Rant 202 : The empty frame – 1

“Are you there yet?”

“Yea, yea just a minute, I am just stepping in. Will be there in 5 minutes.” I replied as I hurried into an old building, probably built in the late 1880’s in the later phase of the British era.

I knocked on the door and was received by a lady in her 50s and was asked to sit in the drawing. A wide, white indoor hall (they called it drawing) which could easily make you dumbstruck. It had the typical look of a big palatial entrances. Pointed arches, coloured glasses, various weapons hanging on the high walls and wooden beams and rafters running through and through the ceiling, bearing the heavy weight historical virtue of the building.

The lady went upstairs and vanished somewhere after the heavy curtain. I could hear her speaking to someone and informing that I was here. She came out and hinted me to wait for 15 minutes as she went away into another room with a wiper and a duster in her hand. This house ( or palace), though humongous in its scale and architectural excellence, did not paint a very happy image in my mind. It felt so gloomy to be sitting here and everything there – on the walls, on the floor and on the ceiling called for an unsolicited conversation on how important their presence was in the current context.

Anyways, I turned behind to see a wall with numerous photographs, framed beautifully into a golden wooden frame. I could see a young guy, probably the youth of the person I was waiting here to meet, in the initial photographs. Then follows a series of photographs with a lady and a tall handsome dark gentleman. Most probably his parents and then a couple of photographs with a lady in the most elegant poses you will find on this wall. Then follows a series of photographs with another lady, which begins from marriage, kids, a few festivals and then one with the grownup kids and in the last row, there were 7 blank photoframes.

BLANK PHOTO FRAMES.

I wondered why? Maybe for the images that are yet to come! Oh yes, surely, that must be the reason. I was impressed by the consistency of the frames and their construction as not all were made at the same time. It was evident from the state of the frames that almost all were made at different times, whenever a new photograph was clicked. Quite passionate work of photo-framing.

“Hello, young man”, I moved my head to the voice of the old man coming down the stairs in his white kurta and dhoti with a book in his hand. His spectacles seemed very modern – the frameless ones and probably not the usual ones you will see on people his age. I was awestruck by his persona and the fact that he walked with his spine absolutely straight even though he was not in the best of his health.

I am not sure of what was running in my mind, but the first thing which I spoke while he sat on the chair, was – “These photographs are beautiful sir.” He smiled a little to my remark and dearly looked at those images.
.. Contd.

Continue reading the second part –
https://the11oclockdiary.home.blog/2020/03/23/rant-240-the-empty-frame-2/