Clouded by Nostalgia

Sri City: Nostalgia while rooted in the past, persists and lives on through our senses, allowing memory to be an alive experience. Sometimes I’m convinced I live in my memories more than in moments. The irony of being eighteen and feeling nostalgia’s hold is not lost upon me. I feel nostalgic about moments while I am living them, perhaps because I understand the value of these moments.

Nostalgia in Greek means “pain from an old wound”. Described by Don Draper as a feeling of a place where you ache to go back. A feeling that is simultaneously comforting and stinging. Nostalgia as a sentiment is consuming and blinding to our senses. Its sensorial nature ties itself to all our senses, from what we hear, eat, feel, see and smell. 

I feel it in my ears, nostalgia pulling me out of bed towards the window. It’s the sound of dhol, the beats getting louder, the energy crackling in the air. The sound of being woken up to Dhol is an Indian kid’s equivalent of waking up to snow. The sound of the dhol signifies celebration; there’s always something different in the air during Ganpati Bappa season. The intriguing aspect of nostalgia is something as public as Dhol, which is audible to all becomes intimate when painted over with nostalgia. Now, the mere sound of those beats reminds me of home. I go back to all the vacation mornings I jumped out of bed, to shower and see Bappa. Nostalgia flows in sound waves from that one song you memorised to sing on your 7th standard school trip because everyone else knew it, to the ringtone your parents had on their phones. Nostalgia finds its home in things, from music to things we see.

I see nostalgia everywhere. I see all the dust collecting on books in my old bookshelf. Dust settling feels like nostalgia in tangibility. The layer of dust settled on the surface of my favourite childhood book, titled ‘Baby Baluga’. The pages are almost falling out, with folded sides and the frail spine of the book. The dust on its surface reminds me of how long it’s been since it was last picked up. My initials are carved on the first page in squiggly letters. The entire book is stored in my brain. The sight of the book stings a little because we will never be that age again and I will never hear my mother’s voice recite this particular storybook as she pats me to sleep again. Nostalgia moves like a double-edged sword, reminding you of how sweet it once was and how out of reach it is from you currently. 

Taste is another sense that can make you time-travel in nostalgia’s portal. The hot fries and grilled cheese toast that followed a ritualistic Sunday evening swim at the local club. The fries were always a little too salty. The smell of chlorine and of frying oil as I devoured my food. I haven’t been to that swimming club in around seven years, but I remember how good that first fry tasted. I doubt it will taste as good as I remember it to be. The grease on the sandwich and the refreshing sips of fresh-lime soda are consolidated in my memory and taste. Fresh lime soda, even now, has formed such a strong association with this particular Sunday evening ritual, a single sip takes me back to my pruny fingers and the smell of chlorine.

I like keeping things longer after they have outlived their use, mostly because it’s my way of holding onto nostalgia and keeping it around. There’s something about touching the substantial things that were significant to childhood. The Dora-explorer blanket I used to share with my sister. The blanket is fraying; I can feel my fingertips through the blanket as it weathers the tricks of time. The sunlight flows through the fabric if held against the window. Touching the fabric feels like holding onto childhood, the security the blanket gave me feels palpable.

But if nostalgia had a final destination, it would be smell. It’s where most of nostalgia resides; a single scent can take you back to another time, another version of you. For me, it’s the smell of vanilla essence, which reminds me of all the afternoons my mother baked carrot cake. The times I sneaked into her baking shelf to take another sniff of the essence. All the mixing and sneaky licks of the cake batter to avoid her scolding of the potential stomach ache. It’s probably why I wear vanilla scented perfumes now; the smell feels too familiar, too comforting.

Nostalgia in all its sensorial glory allows us, in some ways, to re-live our strongest memories, possibly our most favourite ones. It's proof that our past, no matter far, is still lingering and alive in our senses. Through nostalgia’s hold on our senses, we are allowed to re-live our memories. Through the bite of food that takes us back years to the sight of an old boardgame evoking that warm feeling. It feels like an acknowledgement of the life we once carried out and the people we once were.To be is perhaps to feel nostalgia in its full magnitude.