Myriad memories,vivid colours of a well spent life.My ultimate pleasure is going through old albums.Yes, that is never done at leisure but always when I do some spring cleaning and stumble upon these treasures.Oh oh, now all else is forgotten and I settle down to browse,remembering sweet incidents,pleasant memories.

There is this young girl,staring self consciously at the camera,a few with friends stiffly posing to preserve this moment for posterity .Most of those old photos were taken on special occasions- last day of school, a cousin's wedding,some rare events,when someone possessed the rare contraption-the camera! Sometimes copies were made and distributed in the group.One's own wedding of course was very very special and there were albums,totally chaotic with the photographer clicking away to fill two albums, most of the photos out of focus,unimaginative and many characters now not remembered.So these are not actually memorabilias. But still held on with pride and occupy precious space in the cabinets,in our hearts.

Cameras became  household objects when the children came.We needed to keep track,needed to remind ourselves  that these monsters were the cherubs of yesterday. I remember the beautiful Kodak because that was the one we could afford.Then came Minolta,later Yashica.Cameras improved,we evolved as photographers!But also the impatience when waiting to finish the film roll,resulting in some very silly shots,all the same could not be thrown because of the cost involved! Filling a few albums,very simple mini ones, with plastic pouches to protect the photos.Yeah,now these albums also became treasures to cherish.Still are. And then the photos became so many even to put inside the mini albums. . Slowly they were put inside plastic bags .When there were too many plastic bags ,they were placed inside cartons.Even today  these are instrumental in throwing one off balance regarding household chores.

This was a beautiful hobby for a long long time.Piles and piles of photos stacked in cartons,to one day open and fill one's mind with nostalgia.Over the years,all got chronologically mixed up.There would be the snap of my little grandchild smiling beautifuly,the next one my son in his school uniform and then my daughter's wedding attire-so on and so forth.Why? Because snaps were compared to "establish" family resemblances, finally when much time had been consumed in this activity,realising other chores were pending , put back every thing in one carton for the time being (?)and then forget about this for a long time.And repeat the same months later.

Now my four year old grand daughter can pose for the camera beautifully,dozens of photos clicked every day,not much is thought about preserving these and if they want to,they do it perfectly "on the net".Browsing done in an organised way because everything is labeled and sorted out.Times have changed for the better but not before taking away the sweet disorderliness which was so much more fun!