Of rotis, cats, murmurs and Freud
On second thoughts, I will give childhood a go. Well, not childhood in its entirity, but the kind of memories that have a 'sticky' quality to them - you don't know why you remember them over more apparently important and critical things.

Like, for instance, I remember this huge problem I had with the way our boy-servant Mantu used to make rotis. I would complain to my mom that he makes the roti turn around in circles as he rolled them out ('Ma, o abar rutigulo ghuriye ghuriye belche!'). Now there must be some complicated, Freudian explanation for this, but to me, it's a funny memory from those days. Funnier, since I became one of those circuitous roti makers myself!

Then of course there were my daydreaming sessions. As a child I used to love role-playing (I guess every child does) and often, my 'performances' would extend into family gatherings. I would be happily muttering to myself while my more 'normal' cousins would smirk at me. My mother would be mortified - anyway she was accused of spoiling me and on top of that I was offering a fair impersonation of a demented child in front of the critical eyes of relatives (most of whom don't really matter, as far as I am concerned).

Lastly I remember the total heartbreak and emotional trauma of being refused my 19th pet cat! In retrospect, I can see the practical side of not wanting to increase the cat population in the house but to my child's mind it was the worst kind of oppression that could be dealt out by a tyrannical centre of power.

Select memories from a fairly eventful childhood - I wonder what makes them stick to this day? While I understand that these were pressing existential problems for a child, there were other events that were far more momentous in nature and impact, which I don't recall vividly - the quarrels between my parents, my father's alcoholism or his death...