If someone ever wanted to know more about me , instead of the usual courtesy of sharing the spotify playlist , I guess I’d say my camera roll is a good place to start.Sure, there is nothing particularly aesthetic about it. On the contrary, it is a mess of blurry images, random screenshots, badly-timed videos, ugly selfies, unfinished meals, and skies I photographed too many times. Yet there is a certain type of autobiography between all this mess that I never consciously set out to create , but did anyway , photograph by photograph.
Most of the photos in my camera roll belong to things I fear forgetting. There is my dog, sleeping with his head resting on my lap, looking so peaceful that it makes me wonder if it was possible to define home in any better way. Further down in the feed, there he is again, involved in a ridiculous fight with my cat, as though it’s a war. I have photographed him in his calmest moments and also in his most ridiculous ones , as if some part of me understood that someday I would want to remember the chaos of him.
There are photos of my sister’s cooking too. Not gourmet dishes from restaurants, not beautifully presented foods, but her food. The best food in the world, in fact, because it tasted like being known. It was always food cooked by her hands that showed consideration of how I do not like onions in my food or how I prefer more gravy in my rice. I always click pictures of it before eating as if I need proof that happiness sometimes arrives in the most domestic ways possible: a plate made by someone who understands exactly what you like.
There are also countless videos of my younger sister and I , all of them objectively more embarrassing than the next. Goofy filters and unnecessary commentary. Vlogs of our aimless walks, somehow turning the 10-minute walk into a full adventure. Our little side quests that start without any destination and finish with us collecting another story. None of it is particularly significant, and that might be the very reason why I keep all of it. Because life has taught me that the moments we think we’ll remember forever are not always the ones we actually end up remembering. Sometimes, it is a stupid video of your sister laughing at something you cannot remember anymore that suddenly feels like a gateway back into the version of yourself that you thought you had outgrown.
There are , of course , pictures of my friends as well. There are embarrassing screenshots of my best friend on videocall. Pictures of late night games in dark rooms, and of people mid-way through their laughter; of all those things that make no sense whatsoever to anyone outside of our little group. But I know exactly what sound each photograph makes. I know the jokes that cause each expression, the discussions about rules, and the laughter that lasted longer than the actual game. My gallery is good at making regular nights seem like a sacred ritual.
Then there are the street animals. There are so many of them.
Dogs, whose names I never got to know. Cats, whom I saw for all of five minutes but could not resist taking a picture of. Animals that I would stop to pet even though I was running late. I like to think that says something about me; that I have always found it difficult to pass by something soft and alive without wanting to leave a little affection behind.
And then there are hundreds of photographs of the sky . Various shades of blue, pink, orange, and grey, all shot from various angles across campus. I tend to photograph the skies whenever I am unsure of my feelings. At times, the sky has seemed like the answer. At other times, it provided me with a space to look at and ponder.
And invariably, right after a great photograph of the university’s sky, comes another photograph of the mess food. The food is hardly ever great. But I shoot it anyway. Mostly so that I can send it to my parents and complain. Or perhaps it’s an effort made to update them on everything when I’m miles away.
My gallery is not a list of the most beautiful moments I have experienced. It is a list of moments that made me feel something. And maybe that is why, when I scroll far enough, I do not just see photographs. I see memories I’d be devastated to lose.
This is what I see in my camera roll, evidence of a life spent collecting small bits and pieces from people and places that I adore, as I know there is something deep within me that recognizes the truth in the fact that nothing remains forever .
Back to the afternoon when my dog went to sleep on my lap. Back to the kitchen where my sister prepared my favourite dishes. Back to the stupid filters and side-quests. Back to those nights when none of us wished for the evening to end. Back to every animal that chose to trust me. Back to the skies under which I am learning to figure myself out.
Maybe that is all my camera roll really is – not a set of pictures, but a set of doors.
And most of the doors that open lead to spaces where I was loved, where I was laughing, where I felt at home, or where, for one second, the world became gentle enough to pause and look at.
If my camera roll says anything about me, I would like it to be this:
I was here.
I loved these people.
I saw these small things.
And I was happy enough to want to remember them.