Sepia thoughts

I am on the other side of 35 now. Past 36 as well....
Darn, and I don't know what happened the past 15 years!!
So here I go looking back, the very thing many, many people tell you Not to do.

Don't live in the past. Be in the present...Now! Is what they say.

But hold on...memories are sweet to savour.

Take me to those sweet moments with my Thatha and Paati.

Paati (grandmum) who would tell me time and time again. "You are very good girl S, but you are very short tempered. You have to do something about that!"

So after Art of Living and Landmark Forum, finally at this ripe old age I can say I am nearing that desire of controlling my temper. ( Near and Dear ones may beg to differ...still the sceptics know not what I have in store for them!)

Thatha who would be waiting for me to come home after roaming the streets and visiting many possible friends, would be glad to see how many restrictions I impose on my off springs now that I am in the same position!

As I was writing this post, my mother sends me a bunch of old photographs that she has cleared from her cupboard....that now is all set to fill up mine!

There is a resistance in me to see the pictures, a reluctance to go through the past yet again.

No mistakes here, I had a terrific childhood and as my friend delicately put it, a "spoilt one"!! I completely accept the terminology and I can definitely assure you it was so! Those were really fun days, of irresponsibilities, freedom, routine, and a total dedication to living in the present...now isn't that life!

My children are fascinated with some of the earliest and I am glad the photos are serving their purpose. I failed to mention that the reason for so many photos of the decade and half of my initial years was due to the over enthusiastic parent and his passion for photography. (He still has his first camera, a box shaped one!).

There are so many pictures as I enter my teen, I cringe to look at! Over sized spectacles, boot black face( I was in NCC), clothes, for the life of me I cannot understand why I wore them!! So there comes my reluctance.

I can remember most of the places I see on the photographs. Yet some remain vague memories of events that have insignificantly passed on.

There is one of all the cousins; a rare one indeed.

There is one of old, old friends. Friends who I remember but never thought we had on print!

Events and celebrations, people there and not there. I look for the ones missing and wonder why I never captured them. I realise that many people who were important have diminished and vanished from my life, while others who were diminished have significantly come back again. They are captured in my mind's eye only and occupy no other space.

I remember the emotions, reflected on the faces that look at me from the pictures.

I understand the space that I was in when I look at the pictures.

I recapture the distance I have travelled from those captured moments.

I sit on my newly acquired rocking chair, like the old Momma that I am, and wonder at the wonders that we create in this life that we travel.
The people that we meet, hold or let go...and the people we are yet to meet
The places we visit, revisit...and wish to visit
The things that we collect or reject...and hope to collect