'I remember, I remember' by Prem Banfal (Presentation)

Prem Banfal’s I remember, I remember deals with many issues such as migration, cultural identity and the idea of losing something you once had and gaining something new in return. All these three major themes are depicted through Banfal’s reminiscence of her childhood. In her story, she tells us her childhood memories with her late mother. She then reveals us the ups and downs of her life when her father remarried twice after her real mother died. She also shows how studying for a scholarship to go to New Zealand made her distant herself away from her family and culture, “My three years at Suva Grammar school led me to a new awareness of myself, a further estrangement from my father and a growing alienation from my own community.” Moreover, during her school years, she starts to put make up on and shave her legs. To me, these kinds of habits are mostly practiced by people who are from Western countries. Therefore, by practicing these habits, she is losing parts of her Fijian image and is conforming to the idea of being a New Zealander. However, despite the changing variables in her life, there appears to be one consistent figure that continues to support and care about her, her Grandmother. In my opinion, this suggests how important it is to have someone who cares about you no matter what you’re going through. Preparing to move to a foreign country requires a lot of positive thinking and can be a life-changing experience. At the end of the story, she gained a scholarship to go to New Zealand for a better education. Simultaneously, she also lost fragments of her Fijian identity, only to be replaced by a New Zealand identity.

What I also loved about this short story is the narrative structure. The story is written through the use of first person narration. Through this, I was able to compare my previous experiences with her experiences. Although my experiences prior to leaving for New Zealand may be different from hers, they somewhat relate to each other. I also loved how the paragraphs in her story are structured; they seem to alternate between positive and negative feelings. Because of this, I was able to get the impression that the reason why Banfal did this is to show the readers how in our lives, people go through many ups and downs, and sometimes these are the experiences that shape us into the individuals we are today.

To conclude, I think the reason why Banfal decided to write about her childhood memories is to show the readers the importance of not forgetting where you came from. It may sound cliché, but it is quite true. Where you came from is what defines you and one that makes you different from others. In the Filipino culture, we have a saying, “Those who do not know how to look back to their origin, will not reach his destination.”