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Forgetting Names

Conversation 1: (Having dinner at a restaurant in Basaveshwaranagar on thursday night)
"Do you remember there used to be a hero in Kannada films?"
"Who? How did he look like?"
"He was not very famous. He had curly hair"
"Oh okay, Sunil?"
"No, but he acted around the same time. I think he has acted movies with Sudharani."
"Who else? Shashikumar? Ramkumar?"
"No, he was not a Kumar. I know him, but I cannot remember the name"
"He has acted with Shruthi? Abhijit?"
"No, he was not very famous I guess"
"Raghuveer? Gulzar Khan?"
"Namskaar pa. He was not that bad. He was generally a poor guy, a tailor in some movies. He always has lot of problems."
"There were lot of bad movies and bad actors around that time. There was a movie called 'Mangalya' around that time. Malashree and Sunil are lovers and Sunil's brother Sridhar marries her so that..."
"Yeah, its Shridhar I was talking about...ha ha ha..."

Conversation 2: (Very late night - in the car on the way to Gokarna)
'Sooryangoo Chandrangoo Bandaare Munisu...', the song was being played in the radio.
"Amazing song, its one of my favorites"
"Yeah, do you know who was sung it?"
"Ravi, right?"
"Yes, which movie is this?"
"This is...this is...Ptch...its a Puttanna Kanagal movie..."
"Yeah, Shrinath and Aarthi had acted in it...she always keeps calling 'lo Prabhakara'"
"One sec, there is a title track of this movie...wait...'Snehada Kadalalli'?"
"No, thats not the title track. Oh, whats the name?"
"It has two words and the movie name starts with S if I am not wrong, like Shringara Kavya or something like that"
"Its my wife's favorite movie"
"My brother will definitely know the name. Shall I call him? No, its already 11.30"
After a few minutes of unbearable silence, I suddenly remember the name - "Shubha Mangala". Yeah!

Conversation 3: (Friday morning at countryside in Gokarna)
"You know Zarina Wahab?"
"Who? Was she the one who was very fair and looked a bit aunty-ish?"
"No, Zarina was dark. I know who you are thinking. The one who acted in that Amol Palekar movie"
"Yeah, where he is a budhdhu, and he goes to Ashok Kumar to learn the 'tricks of the trade'"
"Yup, that was a hilarious movie. Ashok Kumar was awesome in that. Whats the name of that movie?"
"Baathon Baathon Mein?"
"No, that had Tina Munim in it. Ptch, I have the name in the tip of my tongue"
We spend some 10 minutes remembering the name. Then, I realize I might be having a song of that movie in my ipod. Has Kishore sung that song? No, I am not getting it. May be Lata. I browse through the list. Yes, I got it. "Choti Si Baat". Oh yes, ID3 tags really help!

Conversation 4: (Having morning coffee)
"There used to be lot of good movies during Hrishikesh Mukherjee's time, right? Golmaal, Chupke Chupke, Khoobsurat..."
"Do you remember there was a movie about 3 old men -Ashok Kumar, Utpal Dutt and Hangal I suppose"
"Yeah, Mithun was the driver right?"
"Eh how come we are forgetting so many names? I know this movie has only one word and has the meaning something like 'people who have fun'...something like Mazedaar..."
"No, its not mazedaar"
"I know. May be the movie name starts with R, I am not so sure"
(thinking...thinking...)
"Hey, I got it. Namkeen right? No no, Shaukeen...ha ha ha"

Do things like this happen to you? It happens to me very regularly. I keep forgetting names - a feeling of having the name at the tip of your tongue, but can't spit it out! I will have some clues like - the name starts with 'K' or it has 3 words or the meaning is something similar to this. Whenever I get stuck up like this, I just cannot ignore it. I will be fully occupied with that, it turns into total obsession - till the puzzle is solved, till the mystery is unraveled. And when I get the name, it will be a great relief - a sense of "yeah"!

P.S: The trip to Gokarna was amazing. I feel I am becoming more of a beach person. Beaches relax me - sitting on seashore watching sunsets, swimming, having food at shacks with lounge and trance music playing all the time. Listening to Karunesh and eating Banana Honey Pancakes(I was so obsessed with it that I used to have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner!) was heaven. I had good Mexican Burritos after a long time (They call it Bureto here) Playing carrom with godhi hittu as substitute for powder was great fun. Lying on the nice cold sand and looking at the moon - aah, if there is bliss, it is this!

Comments

Anonymous said…
I relate with this so much!back in engineering..during some class..my friend and me went crzy remembering a song sung by this cute looking nephew of Rishi kapoor.After 40 mins of torture...I remembered the song-"duniya mein sab se pehle".We did a hi-fi in the class and were kicked out of the class!

Another name I keep forgetting is of Sean Penn.Now i remember him by thinking of "Sea and pen":D

-krupa
Unknown said…
A thing that sometimes happens to me is I know the tune of a song, but not the lyrics. I can hum a tune but still it takes sometime before I remember the song. A company http://www.midomi.com seems to be working on this :-)
We just need to hum the song and it will match the song.

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