A few days back while on cycling on the banks of Lake Pichhola, amidst the trash that some of us throw so carelessly were photographs. A close inspection revealed they wern’t mere photographs but indeed wedding albums – torn and thrown in the lake. Still lying there, not yet swept away by the water to the depth of the lake bed.

There were happy faces of elated parents, siblings and friends on the wedding rituals of their loved ones. The memories carefully stored in glossy albums in plastic cover- Photographs that were posed for, smiled for and fussed over, lying here now unclaimed, unloved and grieved over.

The relationships that may have once been investigated, checked over now all that covered with moss of broken dreams and unfulfilled desires.

How does one recover? How does one forget?

When things get thrown away, do we also necessarily empty out what once lived within?

How long before these photographs becomes part of the soil??

Or like the non-degradable plastic covered albums these memories continue to live with us forever??

Who to judge, who to questions and what to remorse??

And this reminded me so much of the famous lines of the Ghazal sung by Late Jagjit Singh:

तेरे ख़त आज मैं गंगा में बहा आया हूँ ,

आग बहते हुये पानी में लगा आया हूँ ………