The front page of today’s Mumbai Newsline had a photo of the repairs going on at the Taj. The caption reads “A year after 26/11, renovation work at Taj Mahal Hotel on Sunday”.
10 days to go till the 26-28 november attacks date exactly a year old. Strangely, I found myself thinking what I’ll be doing on 26th of this month. Will I be forwarding reminder emails? Will I revisit the ebbs in my memory by thinking back and reflecting on what transpired?
The event is a part of my history, now. It’s something that is a part of my past, but still very pertinent to my present and my future. I must choose whether to hold on to it and drag with me into my future – neither to forgive, nor to forget – or to leave it behind and walk away. It is not as if I was completely unaffected, for I feel a loss that was not mine but was close to me. It was not ‘my’ city, it was not my family; but it was something that went horribly wrong where I living. It’s thus become a part of my history.
When I think of remembering those few days last november, I’m reminded of the Holocaust Museum. I’ve never seen it in real life, but only in Resnais’ documentary Night and Fog. That was enough to chill my bones. But the only other thought that came to me, was. Why not obliterate a past so severe, rather than to constantly remind yourself of the atrocities committed against you? Why hold that close to yourself, and harbour a hate so severe?
Forgive, I feel, but don’t forget. In Hiroshima Mon Amour, the woman never tells anybody her story for fear of forgetting her past. She holds on to her secrets and carries on with the misery, only to realise later the importance of holding it so close to herself that it becomes a wound. Isak, in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, does the other thing by never revisiting his memories to understand his present. An existentialist contextualisation, the importance of which Bergman tries continually to bring out in his film. A similar quest in Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, where the director’s memory is at a loss and he cannot understand anything of his present, till he revisits that past.
Between these two ends of the spectrum, I find a solution to all my questions. I feel the need to not forget the unpleasantness that passed, for it brought along with itself a lot many things. The need to understand the intent and not the act itself. To learn to forgive the act and mend the reason. To resist the urge to harbour a loathing that my find it’s place to stay.