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KATHMANDU, MARCH 6
People say that hindsight bias affects our memory of the past. We often tend to romanticise past events and paint pictures rosier than they actually were.
This especially rings true while narrating childhood events. And I do have some fond memories neatly tucked away at a corner of my heart to pull and reminisce about on some gloomy, lonely days.
As with most Nepali kids, my 'mamaghar' was my favourite.
If there ever was heaven on earth, then the narrow village lane leading to the loving arms of my grandparents was it for me. The excitement of visiting mamaghar ran months in advance for us. Was it the fondness of our grandparents, the eagerness of meeting our cousins, or the love of 'desi ghee' that pulled us so strongly to our maternal grandparents - I don't know! Or maybe it was just the charm of the village life, so alien and exciting to us kids in a city.
In the absence of the internet and television, we kids were in for some village-type amusement.
The mornings and evenings were reserved for long strolls around the farm. The biggest of all cousins would line us up and lead the path. The long hours of the day were spent playing 'gatti', 'guchha', 'chungi', 'dhyakki' or 'bagh chal'.
I'm sure some of these gameforms no longer exist.
But the best part of the day was nighttime, after dinner - the time of storytelling. We kids would plead with whoever we could get hold of to engage us in stories of ghosts and spirits. My mama was an avid storyteller, who would narrate stories of our past lives. He made us kings and warriors who fought with passion and courage for their kingdom. His story had as many twists and turns as Game of Thrones. His tactic was to use our birthmarks as proof of our past life wars to instill confidence in his narrative.
How patiently we waited for our entry in his period drama.
Our aunts often wondered what hooked us so firmly to him all the time, a bond that even their tasty cooking failed to break.
Had he been the pied piper of Hamelin, we would have willingly followed him to the mountains and beyond.
I sometimes wonder if old-fashioned storytelling still holds its charm today. Do kids still pester their elders for bedtime stories before they sleep? Unfortunately, the childhood experiences that we grew up with and value today are things that the current generation kids are less likely to know. Sure they have better access to health, education and technology, but the interest in storytelling is somewhere lost to television and smartphones. I can only hope that the current generation also makes memories that they can fondly tell the future generation, keeping the storytelling tradition alive for many more generations to come.
A version of this article appears in the print on March 7, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
