Memory’s Echo: How a Chance Encounter Revealed the Art of Lifelong Retention

 

A few days ago, in the last week of March, I was traveling on a train. I met an old uncle who had a shabby look. In the beginning, I didn’t pay much attention to him, as he was rather talking to my parents. But soon, his intellectual experiences caught my attention. He narrated a very beautiful story, which, according to him, he had read in his question paper when he was a teenager.

The story goes as follows:

In a village lived a man who had two daughters, and he was determined to get them married. He married his first daughter to a farmer, and then the second one to a potter. After a few months, he received a letter from his first daughter telling him that it hadn’t rained in the past few months, so they were not getting a good harvest. After reading her letter, the man prayed to God and requested that he shower him with some rain. After a few months, he receives another letter, but from the second daughter, who tells him that since it has been raining heavily lately, it has made it difficult for them to collect clay for pottery.

I am not amazed by this story. The reason for my amusement is that he recollects a story that he may have read some 60 years ago. I asked him, How come you have remembered such an old story? Was this so heartwarming that it has left a lasting impression on your heart, or is it something else? To my surprise, he answered that he remembers every single thing he has read till now. The secret to this technique is that earlier there were fewer distractions among kids and they could easily focus on anything, but nowadays kids are distracted and they are unable to focus on anything for a longer period of time. According to him, concentration is the key. If you read anything with full concentration, you will easily remember it all through your lifetime. His words were moving. All along the way to Shillong, I kept on contemplating whatever he had said. I found that it was absolutely true; even I can’t focus on anything for a longer period of time. Although this might sound very cliché, this is the truth. I saw and heard with my very own eyes and ears how the power of concentration can have a huge impact, but the journey was short, so I couldn’t ask him how to ignore the distractions and concentrate like him, like a monk.