Absent-Minded...Bored?

One thing which I have not been able to ascertain so far regarding myself is whether I am absent minded or just plain bored with certain aspects of life. The fact that I am not brainy enough to qualify for being absent minded just might tilt the scales in favor of being bored and not taking enough care to remember certain things. It often amazes me how I am able to remember the score of some cricket match held a couple of decades ago, but doesn't remember a request to switch off the washing machine by my wife within seconds of her asking.

As with moulding of most of my characterestics, books have played a big part in my memory too. From very early on, I was fascinated by absent-minded characters. I was entranced by people who could remember complex formulas but totally forget the fact that they haven't eaten for a day or two etc. I had a couple of eccentric relatives who too added to the romanticism of absent mindedness. There was this uncle of my dad's who had a great sense of humor and also provided a great amount of humor to others by his actions. Early on in his life, as a student, he had created history of sorts by writing a couple of pages long essay for a question in his science class as to how a lizard catches its prey. While everyone wrote about the tongue of the lizard being fixed to the front of the mouth and how it had a material that would trap the insect etc., this relative of mine went on to describe the emotions going through the lizard's mind as he prepared for the kill and the insect's mind about the potential attack. In an extremely gory and detailed manner, he went on to describe how the demonic lizard caught the unarmed and helpless insect and devoured it. If he had been in this age, he might even have thrown in a bit of al Qaida or Iraq or Taliban into it. This person was always great fun for us kids because he would narrate stories in great detail, mostly his own creations. What interested me more in those days, though, was the fact that he would forget mid-sentence what he was talking about till the kids all explained to him about the story till then before he would proceed. While the others found it slightly annoying, it caught my imagination that a person could forget what they were talking about. He also famously provided great entertainment once to his wife and kids by preparing to go to office in his shirts and underpants before their roaring laughter reminded him of the fact that he was slightly underdressed.

While in school or in college, I didn't have any teacher who had such characterestics which was rather disappointing for a person like me. For long, I was half-expecting to be taught by an extraordinarily brilliant teacher who forgot the basic things in life. I did have a physics teacher who could be termed quirky, but even he can't be classified as really being absent minded.

From long, I realized that in my case too, I found it really difficult to retain some stuff if it didn't really interest me. Mathematics was a subject that I didn't really care much about till I got a good teacher in school who showed me the fun with numbers. That change resulted in me scoring some really good marks in maths, surprising even myself in the bargain. That also led me to believe that I was really good at it and choose it in college where a bunch of disenchanted professors in Thrissur's St. Thomas College Mathematics Department saw to it that the love for maths was forever buried six feet under as far as I was concerned. Nowadays, I believe I should have gone for English, my first love, but then life doesn't have a rewind button.

Coming back to my absent mindedness, I think it is a combination of disinterest and forgetfulness in my case. While there are certain things which I wouldn't want to forget at any cost and still does, there are also certain other things where I conveniently hide behind the curtain of absent mindedness. The lines, though, are rather blurred between the two, even for me.