A memory comes pop

Repressed by past trauma, Lego resurfaces

Gulal Salil
Sep 9, 2018 · 3 min read

We grew up playing with Lego bricks, my elder brother and I. Back when we were kids in the 90s, a budding architect and designer, our Papa would keep us busy with these and we spent hours and hours fiddling with these things. And even if we didn’t, they became a part of us. Our thinking. Creating something out of small pieces became a pastime and it shaped us and our liking towards tigdums (तिगड़म — putting together of stuff). Mummy used to bring us hordes of miniature toy cars as well. Although, I distinctly realise now that both our parents sort of fooled us by buying the local cheaper versions of these instead because we were not really well off but I definitely used to be demanding as a child so…well though it worked all the same really.

Fast forward 17 years of my life, from the time when I was 8 and my dad passed away, and I haven’t touched even a single piece of Lego since. We suddenly changed trajectories almost overnight after that accident perhaps, and Legos became a thing of the past. I didn’t remember much of my father because i was really small too. But from then up till just the day before, I did not realise how much it was right there in my face and I couldn’t see it for what it was.

Studying Freud brings out repressed memories, it seems. I was watching this brilliant brilliant first episode from the documentary series ‘Abstract: The Art of Design’ on Netflix the other day, when Christoph Niemann @abstractsunday started fiddling with these, calling them ‘realistic rendering’ of things in one of the sequences. Pretty cool description for Lego, isn’t it?

A memory resurfaced. While unearthing my past as I have been breaking myself down, brick by brick since last week, and very painfully so, I have to express, this one connection resurfaced out of the blue. This only distinct connection I have with my dad came up like a bubble and popped right in front of me. I realised that whatever they talk about, as to how mental trauma suppresses stuff, it is all actually true.

I bought 442 pieces of Lego right after.

The title of this story is really just a joke. Lego, here I come.
Hey Dad, what’s up? :)


Creationism! Here i come!
Gulal Salil

Written by

Writer, graphic artist and student of sociology & social anthropology ♦ I create stories in storyboards

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