Remembering History

I forgot to mention yesterday that another thing pushing me into my meditation on ages and, by implication, aging, was my involvement in the morning, before we set off to KL, in an interview for a book and film being put together by one of my former schools in Singapore. Trying to think back to what it was like to first teach in Singapore, some twenty years ago, was a perplexing exercise in that my memories of some aspects of specific events (Teachers’ Day, September 1988, for example) are vivid to the point of being as fresh as those of the Drama Camp we just completed, but they remain essentially uncommunicable, at least in the form of an interview for something as formal as a history of the school. I don’t think I make an easy subject for interview.

We handed a few pictures to Zarina, the girl doing the interview, mainly of stuff related to the musicals we did in the school in the early nineties. Of course, Noi was the one who knew where they were. She has always used photographs as triggers for memory, something which I think at one time I despised, believing that somehow it was the ‘real’ memory that counted. On this matter, as in many others, I’ve come to see how right my wife is. Handing over the pictures I was startled at the vivid recall they evoked of the textures of those times. I could smell the old orchestra pit at the Victoria Theatre and nearly fell back into it.

I wonder if twenty years from now I’ll be allowed to replay the good memories of the last few days in school when looking at the photos above? We can only pray for time’s mercy.