Ever thought of writing an autobiography? I thought about this only today. I’m sure one does not have to be a celebrity to write one. Who’s going to read that then, you might ask. I’d say, yourself and if you allow, a few more people. I’m almost convinced that all lives are equally very interesting and very random that they all qualify for nice autobiographies. Because it’s not just about what happened in your life but also what went through in your mind while these things were happening around you. But what’s the point in writing an autobiography? You think about your life, you talk about your life, then why not write? If not anything, it could be fun. It’s not a crazy idea. We all have stories to tell, why not write them? As I said, if you start writing the stuff you think and talk, you’d have a book.

Generally, what stays on top of the mind are only the strong memories that really invoke some very strong emotions. There could be so many other things that must have happened. Those things don’t come to the fore unless you make a conscious attempt to think, talk or write about it. We don’t often get to bring back these memories unless we have an opportunity like meeting an old friend, visiting your hometown, visiting your school etc. And what stays in our brain is mostly the recent memories. Recent memories always have a ‘high beta value’. Something good happens, we go overboard, something bad happens we get terribly upset. That’s not the case with old memories. Old memories invariably make us proud. Proud about how we achieved those best moments and proud about how we have come through the worst moments.

If I think of my primary school, I have about half a dozen events most of which is not worth mentioning. In my high school, dozens of stories but again most of them are of less relevance. In my college days, some very interesting events certainly worth recording. My CA days have to be half of the book. Just three years and there were clear directions in various facets – life, family and career. And then comes the office days leading up to the present days. Basically, I can talk about how I was brought up, what kind of kid I was, why some events and stuff that are still vivid and what impact they had on me, what moving around meant to me as a kid, my disappointments as a kid, my backstreet highs, what kind of school I got into, my new friends, my academics, my gully cricket and how sucked at it, my love for chess and how I had that discussion with my father that I’d be a professional chess player, how I cleared the 10th a bit uncharacteristically, how higher secondary sculpted my future career, how I topped the school in 12th and the chicken pox scare just before the exams, oh, I’d keep on going!

If you like writing and if you like to revisit your life, there is no better thing than to write an autobiography. Writing an autobiography is not the same as writing diaries or making a collection of it. A diary might record things as and when they happen. Events and views would be very current. An autobiography is a recollection. It is today’s view on yesterday’s events. I get a chance to evaluate and appreciate what I have done all along. Of course I do that as soon as things happen but more often than not, it would have the bias of the recent memory. Think of a decision that you took 10 years back. The way you evaluate and appreciate that decision now would surely be better than how you’d have done the day after the decision was made or a year after the decision was made. I’d imagine that now you’d have more maturity and better understanding of the problem or the decision than you had back then. It would be so fascinating to see how sometimes things were so right back then look so wrong now and vice versa.

Also, you cannot deny that there is this joy of re-living those memories. Nostalgia is a very common human feeling. Even if you’re having your best times, you can still feel nostalgic. The joy of or longing for re-living these old memories is what makes people to arrange for a re-union, sign up in orkut and facebook, make a trip to the home town, visit those places that you did when they were young and all such stuff. We like to recollect and re-live those moments. When I went for my daughter’s school for her admission, I went back about 15 years. Just like in the movies. Almost remembered the name of the guy who got me kneel down in the sun for couple of hours. Now what I’m pondering is if I can jot down these incidents, events, memories and later on edit, arrange and organise for a meaningful mass of text. And probably, call it part one of my autobiography!

Your autobiography could even be worth sharing. Someone could know more about you. You might end up knowing more about yourself, you never know! Truly, I think, if we set out to write an autobiography, we’d know how much we don’t know about ourselves. You might have to talk a lot about your childhood to your parents, family and friends. You might be searching for that old photograph that you’re never keen to show to others, that handwritten letter which could illegibly soiled, that trophy that you won for God knows what, that gift that you always managed to hide from everyone, that piece of memorabilia that you believe is still there somewhere. To use a cliche, you’ll walk down the memory lane. And trust me, you’ll enjoy that trip.

When I say autobiography, I don’t have a 500-page book in my mind. Just a story of my life so far, whatever number of pages it takes. What will I do with that book? I don’t know what I will do with that but I’d certainly enjoy writing it and that would be, for me, well worth the time. On second thoughts, well, I can gift it to my daughter 15 years later. Not bad, eh?