The Tip-of-the-tongue Syndrome

Yesterday I found myself groping for the name of a person in the middle of a conversation. Considering that I had visited the blog of that person not more than three days back, the reluctance that the name showed in crossing the tip of the tongue was nothing short of amazing.Memory lapses of this sort appear to have become more frequent with me of late. The problem, thus far, is that what should have been a passing mention converts itself into a sort of twenty questions and, when the name does pop up eventually, I find myself looking around for Amitabh Bachchan to hand me over the signed cheque for ten million bucks! In the meantime the original issue that I sought to communicate gets irretrievably lost.I am no stranger to using the phrase, “It is on the tip of my tongue but…”. I have done it all through school whenever called upon by my optimistic teachers to answer their questions. Of course, truth was always particularly elastic with me in those days. When I said that the answer was on the tip of my tongue, it could only have been true if it had jumped straight from the text-book to my tongue and not because it had acquired even temporary lodgings in what passes for my brain.Alas, these days it is more a question of actually losing touch with what is in my memory. The day is not far off when I shall put out my hand for an introductory handshake and say, “My name is on the tip of my tongue, but..”