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14 September 2026
Memory is a curious thing.
We can forget someone’s name five minutes after meeting them, yet remember a song we heard thirty years ago.
We may struggle to recall what we had for lunch yesterday, but suddenly remember the colour of a school uniform, the smell of an old classroom or the sound of rain on a tin roof.
Perhaps memory does not keep everything equally.
It seems to choose what touched us.
A particular voice. A kindness received when we were not expecting it. A journey that changed something inside us. A goodbye that we thought we had accepted.
Sometimes an ordinary object opens the door—a photograph, an old letter, a familiar perfume, a book with folded pages.
And for a few seconds, the years disappear.
We are young again.
The person who is no longer with us is sitting beside us.
The road we travelled long ago is suddenly beneath our feet.
Growing older may therefore be less about losing the past and more about carrying it differently.
We cannot return to those moments.
But perhaps we do not have to.
Some memories quietly travel with us, wherever life takes us.
Rajat Chandra Sarmah
Guwahati, Assam, India
Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah5
YouTube: conversewithasmile
Email: rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
