Erase those memories

Some things are meant to last.  Friendships you develop in residential colleges that you can get back to anytime, ability to cycle even if you havent touched one for years, memories of your first kiss etc

And then there are some things that you just cant shake off. Your memory of the utter humiliation you felt when you made an ass of yourself in front of a whole group, the feeling of terror you remember feeling before an important result or a moment of  professional failure. These are things you try so hard to forget but they are impossible to dislodge from the recesses of your brain.

And then there are memories that actually are insignificant but refuse to leave. Bits of events that happened long back that you remember vividly for no reason, residual hazy images from your past you cant completely remember , shards of memory - the complete picture of which your brain discarded long back.

I am going to tell you about one such thing. You know, when we were young ( not like yong and foolish, i mean really really young) when the cable tv hadnt taken over our homes and life, there was one thing my sister and I did religiously- the weekend afternoon movie on DD. We got this luxury once a week,  we were going to make the best of it. We were well prepared every movie afternoon- pillows and covers, lights off, favourite seats occupied and chips- honestly, the movie was kind of the least important part of this whole bit. I have watched so many useless, non-light-of-the-day seeing movies this way and I dont remember much about most of them.

Except one.   It was called " Ninaivugalai neeki viduga"

The title means Ërase those memories. And it is the creepiest movie I have ever seen. I like horror movies a lot and am not scared of them at all and I had seen a couple of horror movies atleast , before this one. The plot is incredibly soap opera-ish - An ordinary housewife meets with an accident and gets a brain transplant. The brain she gets belongs to an actress, so the actress continues to live in teh body of the housewife.And she is unable to accept the fact that she is now an ordinary woman- there are multiple scenes of her imagining fans coming to her only to suddenly see her face in the mirror and getting freaked out most ordinary scenes that I wouldnt remember the next day if I saw them today. But for some reason this has stayed on.

And not just stayed on like some vague memory in some obscure corner of the brain, every time I recollect this movie, I feel a chill down my spine. The worst part is that when I recall it, it is soo real, it is almost as if I am recollecting something that has happened to me, and not some bit of a movie. And the creepiest bit is that the movie has the same effect on the two other people who I know have watched it.  I am unable to figure out what it is about this movie that torments me so much and why it has left such a strong impression on all three of us. There is no trace of it in the internet so I cannot help but wonder if there are other people who have seen it and remember it the way the three of us do.

But I am sure whatever happens, this movie will come back to freak me out in the most unexpected of times. In a life that is so unpredictable, this is probably one of the few things that will remain unchanged. And I will never know why.