Tulu apa passed away last week. She was known formally as Syeda Kamal and was a 1971 activist and an esteemed artist. She also worked for a school as an art teacher and her death evoked many tributes and memories on social media.

She was the youngest daughter of poet and icon Begum Sufia Kamal who has reigned over the formation -as one of the matriarchs - of the value structure that drove the positive aspects of Bangladesh for long. Her older sister Syeda Sultana Kamal is a very well-known social activist while her brother journalist Shameem Kamal passed away only a few months back.

Memories of nicknames

Social media had a number of positive posts on her which was nice because in recent years even deaths are mocked and made fun of, often meeting abuse as well. It's the sign of uneasy times but reality too. It's always a relief when the dead are left alone.

When I read the news, I couldn't recognise the formal name till the nickname Tulu was mentioned and all the memories of my childhood in Tikatuli washed over me, still so surprisingly robust.

I met her last maybe several decades back and had no contact since then but suddenly it seemed someone close had died. And I realised I was mourning not artist and FF Syeda Kamal but Tulu and that name was anchored in a common past long gone. And yet they seemed so deep and immediate as if I was recalling only yesterday.

But then I was not remembering a person but a space and time of my own past long gone which revives mostly when death of another knocks at the door and says, "I was here for someone else but just thought I would say hello."

Ah, well, hello past, hello age, hello death and hello memories.

Tikatuli is where it all began

I visited the neighbourhood recently accompanied by my young friend Abdullah who is also great with cameras. He shot the scenes as I went on asking about the house I was born in, I found out my birth address, 10, Obhoy Das Lane, doesn't exist anymore but is split between two 10s now. But at least it exists even though it's beyond recognition.

In fact, I could not find a single marker of my past except by names such as the Qamrunnessa Girls school which was such an ignition point in February 1952. I wasn't looking for landmarks really but for people who no longer lived there. And one was the home of Begum Sufia Kamal in the area called Tarabagh.

I couldn't find it because that zone itself seemed to be missing so the pond next to her home, the sort of narrow dusty road and the rest were all gone. But what was I expecting?

That everything would remain as it was 70 years back and everyone would peep out of their homes and hail me and ask me in and pull me into their lap? I guess, sort off. After all, what are memories for?

Homemade memories, anyone?

I carry many in my more than slightly cadaverous body which resembles the shaggy cloth bag that hangs from my shoulders. Not that I sought them but perhaps in simpler times memories had time to find a parking place in the brain.

Of course, it sounds ridiculous and snooty and elitist nostalgia which all old people have. But that's not my point and certainly am not trying to peddle the idea that our times were far more interesting and beautiful and better etc than now.

I am just saying that life was simpler which is what makes memories easier to have and to hold. It's just a question of space. Just like what happened last week when my computer ran out of space and I had to buy some extra storage.

Life is so much more intense and happening and in so many layers now that the storage limit must have been crossed for most.

A simple memory

Not much happened in our childhood so it was simpler and more relaxed and easier to remember. There was no social media to pile on more onto our brain - our memories and that of others as well. So remembering itself is a serious cognitive task now, let alone connecting with memories.

It can't be easy to remember, is it, when you have nearly 5000 friends and thousands more who follow you and whatever? Does seem tough.

Maybe it seems so because we were born so many years back and my memory of Tulu apa is so simple. Just one example. We were both under four years and we had the same book and we fought over whose book was better looking. Sure, it's crazy but then what are memories of childhood for?

Sitting on the porch and reading a children's book together. Really? Is that a decent quality memory worth posting on Facebook?

Certainly not but I wouldn't part with it for a thousand love emojis on my post.

Farewell Tulu apa