My Brain is Not a Godown

Do we need to remember everything? I don't think so.

For me, burdening the mind with unnecessary information which we can easily access through available records is just sheer wastage of time. I mean, why should I fill my RAM when I have a perfectly good hard disk lying on the table called "Register"?

And if anyone is in a hurry to inquire, creating unrest as if the nation will collapse without that information — then they themselves should fill their minds. My mind is on power-saving mode.

During my school days, I was NOT the one who knew everything. That post was permanently reserved for our Class Monitor. His name was Sanjeev.

Sanjeev knew everything. Who is absent, who is present, who bunked, who is secretly eating peanuts in the last bench, whose homework is copied — full CID database in one head.

But our English teacher? He didn't know exactly how many students of Maths and Political Science were in our Arts stream.

So one day someone asked him, "Sir, how many Maths students are there?"

Sir calmly opened his register, checked, and said the number.

Sanjeev looked disappointed. I could read his face: "Sir, this is cheating. Real heroes memorize."

But sir taught all 38 of us in the first lecture. We all sat together. Should he learn the caste, creed, subject combination, blood group, and horoscope of all 38? Why? 

Did it really matter? The register was right there, not on a vacation in Goa. He simply preferred to verify rather than to show off his memory power like Sanjeev 2.0.

To me, there are many more things to explore, study and learn rather than just filling the mind with accessible information. It's there in records. Let the records do their job. Poor things are feeling unemployed otherwise.

My brain is for ideas, not for storing attendance and numbers.

After all, even Google doesn't remember everything — it just knows where to find it. And if Google can be great without memorizing, why can't people like me?

So next time someone asks me a question whose answer is lying in a file, I will smile and say: "Wait, let me check the records."

Sanjeev, if you are reading this — no offense, brother. Don't mind.