For Alzheimer's Awareness Day on Sept 21, we share a poignant snapshot of memory loss via JoyBhattacharjya
Sambit Chatterjee, Soumitra Chatterjee's brother passed away this year. He was an Alzheimer's patient and my father often met him while helping out at the day care centre in Salt Lake. I once wrote about how daddy knew from my mother's stories how Sambit and Soumitra also grew up in Krishnanagar around the same time as my mother. Knowing that Alzheimer's patients' memories recede backwards, daddy started chatting to him about the houses on the town's main road, the 'lat sahib's' visit and the pretty Roy sisters. His face lit up and for a couple of hours they had a wonderful time discussing the old days.
A couple of hours after he reached home, his wife called the centre. Apparently Sambit reached home and was jumping around saying 'aajke daroon kichu holo,' (something amazing happened today). But his short term memory failed him and he didn't remember what had actually happened. He was smiling and laughing and yet had no memory about what had made him so happy.
When my father finally told her, she was distraught. Sambit had never discussed his younger days with her, and it was a time she knew nothing about. Fifty years together, yet she was a stranger in that precious little slice of life he could now remember. The only person with that key was an 88 year old man who was recollecting the stories that his wife, now an Alzheimer patient herself, had told him many years ago.
Life is a rum old thing..
- Joy Bhattacharjya
