My Affair With Life!

There's something so uplifting about photographic memories!

- Anamika Lalwani K

Standing on the balcony of my home, sipping a hot chocolate, I dunk the almond biscotti and enjoy the cool breeze that has come with the summer rain; the petrichor is intoxicating. It makes me reach out for the hardbound picture book on the coffee table and as I flip the pages slowly, memories begin to float in my head. The photographs always make me smile as I travel back in time and relive our holiday - this one was our trip to Switzerland! Oh! I often visit the memories of our trips. How do I do that? Well, let me share with you my novel way of keeping pictures of our holidays!

Going back in time, I recollect Dad would buy a fresh film roll, a set of batteries and a nice photo album before every holiday. He was always ready to capture our pictures and they were first placed in the photo album before any of us saw them. He was very particular that none of our fingerprints must get onto the glossy pictures. The albums were always labelled, dated and neatly stacked on shelf in our parents' bedroom. During weekends we would flip through our photo albums together after dinner. It was an activity which made us laugh and we delighted at the memories we relived as we looked at the pictures. Most times, Mom, had to pull away the albums from Dad, my brother and me and only that stopped us from talking endlessly and we would finally retire to bed.