Day 82: Memoir
The 100 Day Writing Project
Recently, I read Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s memoir-Unfinished. Or rather Audible’d it. It was decent, it’s only fair to say so, a heady mix of pageants, Bollywood and of course the dreamy Nick Jiju romance. But I digress. This post is not a book review. It’s me thinking of what a memoir is, albeit aloud.
I had always thought memoirs are published after death maybe, as a biography or a profile, or published very late in life after one has finally taken off the dancing shoes and is living a retired life. But the slew of memoirs coming up including Unfinished and even A Promised Land by Barack Obama, is making me think about the concept of writing one’s own memoir, so soon in life that is has to be labelled Unfinished.
At the beginning of the book, Priyanka says that while writing the book she was forced to go back to her beginning, her roots and got to reflect on numerous things she had not remembered in a long time, and writing turned cathartic and as a memory refresher. It made me think of writing a memoir myself. Well I haven’t been crowned Miss World ever nor am I Bollywood/Hollywood queen, but isn’t my life too worth preserving? My memories, experiences and growth in life should be documented too right?
Innumerable small incidents which have shaped me to be how I am today, so many fun stories, sad stories-precious times spent with family and friends, epiphanies about life in my solitary moments. The people who have crossed my path and taught me a little more about life and who I am. Some memories which I am afraid I will forget and it will be like they never happened at all. This thought really scares me, always has. So when I read Unfinished I wanted to write my own memoir.
Will it be worth reading for others? I don’t know, maybe not. But will it be worthwhile to me? Going back in time to high school, a broken arm, college, concerts, broken hearts, university, marriage-all those thirty years worth setting in stone? I think so. Maybe I won’t share it with everyone, maybe I will share it with my offspring, or maybe the whole world but it is surely something which I want to do, even at the cost of being narcissistic, because my memories cannot be washed away and I think I have finally found a way to make sure that everything I have lived is not a dream.
