The memory keepers

As I get older, I am increasingly grateful that I have friends who like to travel far more than I do. There is something wonderfully childlike about people who love to travel. They are restless but hopeful. They are optimistic and they are energetic. They believe that there are things out there in this world of ours that are worthy of pursuit, that should be sought out, enjoyed and shared with others.

I love hearing other people’s travel stories and getting gifts from other countries without ever having to stand in a line, get a visa and spend actual money. When somebody goes somewhere and brings me back something, anything, I will love it unconditionally, immediately. I think of how this little giraffe was carved by South African hands and now it is here with me and it is incredible. I think of how someone went far away and thought of me and literally brought me back a rock, and I would be filled with gratitude. The idea that someone thought of me in a crowded shop, with limited time and an exchange rate that was laughing loudly at them and all the hard work they had to do, touches my bitter old heart. The joy of getting a souvenir from someone else’s travels is far greater than the joy I would get from actually going somewhere.

Accordingly, there are many things in my life that are neither useful nor beautiful but I love them and keep them close. Little things that have travelled back from far-off lands, safely tucked into over-stuffed luggage. Fridge magnets and thin t-shirts, wooden dolls and beautiful green bottles of mediocre wine. Souvenirs from places I’ve never been, and probably never will be, and the comfort I get from holding them, wearing them against my skin and looking at them from a distance at odd points during the day, has little to do with the objects alone.

The word souvenir is one of those soft French words, with ancient Latin roots that means to call to mind. We can get caught up in the romance of this language and come to believe that an object could contain an experience. That a keychain, a plastic replica, a glass box filled with desert sand could capture what is like to be far from home. To be surrounded by a language you cannot understand, to stand in the shadow of something you’ve longed to see your whole life, to understand what you must look like from a distance.

It is easy to laugh at the idea of souvenirs. They are tacky, they are kitschy, they are commercial. They are neither beautiful nor useful. The inadequacy of a souvenir shop is plain to see when you run into them here at home. Tiny shops filled with brass carvings, bright scarves, cloth-covered notebooks. As soon as you walk into these places, you know they are not for you, because you are here every day. These are shops filled with things for people who are leaving, who will not stay long. No sunburned backpacker’s heart is content until they have an elephant of some kind to take home with them. And if the dizzying displacement of travelling across India must be distilled into a single thing, then why not a bejewelled elephant? I can find no fault with this.

As our world becomes depressingly homogeneous, our cities all mind-numbingly the same — filled with the same stores selling the same things, the same restaurants selling the same re-heated food — the idea of a souvenir stands alone and brave.

The next time you go somewhere, anywhere, try and buy something. Struggle to communicate with the person selling it to you and do not shy away from the obvious and the mundane. Pick up that sticker of a goddess from in front of an ancient temple, that postcard you will never send, that keychain of a tiny Eiffel Tower. Feel good as you travel home, knowing that the souvenirs you have brought back will defy time and space. You can share them with other people or keep them all to yourself. Every time you look at them, they will remind you of why you love to travel and why you love to come back home.

( Snigdha Manickavel is a Hyderabad-based writer)

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