In the stillness of the morning, my mother once told me something that danced on the edge of wisdom and simplicity. “I never let the bad stay in my memory,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes that hinted at a life lived light, yet full. “I only keep the good. The rest? It’s erased. That’s how I enjoy life.” The weight of her words stayed with me. Could it be that the secret to joy was as simple as choosing what to hold on to and what to let go of? Could our memories be curated like a gallery — only the beautiful, the meaningful, the luminous framed and displayed, while the shadows are swept away? I looked back on my own life, the winding corridors of memory where laughter echoed alongside grief, triumph beside defeat. I realised something startling. For all my sharp recollection and my elephantine memory, the bulk of what I carried was, like my mother’s, humble and functional. Ordinary moments, often overlooked, were what shaped me: the smell of the first monsoon rain on dry earth, the hum of a ceiling fan in summer, the quiet joy of completing a task with care, the scoop of Dinshaw’s ice cream that my parents treated us to as a reward for good behaviour and to mark special occasions. That doesn’t mean I’ve been spared life’s hardships. Far from it. I have known betrayal and heartbreak, suffered sleepless nights and gnawing self-doubt. But I have worked — consciously, deliberately — to let the sharp edges of those moments blur. The bad is acknowledged, then released. I remember crying for hours as a child in Nagpur, watching funeral processions pass by our home, the sight of mortality too heavy for my tender heart to bear. I recall the identity crisis that clung to me like an ill-fitting garment, words and labels not yet within my grasp to name what I felt. Yet these memories are faded sketches, the pain softened by time and healing. The lessons remain. The anguish does not. When I was held back in sixth grade at Modern School, the shame was like second skin. Teasing and taunts became my new reality, and I bore them silently, ashamed for myself, perhaps even more for my family. But life, relentless and generous, offered me resilience. I grew stronger, my resolve hardening like steel tempered by fire. By the time I reached grade X, I had built a cocoon of independence. The music room, the art room, the garden — these became my sanctuaries. My friendships deepened despite the wounds of earlier years, though I carried the scar of aloofness, my unspoken fear of being hurt again. Scars, however, are not blemishes to be hidden. They are stories in the language of skin, markers of survival and growth. They remind us not of the pain endured, but of the strength gained. Mine are etched in laugh lines and sleepless nights, in the toughened calluses of a heart once too tender. The betrayal of a lover — the first man I dared to trust, to share a home with — might have hardened me irreparably. When he robbed me not just of material things but of trust itself, I felt as if the ground beneath me had crumbled. Yet it was my mother’s voice, steady as the rhythm of a beating heart, that pulled me back. “Learn to trust again,” she urged. “If you let this break you, then he wins. And you, my child, cannot lose.” I did not lose. I let go — not just of the man, but of the bitterness he could have left behind. To hold onto anger, I realised, is to poison your own well. Trust returned, cautious but alive, and with it, the ability to see beauty in others once more. Life, after all, is an echo chamber. What we send out — kindness or cruelty, hope or despair — returns to us amplified. If we cling to the bad, we invite it to haunt us, to multiply. But if we file it away, its weight lifted from our shoulders, we make space for the good to take root, to flourish. Forgetting, I’ve come to believe, is an art. It is not a passive act, but a deliberate choice — a pruning of the soul. Forgetting the sting of an insult, the ache of a failure, does not mean denying it happened. It means stripping it of its power to hurt us anew. It means remembering the lesson, not the pain. This is not to say we should forget our responsibilities, our commitments to others, the humanity of those who cross our paths. Forgetting someone’s time, slighting their efforts, ignoring their dignity — these are lapses we cannot afford. But when forgetting can heal and free us to live fully in the present, it becomes an act of grace. I have learned, too, that we must forgive ourselves as much as we forgive others. I think back to my younger self, who mirrored the teasing he so despised, who built walls to protect himself but ended up shutting others out. I see him now with tenderness, not judgment. He was learning, as we all are, how to navigate a world that is often unkind. Life has shown me that its treasures — the quiet joys, the unexpected kindnesses, the steady rhythm of love — can only be fully appreciated when we release what no longer serves us. To live mindfully, to stay present in the shimmer and hum of each moment, is to let the past be the past. We all carry scars. They are the fingerprints of our journey, the marks of battles fought and survived. But they need not weigh us down. Like my mother, we can choose what to keep and what to let go. We can frame the good, let the bad fade into the background and step forward lighter, freer. The world is a mirror, reflecting back the energy we bring to it. When we cultivate positivity, we invite it to multiply. When we let go of resentment, we make room for joy. And when we choose to forget the details of our pain, we leave space for the details of our delight. So here’s to the art of forgetting — not the forgetfulness that neglects, but the forgetfulness that heals. May we all learn to carry our scars with pride, to let our memories be a gallery of the good and to live each day as it comes, unburdened and alive.
