Nah, that’s not a senior moment, unless one is relying on passage of years to set limits on mental faculties.

Momentary memory lapses are as common as, say, heat in this part of the world – the heat that can even sway winter winds. Except, of course, if one has aced the Mensa test to hold every piece of information read and heard in the crevices of the brain, without any lapses plucking at that established IQ level, which, for some reason, is believed to have a correlation with exceptional memory.

Certain memory lapses are, in a way, cute. They kind of send signals that the mind is brimming with ideas and that it has no time to render insignificant everyday occurrences as memories.

A better word here, perhaps, is absentmindedness – a state of blissful immersion in one’s thoughts, often oblivious to one’s surroundings. The sense of ‘bliss’ that is factored in might be subject to the circumstance/surrounding; but then, absentmindedness is, often, triggered by boredom, sleepiness, random distractions or even constant internal monologues.

There is so much happening around us, in the virtual world that we habitually turn to for mental stimulations; it is easy to forget the little things. We routinely forget calendar dates, even important days in the lives of people close to us. And we seek deliverance from such bloopers by setting alarms on our smartphones or notifications from our social media apps.

So when do these memory lapses become senior moments?

Like everything else in life, does it also boil down to perception?

I recently had a senior moment, albeit on another level, away from the perfunctory memory lapse scenario. It occurred in a fairly quiet metro, when a young girl gently got up from her seat and beckoned me to occupy it.

Sigh!