Old Photographs

The final 'swish' of the zipper on the suitcase and the click of the numbered lock declared that his bags were packed and he was ready to go. It was the last of the twenty days that my brother was here at home in India on his vacation. It was time to bid adieu. Time to say adios amigo.

It was still time before “Bhai” leaves for the airport to take his flight back to Switzerland, so to kill time I took out a few family albums which had been gathering dust for years and I had happened to spot them on a recent extensive cleaning spree. The three of us -I, Mom and my brother sat down to check out a few of them. I would not be exaggerating if I say ours might just be one of the most emotionally unexpressive families on this planet. And, the album viewing session was entirely just for the heck of it. 

As we flipped through one album to the other, Mom started recalling the incidents, places and events in the pictures for us. I quickly flipped through many of them emotionlessly in the beginning only to realize after a while that I had slowed down unconsciously and was literally staring at each one of them now. Stopping for a while to exchange the album in my hands with the one in my brother’s I sensed that all three of us were not the same we were 5 minutes ago. I could see a mixed expression on the face of the hardest nut of us all - my brother. He was smiling, admiring the chubby, innocent little him in one of the photographs ready to step into a new class in his brand new school dress. Each page of every album was a distinct souvenir of the simplicity, the joy, the bliss that life used to be. A picture of the baby me and the 4 year old “Bhai” sitting next to me showering all the world’s brotherly care on me, both of us on a boat ride with Dad and Mom in some hill station, the almost ritualistic birthday celebrations each consecutive year with grandparents.... priceless moments ... moments for which I would give anything away just to relive them. Ahhh…. the sepia certainly had got the grip of us … the nostalgia as it had to, did take us over. The verandah, the charpoys, the terrace, and the simple uncomplicated toys, the knickers clad cousins clinging to newly bought Bajaj scooter by one of  my uncles, the sheer number of people of varying generations in every picture….. just about everything a poignant but touching reminder of how far have we come. While these photographs were taken what would have those innocuous grins ever known of how their world will shape in two decades from then....hmmppphh!!

Lost as I was in the shades of the time was brought back by the sound of – “taxi aa gayi.” I closed the album in my hand and got up to say goodbye to Bhai one last time this year. With heavy heart and a choked throat I managed an  “au revoir” the French way to say goodbye that I had learnt from him recently (literally meaning “until we see each other again”).

Old Photographs……. S*I*G*H!!!

 “Old photographs and places I remember
Just like a dying ember
That's burned into my soul
Even though we walk the diamond-studded highways
It's the country lanes and byways
That makes us long for home”

(A song by Jim Capaldi)