Photgraphs …memories Frozen In Time!

Some people think that there is nothing more torturous than being foisted with someone’s family album and having to go through the who’s who of their family tree. Well….I am an exception. I love going through albums… even that of semi acquaintances and strangers… Sometimes it makes good conversational gambits and icebreakers when you are hard up for conversation.

All of us love going through our own family albums… not everyday, perhaps, but on certain occasions when we don’t have anything better to do…or on rainy days, when you are cooped up inside the house with nothing better to do… or when your kids are at their pestilential best!

Last time I was in India, I went through the many volumes of albums we have collected over two or three generations and it was as though the past was coming out in flash backs… each photograph associated with a particular memory of places… people and occasions…

These memories, like Hindi movies, are in different tones… Some Black and white… some Eastman colour, and the others in the present day digital colours… But the most valuable ones are in the well worn cardboard covered old albums… the sepia toned photographs- so traditional… so distant in time and style that they are like relics…
Like the ridiculous ones with nervous newly weds in their wedding fineries – the man seated with legs crossed looking all professorial in his grey suit and tie and the woman in her dark silk sari and puff-sleeved blouse standing next to him… looking too terrified even to smile… Or the new born baby on top of a table in the studio…stark naked…with a scenery in the background and a puzzled look on its face or siblings of various ages trying in vain to control their laughter !

These pictures sit snugly in place in the tiny triangular pockets that hold their corners.
Then there are the graying or sepia toned group photos of uncles, aunts and cousins once, twice or thrice removed…all looking so happy to be within focus! As one jogs down memory lane, you see with awe how much hair someone had, how quaint the style of dressing was at a particular time… and how different people look now.
I, once, took a black and white photograph of mine to the staff room and circulated it among my friends…along with some pictures taken recently… No one noticed that it was my picture till some sharp eyed friend exclaimed, “Look at this…. Is this you?” and when I nodded came out with “ My! You seem to be suffering from Samosa Deficiency Syndrome!” ( I used to brunch on samosas from the school canteen during the breaks!)

The wedding albums are a treat… Especially when you watch it with your spouse… It is like getting married all over again…in a very private ceremony of course! You start giggling and commenting…then you start recapturing whatever happened on that auspicious day… share gossip about various people in the background…and you just feel all newly married again…

I hate those photographs where everybody is lined up and forced to say ‘Cheese’… it is so abnormal! Or pseudo normal! Photographs should be taken at unguarded moments… to catch that vibrancy and vivacity. Especially pictures of kids. Catch them unawares and you have such lovely memories associated with the result- better any day than that of a studio photograph of your kids in their Sunday best and ‘Say Cheese’ smiles.

Technology has its own advantages… Today, there is so much of professionalism involved in taking photographs. Au contraire…the phrase ‘child’s play’ comes to my mind when I see parents handing their digital cameras to their 4 and 5 year olds to take pictures of theirs… My Dad never trusted any of us with his camera… ever! No one dared to ask since dropping a camera, albeit accidentally, was tantamount to criminal offense and was beyond any mercy! Besides, there was too much of technicalities there, in focusing, exposure, flash bulbs and whatnot! Today, cameras are user friendly … I mean toddler friendly!

Recently, I happened to see the wedding albums of my friend’s son and I was gob-smacked by the sea change in that sector. Two humongous volumes which weighed a ton- each! The pages of the albums were the photos… enlarged and in matt finish. Some were in glorious shades of digital colours and others deliberately black and white and even a contrived sepia… I told myself…this is worth getting married. I whistled in appreciation and a said, it must have cost 10 K? ‘3 whistles!’ came the reply! WOW! People are spending 30K on a mere wedding album? I visualized my own wedding album 24 years old… The one in black and white with both RP and I looking like babes in the wood surrounded by newly acquired in laws and a hundred million new relatives! Of course, we are not so antediluvian…So we also have our album of colour photos… which are yielding to pressures of time (unlike us ) and turning sickly yellowish… the two of us still looking so scrawny and so gauche…

Then there are the albums that are closest to one’s heart… of one’s kids. Whatever the world may say, there is a lot of truth in the adage “Kakkakku than kunju ponkunju”
( For the crow, its baby is the most beautiful!) For, don’t we cherish the photos of our sons and daughters as they smiled, cried, got fed, bathed, got hair cut, and even potty-trained ( honestly…. To my twin sons’ embarrassment, I have proof of them on their ‘thrones’….which they call as gross as the ones in which they are stark naked!) … On those days of new parenthood, each fancies himself as innovative and creative as Santhosh Sivan and clicks away gloriously, every waking moment of the first child… In fact, the first child gets more snapshots to his credit than the following ones… I wonder if the parents will have the energy or the time to remember to take out their camera with their 4th or 5th offspring!

Grandparents are good collectors of one’s kids’ photographs … They just love getting a nonstop supply of their grand children’s photos… and they love posing for photos with the grandchildren…. And the expression on their faces? A combination of guilt that they never took such pictures with their own kids… and the delight and thrill of holding / carrying the grandchildren in their arms!

The art of maintaining albums is becoming passé. Thanks to digital cameras and the art of downloading pictures oneself and writing them on CDs… the joy of a traditional photo session is gone. In fact, I despise even that terminology… Imagine ‘writing’ your photos? It is, I suppose, better than ‘burning’ your photos… what happened to the ‘positive’ world of ‘ developing’ or ‘getting prints’? And, worse than that, there is no fun anymore… No longer do we have those few that we tuck under the better ones- the ones which show us in our true form… with an ultra large flared nostril… or the one where your ears stick out like those of Mr. Spock…or the generous flabs of cellulite captured in celluloid… or caught in an odd angle by the candid camera… Today, we just delete a bad picture… with a couple of clicks… And lose so many opportunities to chuckle and grimace over! The flip- side of technology!

…and I hate the idea of storing pictures on CDs…. Of course, they may have more shelf life… But turning the leaves of an album is more emotionally satisfying than watching a slideshow on TV or the PC screen! I read somewhere that the quality of virtual images or ‘Data’ stored on a CD may undergo changes with time and exposure to sunlight etc, etc… but I cant imagine the pictures stored getting ‘character’ like the ones on regular albums… The paternal uncle who looks formidable… the cousin who poses like Rishi Kapoor in Rafoo Chakkar… your own parents looking incredibly and vulnerably young… the fading picture of a deer taken as long shot from the picnic ground… ‘nibbled by silver fish’ memories that have been frozen in time… that tugs at your heart strings when you leaf through them… I still cherish all those albums in the dark corners of the huge cupboards… As I flip through them I feel like singing… It’s yesterday once more!

 

Hi Meeta,

We are photograph freaks too... Have thousands of them... But managing them is brcoming one big headache... Still I can't even think of getting rid of them...
Thank you for your lovely comment.
Regards

 

Hi Sakhi,
Thanks Yaar... Been to London for 10 days... Long gaps in blogging...It has been hectic since March. Anyway, once in a while I surface at IL and it is like homecoming.... each time. You all make me feel so good! Thanks a ton!