Picture Perfect

When I was small, whenever the family members gathered together to take photographs I would go missing. They’ll search for 2 minutes, give up, go ahead & take the picture without me. As I grew this quirk remained with me. As soon as somebody brings out their camera to take a picture I would find some excuse & vanish from the scene.

My sister was born almost 5 yrs after me. As soon as she was able to sit unaccompanied [& if I’m not wrong it was also my Birthday that day], our parents took us to the studio to take a photograph. I still remember standing on a table, in the studio next to my little sister who was sitting in a tiny bucket like chair. Both my parents & the photographer were busy arranging the scene & making sure my sister would not fall off. Nobody really noticed the 6 year old standing next to her who was worrying how she was supposed to pose.

Finally when the photograph came after 3 days, it pictured a cute little baby sitting smartly & her elder sister standing next was holding her shoulders so stiff & hands so straight that it looked like her fingers were straining to touch the ground. That picture is still there in a small frame in the dining room showcase in my parents house. Every relative on my Mother’s & Father’s side also takes pains to show it to me whenever I go to visit them.

Some people, even though don’t look so good in real life look great in pictures. And for some, their photographs don’t do them justice. As for me, I cant lay claim to either of these…….I am perfectly ordinary looking & look extra lousy in photographs.

When I turned 22 my parents convinced me to get my pictures taken from GK Vale[almost all women in & from Bangalore will know this place] so that it could be handed over to certain connected people for matrimonial reasons. I went unwillingly but with a faint hope in my heart.

GK Vale didn’t let me down. I almost didn’t recognise myself …I mean the girl in the picture was me but she looked beautiful…...could it really be me??????

For the first time in my life I walked around with my pictures tucked into my Literature books & it sort of fell out unknowingly & my classmates or acquaintances who picked it up gaped at the transformation. I took many passport copies of it & used them everywhere. Yeah they went into my passport also.

After that, my wedding pictures were again taken by GK Vale & they were not too bad either.

Then all went downhill from there. Today, whenever we go out of the country the person at the immigration looks sharply at the picture & then at me & then again at the picture & finally hands the passport back very hesitantly.

I clearly see the question in their eyes “whatever happened????"

I so badly want to answer “A steady diet of junk & 2 kids happened”

Our family album has a lot of pictures of our kids, parents, siblings, even visitors all taken at various occasions. Nobody really notices that I’m there in very few of them. Only my mom & my sister will complain that there is not much of me. I field their questions with “Well, somebody has to take the pictures”.

The funny thing is, when I look back now & see the same pictures……they don’t look so bad…..well ok I was a bit skinny & had a few spots on my face but other than that I was alright…..almost pretty.

Going by the above logic, I have slowly started letting my better-half & kids take my pictures, joining people to pose for photographs…...comforting myself that few years down the lane they won't look so bad to my eyes.

What about you? Do you like posing for photographs? Do your pictures make you look good???? Do your pictures make you FEEL good about yourselves????