Beauty, and the Rose-tint of Nostalgia
Can positive associations with the past make anything seem beautiful?
The short answer is yes (as I quickly learned from those that read a draft of this story 🙄) But since I’m not as well-read in these matters, I had to find my own way to it. My way was fun-ner.
It all began with an itch to recreate one of my favorite t-shirts. It used to be made by Tantra, and I think I was wearing it the day I landed in New York in 2004. The shirt was pun-ny. If you speak Hindi, you’ll get it. But that bit’s not important.
What is important, and got me thinking, is that when I imagined recreating the illustration, I saw the car specifically as a Premier Padmini. Now, this was the car of my childhood. We didn’t own one, mind you. Cars were a luxury when I was growing up in Bombay, and my family certainly couldn’t afford one. But they were everywhere. Even the taxicabs were Padminis.
And I wasn’t particularly fond of them. Even back then I didn’t find the Padmini attractive in the least. Most of my experiences with it were riding in the passenger seat of a taxicab. It was like riding in a padded metal crate, with a suspension made by someone with an intimate knowledge of Bombay’s potholes. And a very dark sense of humor.
Why then did my mind’s eye present this vision to me? Why did I find myself sighing wistfully at the thought of digging up old images of the car? Did I now find it (gulp) beautiful? Ick. I needed a shower.
Right brain: (sigh)
Left brain: Yuck!
I thought back again, and dug deeper. I realized that despite being acutely aware of what a monstrosity the car was, I was always happy when I was in one. Because it meant I was most likely with my family, and we were on our way to someplace important, someplace happy — a wedding or a celebration of some sort that required traveling far from home but arriving in style. It meant I could sit by the window and relish a cool breeze while watching the city whip past. And sometimes it meant we’d stayed out too late on a school night, and a cab was the only way to make it back home before dawn. A few years later, being able to pay for one meant I was finally independent, and could provide for my family.
Ugly car + happy memories = beautiful car
Shaking off the mush for a second, what does this mean for the things we make today? Does it all really come down to the context in which they’re experienced, and how it makes one feel? Could the ugly-but-functional designs of today give someone the warm fuzzies tomorrow?
It didn’t matter that I was riding in a metal crate; that night I was the king of the world.
