Unveiling monochrome – of one’s parents

 

Unveiling monochrome – of one’s parents

Denzil Jayasinghe
4 min read·2 days ago

The story is about the author’s parents and their lives before they met each other. The author reflects on the photos of his parents and wonders about their lives before they became his parents. The photos make him realise that there are aspects of his parents he hardly knows at all. The author becomes more forgiving and accepting of his parents as he better understands their lives.

She stands in a saree, her face calm and composed. Her long hair falls on her shoulders, parted in the middle. A watch adorns her left arm, and a white pebbled chain is around her neck. Her leather slippers peek out from under her white saree. She is my mother, barely nineteen years old. She would marry my father ten days before her twentieth birthday. I wonder what year this photo was taken. Maybe it was in 1952 when Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II after her father’s death. When a war split Korea into two. Did she listen to these events on her father’s radio and think of them as distant history or part of her world?

Another photo shows my father sitting on a high stool, looking lean and relaxed. He wears a crumpled pair of shorts and a short-sleeved shirt that exposes his slender body, legs, and hands. He wears leather shoes and long socks. This photo was probably taken around 1947 when my father was twenty years old. At that time, India had just become independent after a long struggle, and the Cold War had started between the USA and the USSR.

This photo, taken in a studio, must have been captured years before my mother and he met. It seems that both their photos were taken in studios. I should have inquired about the circumstances surrounding these pictures. I wonder what else he was studying apart from English and Mathematics during that time. Was he involved with someone romantically? I’ve heard rumours about a girl who had an interest in him. In this photo, he appears poised and engaged, as if he’s about to say something witty.

Our parents, in a certain sense, are among the people we know best in the world. We have spent so much time in their company. We have shared countless meals with them, more than even their closest friends have. We know them intimately. We have seen them in their morning disarray, in their casual attire. We have witnessed their moments of worry and occasional bursts of anger. They have cradled us in their arms, and we have glimpsed their personal belongings and private spaces. We are well-versed in their ability to mend a broken fence or prepare a dish of fish curry.

Yet, as I look at these photos, I realise that there are aspects of them I hardly know at all. What was it truly like to be them? If I could meet them at the same age, would I like them? Would I feel a peculiar connection? How were they when they were alone with their friends? What hidden aspects of their character have I not properly seen?

The pleasure derived from these photos lies, first and foremost, in the deepening of love and understanding.

The photos make us grasp something that is often challenging to comprehend as children: our parents’ lives did not revolve solely around us. They didn’t spend every waking moment preparing for our existence. In these pictures, they had no inkling of what the future held. I was raised by a shy girl and a young man in the making, not by flawlessly mature adults who always got everything right. Guided by these images, we become more forgiving and more accepting of these wonderfully peculiar individuals who, by chance, gave us our remarkable lives.

Perhaps one day, another person, maybe one of my own children, will gaze at a photo of me – a photo that carries a transparent meaning to them and vividly evokes every detail of the remembered experience – and feel that same tender, surprised curiosity. And perhaps they will wonder, in their own turn, what their father was like when they were young and who they truly are within the intricate and expansive dimensions of their being.

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Images belong to the original owners.

Photo Essay
Parents

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