The Memory of Photographs

I have thought long and hard about memories, particularly those with a long vintage recorded on camera. Are the images in photographs deluding me by pretending to be memories? How is this to be resolved?

My parents’ silver wedding anniversary was celebrated sometime in 1968 with a visit to Bolgatty Island in Ernakulam, Kerala. There was no bridge to the island in those days. I don’t remember the boat ride, but there was no other way to get there. We didn’t swim there, nor did we fly.

All my memories of the occasion are derived from family photographs. I remember nothing else – not how we spent the day there, not what we ate or drank – nothing. I had concluded I had no personal recollection of the event. The pictures were the scaffolding of my past, but with nothing beyond them.

This realisation was quite disturbing. How many other memories are genuine?

Recently, I joined a school reunion at Bolgatty Island, and stayed there overnight. The morning after the party, I sat on the parapet by the lake (Vembanad Kayal). The very spot where the images were captured nearly 60 years ago was right in front of me – an immutable milestone of my childhood.

Lost in thought, a gentle breeze in my face and the chug-chug of motorboats in my ears, I sat staring at the facade of the old Dutch palace and the ancient trees. ‘Surely, you must remember – you were here in 1968.’ I said to them silently, almost accusingly.

All of a sudden, I saw a vision of my 12-year-old self running after my nephew, just two years old then. No photograph had captured that moment.