The Rewind Button!!!

I was a small kid back then, may be studying in my second class, when there was a tape recorder in our home. A rigid body with a metallic skin sat right in the middle of the showcase in the drawing hall. Back in those times, this scene was one that will be beating today’s scene of a drawing hall with 42 inch plasma shining in the drawing hall.

Being a naughty kid, which I was then, I used to hide from everyone and stealing a chance, I would silently slid in a cassette, press the only red button on top the metallic body and blurt out my mind in all the voices I could get out of my small mouth. Then I would quickly press a button which said ‘Rewind’ on it and then merrily listen to what I blurted out and enjoy myself.

This used to be one of my favorite pastimes in those days!

Few days back, when I was alone, sitting on my bean bag, staring the lemon yellow colored wall, which was duller than my mood then, I had my mind just like a grinder grinding each and every thought that was sailing few minutes back. As it is known, the duller the thought, the hotter it is and just like any other hot liquid, it floats up and keeps banging the head from within.

I too had few of such thoughts banging the inner walls of the grey room of my body. Suddenly then, I saw the metallic body, the same metallic body that had been my friend in my melancholiness. The picture was bit blur, may be because of the dull colored wall or even may be because of the innumerable thoughts being grinded at no specific speed. But yet, that silver colored bright button glittered, just like a silver ring on the fair finger of a cute girl and the wordings ‘Rewind’ were still clear just like they were, years back!

A sudden thought came to my mind, but it had to wait at the bottom of the playlist until I played all the memories of my childhood till college days that were meowing like drowning cat.

Burying all my other thoughts, I decided to take a silent break and spend some time remembering my long lost friend. Immediately a number of memories, all of them sweet, sprung up from the bottom of my heart. Few memories from home, few on cricket ground, few with girlfriends, few riding on bike, few whiling lazily at bike stands and few laughing merrily with friends. Many of such scenes played on the stage of my brain while I sat on the front seat with mouth wide open.

After a long time it felt nice. The time silently passed like a silver cloud on the light blue sky without disturbing anything but still proving its presence. I sat up straight on the same bean bag and refreshed my memories.

Relishing my memory cells in my brain now was the turn of the thought that was struggling for its turn.

The Rewind Button!!

The caption looked catchy but the content seemed surprising. How could I leave you, my dear Sunday Readers, while walking through this thought? So here it is…

When the thought sailed up to the top of the playlist through the hurdles and the long wait, the first thing that came to my mind was the metallic body that stood majestically in every home back in the 90’s. I am not sure of the earlier years because I was not born and I don’t care!

The tape recorder! What a beautiful device it was. We could play any music which we wanted from it. Listen to radio as well. Upon all, record our own voices and replay them multiple times.

What if our own human body is put on a comparison board with this metallic body? Both would match at utmost everything except the human body would beat that poor tape recorder in two aspects – it keeps on eating and keeps on talking. The poor tape recorder on the other hand, speaks only when it is asked for and eats some of the electrical energy. But yes, it gets highlighted we come down one thing on the final aspect – the silver button, the rewind button.

Yes, in a tape recorder we have a rewind button pushing which we can go back to any song any music any recording and play it, again, and again. Do whatever you want; this is not available and not possible in our body and our life.

What if even our body had got that magical button? What if we could have that power; to rewind back and spin into the time we wanted and replay that wonderful time and relive those moments whenever we wanted.

Imagine a situation when you are stuck in a traffic jam, helplessly sitting in a window seat of a city bus inhaling the polluted gas from a vehicle standing with its ass just in front of your nose. You would be left with no option but to fume out your anger on everything except you. You now know you will have to spend 30 minutes of your life in this situation doing nothing. Now just imagine, for a minute, your body has a rewind button, say on your little finger, or may be on the back of your neck, or may be let’s keep it on your arm which would make it easier to press.

You press it and zoooooooooom comes a sound and a colored circle in front of your eyes. You see a screen after that with a list of the moments you want to replay. Selecting one of those, you go back to your school day. Back to your favorite cricket ground playing cricket forgetting all the tensions in the world. Running under the sun, sweating all over the field, catching the ball, throwing it to each other, shouting to a fellow team mate, yelling at each other for silly mistakes, fighting over every single run, playing your favorite shot, holding the bat with pride. What a moment it is to relive. A 30 minute childhood cricket game right in the middle of choking traffic jam.

Now just think of all the moments you could relive – your first prize collection, your first day in college, your first crush, the moment when your grandma told you bed time stories, the moment when you hit your first six, when you were the hero of the colony, when you went for the first trip with your best buddies, when you celebrated a team victory, your college parking lot, the college style, the college heroism, the first job, the first salary and many more. Just think what not you can relive.

The weekend walks in and zoom… You would run into your childhood. Or say, you would go back to the moment you spent with your crush.

The whole world would be magical. It would be the best life. Enjoy any moment you think would be useless. There would be no need to be unhappy of missing anything back in our journey.

I then quickly listed out all of the moments in my life that I could relive instead of sitting with my dullest mood. Then I thought of every moment that I would replace with every other. It felt nice, but only for a few minutes. Then it seemed something like a life wherein I would be eating only sweet dish for my every meal. It would taste sweet for the first meal, then seems fine with the second, but as it goes on my tongue would get pissed off.

A meal should be a plate with every item of every other taste. Only that would make it complete meal and a perfect meal.

A life is very similar to a meal. All tastes and all experiences are a must. Moreover, few meals are one time meals. Meant to be eaten once and just remember them.

Memories are also pretty much the same. They are meant to be kept in our memories, to be remembered, to be cherished. They shouldn’t be rewinded and relived again and again, that would only wipe off their distinctiveness. They would no longer be our sweet memories. They would no longer haunt us in our depressed times and bring smile upon our sullen face. It's better to smile childishly sitting in that damn thick rubber-ed bus seat than to go back and play cricket. Right?

Memories are meant to be cherished, remembered, enjoyed, smiled over… They shouldn’t repeat…

Same is the case with each and every distinct experience that we go through. They are all meant to be once in a lifetime. Shouldn’t be rewinded as and when wanted but should be only remembered and smiled on.

Save your memories deep in your heart… Remember them… Smile as you remember… It’s better than reliving them…

Happy Memories!!!

Vishal…

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