Love At First Click

“It was love at first click,” said the photographer Darshan, describing how he fell in love with the woman, his wife of many decades now. I started with long shots, then zoomed in on her. Then it was a close-up. “That was when I pinned him down and kissed him without a prologue” interrupted his writer wife Saraswathi. Our story began thus. We got framed for life. The first addition to the family novel was a boy and then the second edition was a girl. Now I am writing the epilogue to our story added the wife. She has a photographic memory and the book describes our life journey with drama and humour. Not everything is black and white in the book added the wife. It has a lot of colours for life too. Each chapter in the book gives a graphic description of different phases in our life. We have included some good photos too as they say a picture is equivalent to 1000 words.

Our son is named Debashis and we call him debut. Our daughter was named Daman, in short, we call her ‘do’ as she was second in a sequence. But in life, she is second to none. Due to our DNA or what they both have done masters in the field of arts and are now practising the art of living not the guru variety.

Darshan said photography has helped him look at life with a different lens. Plus, you require patience and focus, both plusses in life too. Like for a batsman timing is too critical, so in life too quipped his wife Saraswathi. In so far as writing was concerned you need to step back and look at life. If you get entangled too much, you’d become a spider rather than a writer. The nitty-gritty of life has to meet with being witty and using creativity. Writing helps in that. Of course, to err is human as a writer but you have to play the role of editor too and pick on errors and correct them too., she added philosophically.

Darshan said while marriage photography provided the bread and butter it was ad shooting where the moolah lies. Saraswathi added it was as if Darshan can glimpse at their heart too and he has been predicted the life of the marriages of the couples he has shot at. Marriages may be made in heaven but these days it was the office affairs that determine their durability added Darshan with a twinkle. When quizzed about their own life Darshan stated that Saraswathi has become his third eye and kept his temptations in check. Saraswathi said that Darshan has become her eyes by which she sees life itself. We were both well-aligned all through life and never crossed the line.

As we grow in wisdom Darshan remarked that life with a camera has become a chimaera. With the digitisation of photography life’s moments can be counted with a digit. Nowadays books are shelved rather than kept on the shelf. Their shelf life has become shorter opined Saraswathi. Recipe books are selling better, a case of a cook writing a book. Writers have become a ghostly shadow of the past she added wryly.

We both have been clicking away: he with his camera and me with my keyboard. Nowadays his eyes sight is letting him down and my arthritic fingers refuse to click. So does the ideas not willing to click. Our lives are no more at a lick. What we do is flick the pages of memory and go nostalgic.

A silence fell with all of us reflecting on the conversation. As an intern, I was happy to meet the senior couple and it was a time well spent. I had gathered enough matter to ruminate and wrote out this story.