Nostalgia- an essential part of life

by Shireen Senadhira

Nostalgia- an essential part of life

Nostalgia, is it a luxury of artists? This was a question at a friendly gathering that brought the conversation to a halt. Then came a barrage of replies. They went like, ‘Definitely NO, it’s not an artist thing at all.’ ‘Of course not, it pertains to all people.’ ‘Nostalgia is a kind of homesickness. ’

‘Actually, singing songs reminding of home was forbidden to the Swiss mercenaries, a long ago time ago, as they led to nostalgia to the point of desertion, illness and death.’ ‘Really, then how can you put it only in relation to artists?’ and so it continued thus.

Amazing landscapes

As I listened to this shower of replies I remembered a passage from a story that I had read. ‘The esoteric octave that the wind hums through the winding woods cannot be matched by any concerto.

There was long ago laughter dripping from the trees and snatches of conversation, whispers and chuckles of bygone years playing hide and seek .’ the writer was alluding to trekking the Haputale woods. It brought back a wave of nostalgia that hit me as I have trekked the same paths and enjoyed every minute being in Haputale.

The wild hares who fled from us in our trek and the startled porcupines that fledged their quills in a defense position. There was the insomniac owl that gave a half hearted hoot while the hawks glided in the far sky and I liked being ensconced by the bracing air and the taste of a cup of tangy tea.

Nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in an idealized form. The word has its roots in the Greek language. ‘Nostos’ means to ‘return home’ and ‘algos’ means ‘ache or pain.’ It was also, described as a medical condition, a form of melancholy.

However, in common usage, nostalgia in general ,is an interest in past eras and their personalities and events, especially in the ‘good old days.’ Sometimes, it is brought on by a sudden image or remembrance of something from one’s childhood.

Economic difficulties

When political, social and economic difficulties arise at any time, the consumers and families share a longing for the return of better and simpler times. Also, low job security, escalating payments, difficulties of retirement and high crime rates etc. make the people say ‘the good old days’ were better than today.

Maybe, in recreating the past, it is melancholic to realize that the past is gone and the future will never be the past. The real problem is that we romantically reconstruct the past as only positive and block out the negative.

Nostalgia is an impetus for writers and painters. The bitter sweet longing for things, persons and events which is nostalgia is reflected much in poetry, short stories, novels, films and paintings.

‘At the Fish Houses,’ is a long poem by Elizabeth Bishop that describes a visit to the home of her childhood. The themes depicted in the poem are: childhood, nature versus man, knowledge and mystery and death and time. Much visual imagery is obtained from the first few lines and this imagery appeals to the reader.

‘The air smells so strong of codfish it makes one’s nose run and eyes water.’ The reader can almost see the fish houses as they stood nearby the sea and this brings upon a certain nostalgia for those times. Images of sea and land are used by Bishop for the known as well as mystery. ‘There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb He has scraped the scales…. ‘ The childhood memories of the old fisherman are retained by the writer.

The sea and land show that man and nature are kept together as well as apart. The old man would later disappear inevitably and it shows how time intertwines with death. Objects have been elevated to romanticism in this poem and childhood is emphasized with nostalgia and a dream like state.

Memories

Emily Dickinson’s poem, ‘A Drop Fell on the Apple Tree,’ is a short poem of four verses. It describes rainfall in the country in a halcyon effect and brings back memories of our own country living and the enjoyment of rainfall. Also, how the rain falls in a few drops at first and later gushes making orchards, brooks and rooftops happy.

In the short stories, ‘Once More to the Lake’ by E B white and ‘Yellow Door House,’ by Joyce Maynard, both writers reminisce about their childhood with their parents.

A deep sense of nostalgia is found in these two stories and they both symbolize a physical place in the writer’s childhood. In the former, while on a fishing trip with his small son, White reverses the role as being the son himself with his father.

Maynard talks of her return home and at that time, the yellow door of her childhood house has become a green door. Both writers are parents and they seem to have become fonder of their own parents. The past makes people what they are and all symbols connected with beautiful memories of the past adds value to their worth as persons.

In Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the protagonist, Jay Gatsby becomes rich and right throughout the story, he tries to recapture the past which is impossible as the past has happened and finished.

But Jay cannot get rid of his yearning and with the events that takes place in the story, he upsets the entire applecart of his life and others. Reading Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone with the Wind, the life in the south of North America is vividly portrayed.

The time was before, during and after the civil war and the heroine’s life and the town Atlanta in Georgia State is so well described that that it makes a good sweeping, romantic tale and the book, an American classic.

When this novel was made into a film, it captured the grandeur of the antebellum South and sustained the connections between music, nostalgia, utopia and femininity so well that it became such a favourite. In the film world, the musicals by MGM and Warner Brothers studios were such hits that they are played over and over again with the ease of DVDs.

Some of them are: Singing in the Rain, My Fair lady, The Student Prince, Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, Fantasticks, Kiss Me Kate, The Sound of Music and God Spell. These are so much enjoyed that we still keep special times to see them to wallow in the nostalgia that they evoke.

Landscapes

In art, landscapes of earlier times amazes one when viewing them, as how the scene really was. Progress changes the face of towns and it is only the old paintings that show how the towns were, especially, before the time of photography. Even, paintings of figures show their attire at a given time. In southern Lanka, young women are seen in trousers , blouses, shorts skirts, short dresses and shorts too, as elsewhere.

It is very striking and reflective to see the damsels of yore in paintings and how majestically they are portrayed in their long sleeved blouses trimmed in beeralu lace and long skirts, in Portuguese style.

Most of all, when someone showed me a sketch of the famous ‘Pacha tree’ of Galle near the esplanade, now a cricket grounds, it brought back such memories, nostalgia, for the old times. This place at present has no vestige of what it was. At those early times, under the wide spread of its branches, it was a meeting place. A ‘speaker’s corner’ for whoever tarried awhile to listen.

There were barber shops, al fresco, being busy amidst a host of other vendors. Then, and even in earlier times, it was a resting place for carts and bulls and a watering place for the latter. It is said that many a palm reader was there, holding his victim mesmerized, with his smooth parley. Also, the Afghans, in their flowing trousers, waistcoats and turbans lending money on interest. What a bustling place it would have been then.

Nostalgia is an essential part of life, it is not, reliving the past but the way in which we remember it. Why? Whenever one meets with friends of long time, it is a certainty, that the group will reminisce and talk of the incidents that had happened in their lives, especially, the interesting and colourful ones.

There is warmth in such conversations as they recount the past with zest and end their meetings, wanting to meet again soon. This is a trait of nostalgia that strengthens and binds friendships closer. One just cannot dismiss nostalgia, as nostalgia is a universal theme dogging our footsteps in life and it is there to stay.