Just yesterday I asked ChatGPT to tell me a random interesting fact. And it said that our memories are always played again by our brain and when we speak about them we tell not the original story or how it happened, but how our brain is reliving it. So it can be different every time we talk about it and also different for all who were a part of the memory. It’s called memory reconsolidation , where our brain is constantly rewriting our past! So I thought of why not rewrite a memory of my own using my brain and pen it down to keep it forever as I think about it today i.e., 19/04/2026. That’s how I become my own brain’s boss on a Sunday evening.
It was in 1999 that my family went for a long holiday. It is something that I feel is highly unusual for families back then. We went for a South India tour all the way from Nainital for 30 days!!! I cannot imagine anyone doing that in the current times given that not many professions will allow for that kind of leave. What was again unusual about the trip was that we were almost 40 people, including my grandparents (paternal and maternal), many neighbours that had retired long back, my father’s colleagues and their families and few neighbours that were working and their families. I was in class 4 then and possibly one of the youngest. The group was like a mixed fruit juice of ages, professions, as well as exposure.
Why I mention exposure is because it was through this trip that a few of us, including me sat on a train for the first time. The other was my mother’s aunt. Our trip started from Nainital and our first stop was Orissa. I hardly remember much details about the trip and the places we saw, but I can never forget the first view of the beach. Words fell short. It was mesmerising. The clean sand, the waves touching our feet and then rushing back home only to come back again! It was no less than a dream. We also went to Jagannath temple but I can recollect nothing about it apart from entering through the wooden door inside. Next we went to Nandan Kanan and Konark in Orissa, possibly seeing Chilka lake as well, but all this is faint recollection.
In that trip we went to Madurai, Mahabalipuram , Pondicherry, Kanyakumari, Cochin, and many other places. But it was only the Puri beach that stayed with me. I may have been too young to attach myself with most of the other places. However I do remember many of the jokes we would tell in the bus. Our bus had a seating arrangement and all would sit according to it. In the arrangement it was our partners and the seat column that was fixed. What changed everyday was the row of your seat. It was done so, so that all could sit on each of rows and enjoy as well as suffer through each. I also remember me, my sister and my Daadi, who were also the bus seat partners, to have travelled n number of times through the hotel’s lift up and down in Cochin. That’s all I remember of Cochin actually.
In that trip we would often stop at many beaches and collect sea shells. Today when my son kept his small cup over his ear and enjoyed the white noise of it, I remembered how we used to keep those sea shells on our ears and our elders would say that the sound you hear now is the sound of the sea. It may be wrong, but how beautiful it is to talk to kids like that. Engage them with their imagination through small things and let them explore the world in their own personal ways.
It also made me realise of the conversation we were having in our neighbourhood yesterday that each kid has a room full of toys today while none of us had this liberty while we were growing up. I thought maybe that’s why we are buying them, to see ourselves playing with each one of those toys through our kids.
Overall the trip was a memory for a lifetime. I never have gone on a trip like that after 1999. A trip that had 40 people, all known to each other. A trip that was 30 days long. And a trip in which I heard the sound of the sea through sea shells. Some glimpses of that amazing trip are shared below.
Aali Pant 