The Missing Pictures

It is well past midnight today (June 8^th, 2010) and I was going through the literary review page of the Sunday edition of The Hindu. I stumbled onto a review for the book ‘venomous touch’ and gathered that the book was very pathetic (at least the reviewer says so and I’ll take her word for Rs 650 is a handy some to spend when you are a student.) The book has three protagonists but the center stage is captured by a photographer. ‘Photographer’ my mind echoed (It always does when I read something that excites me. No wonder my mind is quite switched off when I study.)

Anyways as I was reading my mind took a flight and I started to think of photographs. I remembered that my father who had a passion for photographs took a lot many when I was a child. But by the time I entered my teenage he started living out of station more often to feed the family and the habit of clicking pictures came to a low, and the full stop was when my brother got the camera wet and the beauty became obsolete. At that time no one bothered and a few grumbles at the time of holidays were easily digested and we didn’t buy the camera and years passed by sans photographic memories. It was only after some years that cameras reentered our lives in the form of multimedia mobile phones. But by this time a significant part of our lives had gone by and almost a decade had gone picture less. The only pictures I have are two passport sized photos and a few photographed at school and I was not into many activities so that did not help the cause either.

Some would say ‘so what if you missed a few years.’ but my heart retaliates. It’s not just a few years it’s a prominent part of my existence. How would I tell people the stories of my teenage, they would just look so colorless without pictures.

Now as I leave my teenage behind and embark onto the grinding twenties I do realize that pictures speak a lot more than words. So go on people capture simple moments around you. Who knows when you will start to miss them and mark my words it always to cherish the memories with a picture in hand.