Futuristic

Home Diaries | The Family Photograph By six in the evening, our house looked ready for Diwali. The marigold garlands were up. The diyas were lined up. The laddus had already suffered mysterious losses. Dad had finally persuaded the fairy lights to cooperate. Mom smelled faintly of cardamom, ghee and mild exhaustion. Then Nani announced: “Sab log idhar aao. Jaldi se. Photo lenge.” A silence fell. Because every Indian family knows that a “jaldi family photo” is neither jaldi nor, for several minutes, a family. Pihu disappeared to fix her hair. Guddu objected to standing in front. Mama quickly swallowed the laddu he was holding. Chachi began straightening everyone’s clothes. Dad set the timer and sprinted into position. Toffee, our puppy, chose that exact moment to inspect the rangoli. First photo: Dad missing. Second: Mama blinking. Third: Pihu looking elsewhere. Fourth: Toffee’s tail occupied most of the frame. By the fifth attempt, everyone had stopped trying to look good. Someone laughed. Mom leaned against Dad. Nani was still scolding Toffee. Guddu was stealing a sweet. And the camera clicked. Years later, when cupboards had changed, houses had changed, and some chairs around the Diwali table had become empty, that was the photograph everyone asked for. Not the neat one. Not the posed one. The crooked one. The one where nobody was ready. Perhaps because life rarely waits for us to be ready either. The photo was terrible. No one deleted it. ❤️