I wonder if it happens to other people…. Embarrassing moments when you have a total relapse of memory…. Selective amnesia … is that what you call it?
You know its right there at the tip of your tongue and yet your mind draws a complete blank when you have to say it aloud…or just need that information at the most crucial moment. Right then your memory eludes you and you are staring at the other person’s face, like you are a total jerk. Like it happened today… my company had this important press conference and I happened to be talking to this very senior and established journalist. I am usually shy and it takes me a lot to muster up courage to go and speak to a well known person. But I guess my parochial ties with this person made me comfortable to a certain extant. We were generally chatting about the state of affairs… n my native place ( both of us are khar khua axomiyas from the land of lahe lahe axom) and then suddenly all of a sudden he asked me about this person….. A mr. so and so who happened to be the executive director of marketing. To be precise he wanted his name….. and there I was… transfixed ; hit by a bolt from the blue… well it actually didn’t amount to that… but the fact that I couldn’t recall his name made me feel so embarrassed that I couldn’t think straight.. Ofcourse I know him…Mr…. eh . … uh .. Mr… ED Marketing…. Uh …. Mmm …err… Mr. marketing…Uhhh I know his name …. I see him every day… he is the person who reads every single word of the notesheet meticulously… he who is always reading between the lines and looking for hidden meanings and implications… the big boss who never clears a file at one go… of course I know him.. His name is .a Mr…. Mr. … ahhh got it Mr… …… ok I give up and I can’t recall his name. The thought that here was a reputed journalist standing infront of me anxiously looking for an answer and me muttering under my breath unable to recall the name of the executive director of marketing of the company I work for made me go red in my face. What was wrong with me… its not like I don’t know the person…. Of course I Knew him… I should know …. Especially me being a corporate communications official… Oh God in heavens … how could I have forgotten his name… I cringed with embarrassment and humiliation.
Realizing the strange predicament that I had put myself into and the gentleman that he was, he left brushing aside the matter; saying it happened all the time and there was no reason why I should feel like such a moron. Like an ostrich who buries its head into the ground when faced with a problem, I just stood there recoiling into the deepest recesses of my mind wishing I could just vaporize into the thin air…
Oh !!! seconds after he left the name did flash in my head.
