Editorial Carnatic Music Humour Short Story Taranum From Ground Zero Music & Arts Book Review Voice It Art of Living Prev Issue Next Issue

A Good Memory Can Solve Our Problems Melvin Durai Melvin Durai is an Indiana-based writer and humorist. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, he grew up in Zambia and moved to the U.S. in the early 1980s. In 1995, while working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Chambersburg, Pa., he began writing a regular humor column. His weekly column now appears in several newspapers and on a number of Web sites. He also writes a twice-monthly column on Indian and Indian-American issues. He is a diehard fan of the National Football League and also likes to run, lift weights and play soccer, tennis and pool. An award-winning feature writer and aspiring novelist, he plans to publish a collection of his best columns. You can write to him at comments@melvindurai.com To read his older columns, go to http://www.melvindurai.com

My wife, Malathi, has lost her favorite pair of earrings. She doesn't remember where she left them. She asked me if I've seen them anywhere. I don't remember.

Memory seems to be a growing problem in my family. Malathi has trouble remembering a number of things, including where she left her keys, whether she paid her credit card bill, when she visited her dentist last, why she married me.

I have trouble remembering things too, including appointments, anniversaries, and birthdays. Someone recently asked me when the anniversary of 9/11 was, and I couldn't remember.

Come to think of it, I can't even remember why India and Pakistan are fighting. Was it something Hrithik said?

I got in trouble with Malathi last year because I couldn't remember the exact date of her birthday. And I thought I had done well to remember the exact month.

As if that isn't bad enough, I also have trouble remembering people's names. They introduce themselves to me and two seconds later I have no idea what to call them. "Hey you!" doesn't seem to please anyone, not even my sister.

I wish everyone would wear name tags. Even better, perhaps they could tattoo their names somewhere visible, such as on their foreheads. That way, even strangers could address them by name.

Perhaps my wife and I need to take lessons from Nishant Kasibhatla, an International Master of Memory who's featured in the Limca Book of Records. He can memorize a 26-digit number in a mere 40 seconds. And not just that, he can also recall the number backwards!

Nishant, who finished 12th at the recent World Memory Championship in London, believes that memory is just a question of association and visualization. For example, if I need to remember the letters "KKLM," I could associate them with the phrase "Karisma Kapoor loves me." Then I could visualize my wife slapping me.

If everybody worked on their memory, the world would have fewer problems. For example, the divorce rate -- which is growing faster than inflation -- would be curtailed. A married man who's tempted to have an affair would be able to remember his wedding vows.

A convicted felon wouldn't break the law again, because he'd remember how terrible prison was. And I would floss my teeth after every meal, because I'd remember how terrible my dentist was.

Husbands would remember wedding anniversaries and wives would remember not to go into labor during the World Cup. Men would spend more time with their families because they wouldn't have to search the entire house for the remote control.

Of course, having great memory has its disadvantages. When others hurt us, we would perhaps forgive, but we couldn't possibly forget.

At family reunions, we'd be bored too soon, after recalling every last detail of Uncle Patel's adventure in Uganda, which he has recounted only 189 times.

Great memory would also ruin our enjoyment of prime-time TV, because half the shows are reruns. Forgetting the plot is crucial.

My wife can watch an episode of "Law & Order" five times and still enjoy it. She used to have a better memory, but I can't remember when.

For an email subscription to Melvin's regular weekly columns (not the ones that appear here), go to www.MelvinDurai.com

View and Post comment on this article