The Name- Part II

The tragedy of being a voracious reader with minimal retention capacity is that I tend to forget most of the lines that I have read. When I read a book, I literally live it-in the sense that I get very involved with the plot, the characters. My whole mood, attitude and tone are set by the words penned down by the author

That is all very good, but the trouble is that the words magically fade away within a couple of hours of me putting the book down. After that I have "Total Unrecall" I remember the name of the book (most of the time), the general plot outline but try as I might I can never remember any line that I read. Words that had transported me different parts of the earth or the human psyche, words that made me stifle a giggle or a sigh and words that made me actually put the book down for some time and ponder about the meaning of life are all automatically deleted from my memory. Try as I might, I am unable to recall a single coherent quote.

I always used to envision myself as one of those erudite scholars who pepper their conversations with bon mots impressing everyone around them with their wit and wisdom. I fail miserably at this. During conversations, I am always vaguely trying to recall the appropriate quote. Trying to multitask, I keep thinking while trying to continue the conversation and quit after a few minutes due to mental exhaustion. I am one of those people who blurt out 'Aha!' 2 weeks later, in the middle of an ardent discussion about Social Entrepreneurship, because I finally remembered the line I was furiously trying to recall about sleep and nature's restorer which was so appropriate to the sleep deprived conversation I was having with my classmate.

The entire point of this post is to tell you why I am called Echo. One quote that has stayed with me through the years through innumerable books, thoughts and geographies is this “For echo is the soul of voice exciting itself in hollow places..." from "The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje. My writing journey begins with the one line that has had the tenacity to hold on to a corner of my mind.