About Us
When I lost my mother in 2020 due to chronic illness, I chanced upon some old letters that she and my father had exchanged in the past – and some that she had written to her siblings. In those letters, I saw a side of her as a young woman – and a woman that I knew very little about.
As I went through letter after letter, it dawned upon me that future generations in my extended family, including my own children, will never get to hear her talk about that distant part of her life, and so many fascinating tales from her rather unusual childhood.
I was overcome by sorrow, and an intense sense of guilt, for not having dedicated enough time to get to know the person she was before she brought me into this world. It was a bitter pill to swallow.
So, I decided not to waste another moment and act while I still could for the parent that I hadn’t yet lost – my octogenarian father.
Once my father moved in with us in America, a relative introduced me to someone who had the temperament and the talent to converse and coax him into sharing his own stories and experiences over video-calls, and draft them into lucid narratives about his life and times.
I wanted to record every possible thought, as comprehensively as my father’s memory would allow. I wanted to see these experiences get passed on to his grandkids and enrich family, friends, and the anonymous reader alike. But above all, this was to be a gesture of gratitude towards my parents – my own way of honoring my father, and my mother’s memory, for everything they had sacrificed and endured for our sake.
I shared the result of these conversations with friends and family, and soon got deluged with queries on how they could get something similar done for their own parents!
A lightbulb went off, and I started contemplating how to bring this unique and priceless gift which can last generations, to others like me – especially those of us who have decided to forge new lives overseas, away from our parents and grandparents. I thought of all those grandkids who never get to hear their faraway grandparents’ life-stories from the proverbial horse’s mouth.
And thus, The Memory Curators was born.
A desire to preserve my parents’ legacy as my personal homage to their lives, has led to this quest of recollecting and curating memories
What started as a desire to preserve my parents’ legacy as my personal homage to their lives, has led to this quest of recollecting and curating memories gathered over a lifetime for seniors nominated by like-minded sons and daughters, grandchildren, nephews and nieces, or simply, by grateful admirers.
Through TMC, I wish to reach out to those who value the same things that I have learnt to treasure in recent times. Life is unpredictable, and if there is one thing I have understood from looking at things unfold on our planet these past couple of years – things are not going to get any better.
A gesture of gratitude such as this could become a legacy of a lifetime – not just for individuals whose thoughts and tales are recorded, but for everyone who loves and respects them.
What We Do
Our memory curators collect and preserve the stories and experiences of your parents and grandparents for present and future generations through extensive interviews, which are curated into beautifully bound once-in-a-lifetime books.
We record and curate the journey of our beloved elders as they remember it – from childhood to coming of age, adulthood to senior years – and we do so with empathy being at the forefront of our ethos. We listen to their struggles and successes, regrets and triumphs, vulnerabilities and epiphanies – and craft them into eternal stories and life-lessons for you and your children.
Why We Do It
How many times have you wished you could see more of, speak more to your parents and grandparents? Get to know them better than you did when you began figuring out your own life? Have a glimpse of what their lives were like before you came along? Know their hopes and aspirations, fears and follies? Understand who they truly were before you even knew them? Discover what legacy and values they wish upon their future generations?
Those who lose an elderly family-member are all too familiar with that nagging feeling of regret, sometimes even guilt, of not having had enough heart-to-hearts while they were still around – to have done something tangible that honors and keeps their memory alive.
We often overlook the fact that our elders spent the prime of their lives in an era where there was no internet and no social media. The avenues of recording life experiences and personal histories were limited. Very few had the luxury of time or leisure, the flair, or the inclination to maintain personal diaries – even if they had a lot to say…
Our curators at TMC are here to remedy these regrets by capturing and transcribing long-lost memories of your beloved nominee, then polishing and presenting them as anthologies or full-blown memoirs in photo-illustrated books that are perfect mementos for friends and family. You also get to keep the recorded conversations for posterity in the form of audio/visual media files.
Our Team
Amit Srivastav
New Jersey USA
Amit is the founder, business head, and the brain behind The Memory Curators.
In 2020, Amit urged his aging father to recollect and record an anthology of personal history, thoughts and opinions – and commissioned a co-written memoir on his father’s behalf. The idea was to preserve his father’s life-story, especially the early part of his life, for his own kids to know and learn from. Being born and bred in the US, Amit’s school-going children have had no exposure to the lived realities of the generation that grew up during Colonial times, or right after, in post-partition India. He wanted them to learn about the trials and tribulations and the vagaries of life in an era and setting absolutely alien to them, something that could help them fathom their own origins by reading what they may never get to hear.
While his father’s memoir was still in the works, Amit had already begun envisioning the idea behind TMC in collaboration with the senior Srivastav’s biographer, Sayantan Bhowmik, a then New Delhi based ghostwriter.
Amit is a full-time senior corporate executive with a long list of professional achievements. Currently an Executive Director with Morgan Stanley, he also serves as an Executive Board Member with KUNDIMAN, a national organization dedicated to the creation and cultivation of Asian-American creative writing based in New York City.
Sayantan Bhowmik
Kolkata INDIA
Sayantan is a seasoned ghostwriter, editor and content creator. He leads literary and editorial efforts at TMC.
When a friend approached him during the Covid pandemic to see if he could speak a few times a week to her brother-in-law’s aging father for a possible memoir – he wasn’t sure if he was ready to take up an assignment that involved interviewing individuals, especially an elderly gentleman going through bereavement. This was an expat son looking for someone to transcribe stories from his father’s life as a way to take the latter’s mind off the recent loss of his wife – at least that is how it seemed at the time. Besides never being involved in such a project, the prospect of facing and managing emotional intensity left him in a dilemma of sorts.
The initial reaction was to take a rain check. However, in Sayantan’s own words, he decided to “get some gumption, for a change.” After all, there was no harm in having a session or two on a trial basis. Soon after, though, he started relishing the idea of being treated to some interesting – even awe-inspiring – real-life tales that would speak to his own deep interest in history and storytelling. With each passing session with the senior Srivastav, Sayantan was pleasantly reassured that the narratives he was to compile and curate were springing forth from a surprisingly eloquent and grounded veteran of life – a human being who exemplified experience and fortitude.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Sayantan studied English Literature at the University of Delhi, and has been plying his trade in the digital content and ghostwriting space for almost two decades now. He did his Masters in Professional Communication from Edith Cowan University, Perth, in 2009, and after a short stint in digital marketing, started writing and editing freelance on a full-time basis.
Sarmishtha Sinha
New Delhi, India
To tell a story, you need a curator. Meet Sarmishtha. She leads marketing and client services at The Memory Curators.
An integrated marketing professional, Sarmishtha has over 15 years of experience in working with corporates, agencies and start-ups across industries. Passionate about telling stories and even more so about reading them, she brings her valuable subject matter expertise in end to end marketing and planning to the TMC team. She helps our outreach with her skills in communication, customer relations, SEO, and Social Media management.
Sarmishtha holds an MBA in Marketing from Rutgers Business School, NJ. Earlier, she did her Bachelor of Arts at Gargi College, University of Delhi.