Life was simpler, not so long ago.
You clicked a moment, and that was enough.
Laughed at the result, printed it, slid it into an album, and it stayed.

Pages held birthdays, holidays, cousins you have grown apart from, places that don’t look the same anymore.
I opened the album years later and remember exactly how it felt.

Now everything lives on a cloud.
Thousands of photos, rarely seen, never touched.
No pause. No ritual. Just storage.

But holding a photo… that’s different.
It connects you. To who you were,

Memories of summer holidays, barefoot races, mango stains, the stitched jaw, the broken bone, yet we laughed through it all.

Our dresses looked the same, cut from the same cloth, literally.
Sisters in thread and thought, brothers running wild and playing cricket in the dusty gali.
Madness of cooking eggs on the terrace and hiding away while making kites.

Back then, it was games, playing whole day, travel and fun, now it is wrinkles of time, a pause in the noise.

I see my face in my kids’ eyes, my smile mirrored back to me.
The resemblance through generations is uncanny.
I look like Dad. My sons are a beautiful mix bag, shades of me, of him, of something new.
What I wore once was fashion, now it’s character, memory, a stamp in time.

Where did we lose those days of fun?
I must gather the pieces before they fade with time.

Childhood was love and laughter, adulthood is tasks and ticking clocks.
In each picture papa is hugging me. His love is so visible and bright.
Now I long for his hug that warmth still lingers in the night.
Mom, once glowing and carefree, now slowly ages before my eyes.
Siblings, once a lifeline, now scattered across maps, divided by time and life.
The childhood we had, it is what we try to give our children, hoping to pass down the magic of masti and endless fun.

Pictures only show smiles and good times.
The hard work and sweat are all missing. To raise a family of 30 our parents went crazy and nutty.
We didn’t need many friends.
Home was enough. Now, today in time of social media, a real meeting can’t be found. Many friends and connections, but not like old times.

Trips to Nani’s home, our native village, sleeping under stars, making stories from constellations, even claiming to meet an alien on the terrace some nights.
No electricity in summer was all fun, sleeping on the terrace and playing games. Now power backup spoils all our fun. Instant gratification makes us forgot what real fun is.

Wedding dresses.
Birthday cakes.
Festivals like fireworks, each moment, a small, big bang.
College was wild.
Work was shiny and new.
Now, with years in my backpack, work feels like purpose, a quiet kind of pride.

And as I flip through these photos, I reflect on the pity of a woman’s life.
Everything changes with marriage, like shifting from black and white to coloured pictures.
But not all colour is joy.

We hold so much inside that we lose sight of what once lived inside us.
I lost all my college friends, name changed, life changed, and they disappeared with it.
I ask my sister, where did that carefree girl go, the one who believed she could ride the world?
We were raised together and now live such different lives.
Most of our siblings don’t even remember what they were like before.

Marriage, responsibility, children, they shape us, reshape us, until we don’t recognize the wild girl in the picture.

Why do we change with time?
Why can’t time be still, like that old picture, where the eyes still shine, and the world felt ours?

A long way we have come since then.
Looking back and forth on those giggles, dances, jokes, festivals, family, travels and more.

I see us. Those wild & bold – just grown wiser and bigger.
Life shaped us to cherish these memories and find that spark one more time.