Photographic memories...

During one of my visits to my dida’s[Bengali for grand ma i.e mother’s mother] place, I happened to find an old album lying at a corner. Many of you must have felt similarly, I remember to my young mind it was unfathomable to see my mother and uncles so young. Well my mother had the same face just a little childish and dwarfed. The photographs simply fascinated me. My mother in a polka dotted frock and pigtails, a passport photograph of her in school dress. A photograph of her and her cousin, which looked like a scene, lifted from a nineteen-seventy’s Sharmila Tagore movie minus the hairdo -- two ladies standing in a short-sleeved blouse and bold floral printed saris, demurely smiling at the camera. A photograph of one of my uncles as a baby, and a photograph of him grown up and looking cool in bell-bottoms. Another photograph of my mother sitting pretty on a chair,which I came to know later was sent to papa for a look before wedding .Dida has preserved the early photographs of my father, of my parent’s wedding and one much later. I found some of my photographs and my sister’s, which I had never seen myself. It was almost like finding a treasure.

I ran to dida, seeking ownership of the album. She simply replied – “You have my daughter…let me have her photographs”. Her words almost made me guilty. Since then I have never laid claim to the album again, but till date browsing through that album seems to be a favorite activity whenever I visit her.