai, I have moved houses eight times. And nary a nudge of nostalgia from any of them. That’s because these were all functional abodes - I have lived in hotel apartments (or serviced apartments if you like) for the majority of my time in the desert. These do not lend themselves to roots or memories.

Neither does Dubai. Dubai has no time for the luxury of nostalgia. The past has been consumed and spat out. It is full of “carelessly discarded yesterdays” as the author Bill Bryson wrote (in a different context and on a different continent). The Dubai of yesterday is as nothing compared to today and will be completely obliterated by the Dubai of tomorrow. Which is good. Erasing a whole lot of yesterdays, where there is nothing but emptiness, is a smart move.

My brand of nostalgia is a blend of people and places. Even a mention of a tiny monument in Paris (o wondrous city of lights) tugs at the heart strings. But I barely made any friends there. Amsterdam is where I discovered the ease of mixing with people of other cultures. But I barely remember the sights. London is family and sights and sounds. And smells. Of wet earth, of Earl Grey tea, of that peculiar fragrance that is probably a famous air freshener brand which I have found nowhere else.

And what of Mumbai and the people there, you ask? Well, it will always be Bombay for me. The city and its people (friends, families, strangers) shaped me and made me fit for purpose. Whose raffish, no-time-to-stand-and-stare attitude brushes aside those who cannot move fast. But it’s where I created my own space and memories. And we are all a product of our memories, n’est-ce pas?

Nostalgia requires a large dollop of sentiment, of a willingness to go back in time. And an unconscious desire to hurt, because it pains us to know that the past will not return. Nostalgia bites hard just when you try to look into the future and try to move on. It chains our present and future to its sagging bosom. And that’s why nostalgia is a bitch.