Down the memory lane

Ever since I received that sms, my hands were itching. I am a supposed priviledged customer of Pantaloons having ensured them a good revenue. So, they keep tempting me with their promotional smses highlighting the words D I S C O U N T and S A L E. Most of the times, I abide by what my head instructs rather that getting led by what my heart pleads. But this time was different. I was not exactly in a good mood thanks to some cold war in office and pampering myself was one way to unwind.
So, off I went to their outlet. I selected 2 dresses but then saw a big queue at their trial rooms and decided to just pay up and get them. I came home and then, I found one of the dresses was well...err.... tight. I dare not tell you which size I had picked up. So, as per the norm, I returned promptly to their store the next day to get it exchanged. Well, I might write another post someday on this capricious mind of mine!
All formalities done, I was checking some dresses, when I felt someone tapping on my shoulder. I turned and saw a woman of appx my age, squinting her eyes and pointing her finger at me asking me "are you so-and-so".
I said "yes"... and then I searched every nook and corner of my brain for some hint as to who this person was. But all I drew from there was a blank response which I promptly returned to the lady and with an embarrassed look questioned "and you are ....???".
She seemed taken aback by my display of bad memory and replied "Aprajita". The name sounded familiar and I needed some time to get to the exact point in time where I could relate to her.
So, I involuntarily answered "HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII, How ARE you? Its been ages!" keeping my fingers crossed that it should not so turn out that we met just a few days back. Meanwhile, my mind did a quick ctrl+f on the name "Aprajita" and there I landed nearly 20 years back in time, to class 7 where I did happen to have a classmate by that name.
But I needed to confirm it and asked her "so what did you do after leaving the school", and while she answered all my doubts were cleared and I realised that she indeed was the one!
She had changed a little in terms of her hair style and the attire. She used to be more of long hair and orthodox sort of a girl. Now here she was in her blunt cut and clad in Jeans and T. No wonder, I consoled myself, I could not recognise her.
On the other hand, there I was. All bloated up and double, triple the size, and still she DID remember me. It was good really meeting her and going down the memory lane but later I mulled over why my memory fell short. I found this on the net

Time plays a major role in the memory process. Weakening and blurring engrams we never use, is a reality. Past experiences are constantly slipping away from us,
some rapidly and others imperceptibly. Daniel Schacter, M.D. says, "Forgetting,
though often frustrating, is an adaptive feature of our memories. We tend to
remember only what is important and meaningful in our lives -- we don't need to
remember everything that has ever happened to us; engrams that we never use are probably best forgotten. The cognitive psycholgoist John Anderson has argued
convincingly that forgetting memories over time is an economical response to the
demands placed on memory by the enviornment in which we live. We are better off forgetting trivial experiences than clogging our minds with each and every
ongoing event."

This makes it worse. Did I treat that friend of mine as trivial while she retained me as important? Too much to think! Forget it! But this incident did remind me of Ushas, this post.

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