25 Dec 2008

These random things...

.... remind me of friends.

Have you ever gone to a place or seen something that reminds you of someone? Random places or things that trigger something in your mind...

Last week I had gone to Aizwal and I was thrown back to the December of 1998 where Desmond and I had spent a whole winter traveling up and down the state. A restaurant that is no longer there - Don't Pass Me By - at Janpath was where we would often have breakfast on winter mornings. Everytime I pass that gali I turn around to look for the place although I know it shut down some time back.

There is a cup, newly acquired greenish in colour that reminds me of Mona and the many cups of tea she has fed me. Any image of Kootiyattam jump starts the memory of the summer of 1993 when we traveled to Kerala for our shoot. A small handicam displayed at the shop window is like the one that Shefali and I used to make our short film a decade ago. Passing a poster about a play connects me to Radhika and my first brush with theatre.

The Jaipur highway reminds me of the trip with Ravi to Pushkar. Why is that journey etched in my mind since the highway was not complete when we were traveling? Green Park market is about the lunches and walks back to Sara's office.

Long bus journeys are like the trips in Gujarat with Aditi. 25th December reminds me of Dui where we walked from hotel to hotel on a Christmas weekend looking for a room. Hotel rooms are all like the one in Hyderabad where me and Kannan sat for a week, incommunicado from the rest of the world to finish a script.

Rarely do I sit in a bus now but when I do and I see a girl with a duppatta I hear the poem that Raza had written in 1994. Four Square cigarettes, sport shoes on window display and cramped rooms in Bombay remind me of earlier relationships and stolen moments.

What are the things that remind you of someone?

8 comments:

mona mishra said...

Super post, Sudhesh.

You know what reminds me of you...everytime someone wants to add salt to the food on their plate...that gleeful act of liberally sprinkling that chemical, almost unaware of the fact that the food HAS salt already!!!

That reminds me - WHERE is Kanan? Much hellos to him!

discursivethoughts said...

And I am reminded of you and your independent-minded terrier each time I buy a book. You seemed to have read everything on offer on Karol Bagh pavements. And here I am still trying to figure out what a neutral-density filter means! And Mona, hello right back!
Kannan

Life@60 said...

Songs from PAKEEZA and Kajol in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai......these are a few things that bring memories of you.....

Aditi Prakash said...

This is vintage Sudhesh. This reminds me of the peoms you wrote to me when we first met!

Unknown said...

thanks peoples !

was getting stuck with topics
so took a break from blogging...

now i am back with a vengeance (i hope)

mona mishra said...

Kannnan!!!!!

discursivethoughts said...

Mona!! What is tingbo?

CoolMood said...

And those lunches at the Green Park market were so much FUN!! :)

Even if we don't meet so often anymore.....my birthday always reminds me of you and will continue to do so for as long as I live!! Isn't that amazing! :-)

Hello Mona, Kannan and Aditi!

Suddenly...missing ALL OF YOU!!! :(