Saturday, January 29, 2005

A picture

I never photographed well… I know thousands of you will say the same. Some with an air knowing fully well that they do look very well in the picture and hoping that the person holding the picture will say vehemently “oh you look lovely”. Some are honest… I fall in the latter category.
It wouldn’t have mattered much except that I was 24 and had not found a suitable boy on my own. The task therefore lay; and heavily at that; on my poor mother’s shoulders.
“Do you have a picture of hers”; my aunt asked my mother. “One in which she looks really nice”. “Oh yes”; gushed my mother.
“Ah…. Very well….”, pronounced my aunt after a few minutes of looking at the picture my mother had produced. Then choosing her words carefully so as not to offend my mother said, “She does look lovely in the photograph… but perhaps you have something in which she is a little older..?” For you see my mother had given her a picture taken when I was 8 years old. It was the first and last time I looked good in a photograph.
Then began my ordeal by camera! Picture after picture was taken….and discarded! I am not a drop dead gorgeous kind of girl… well that you would have surmised with the fact that I was 24 and let my mother look for a guy! But photographs really do me injustice!
Class pictures. Pictures for the placement brochure. Old albums. New Year pictures. Birthday ones…all looked alike. I hated being photographed! I do not understand how on earth you are supposed to look at an inanimate object and smile as if it was your best friend! I felt ridiculous and looked ridiculous when the washed proofs came in! I was always glaring at the object that seemed the bane of my life!
‘Someone’. He was the friend that I knew not if I would see again. And I knew it was important that he had a picture of me- at least it would matter for some time… and god knows I tried… but I knew that it was not to be so-that he would leave India with a picture that would show me happily smiling into the camera; for each time the camera clicked, I would look at his face expectantly and would see him shaking his head with disappointment.

I once sent a picture to a friend of mine… he was a friend of a friend of mine (whew!). Friendship is one thing that does not prove the transitive property. But I really liked him. And he wanted to see how I looked like. After a lot of hemming and hawing- I sent him a picture with the lines saying, “The prettier one is not me!”
Bang came the reply on seeing the picture- “Oh. So you are the one in the black dress”. Touché.
My reply was a monosyllable: “yes.”

9 Comments:

Blogger Sowmya said...

hi poornima,its me sowmya..my friends here gave me this name..well u write wonderfully da..and that photo is the best! love u! will keep reading ur blog dear..

8:37 AM  
Blogger Mrs. Dalloway said...

My dear Sowmya- you must be the first Indian with blonde hair!!! When are the 'memoirs' appearing? ;o)

10:08 AM  
Blogger Amit Jain said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

4:11 AM  
Blogger Amit Jain said...

You sound second Cinderella to me !!! Do looks really matter so much ?? I bet they don't.

4:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Friendship is one thing that does not prove the transitive property.

Wonderful!

I would add to it, Friendship is not commutative either. :)

This post put a smile on my face, and I laughed sometimes in between too. But the ending left me with a sad feeling, I don't know why. I am sad but I am still smiling. Don't you feel the same when you look at your own picture, you feel sad about how you look, but you smile because she is you, only you. When you said in your previous post what is that you are going to write (happy moments or unhappy moments), I have an intuition that your stories would make me smile and I would feel sad too.

I see you are following me up on comments. I am a very honest person too. So when I say that I have this intuition, it is the truth I speak, and I haven't read the latter posts.

In summary I see a witty, funny, HONEST 'picture' of you here. I guessed I missed the picture, but look what I saw.

cze

10:58 PM  
Blogger Mrs. Dalloway said...

Cze: I am in the process of trying to post something and hence in the space of my blog. Maybe you should write too. Intangible sorrow- that's them words. And about your intution, that's exactly what I feel on reading what I write. Would be thrilled if someone mirrored my feelings...

And thank you for reading up and more so for telling me in huge words what you feel. I dont think many people on my blog today have read these posts. Lol! Fame is a fickle mistress!!

11:09 PM  
Blogger vimalgasper said...

My friend Soorya gave me the link to this blog saying its a Must Read... Since, I take her advices seriously I decided to read your blog from the very beginning... Nice blog, liked your honesty, good language, simple yet expressive and truly involving. I hope you would have got the perfect man even if you couldn't get a perfect photo. I can understand the importance of a photo for getting a suitable marriage partner as I'm in the process. I have taken 2 new photos for this purpose but my father is still not happy and wants me to take a new one and upload it in the matrimonial sites.
By the way, what happened after that 'yes'???

12:53 AM  
Blogger Soorya said...

Hi,

I was the one who recommended the blog to Vimal :) And yeah, probably this is The Only blog I have recommended to anybody.. though I have gone through many others!
I had started from the recent posts... the "we sleep like 2 open brackets" was the first thing that impressed me :) That post was truly enchanting...yet so simple and without any frills.Read few mroe recent ones and then decided I should start from your very first post :) Keep writing... very very lovely blog! And so sad that u removed the pic... am a late-comer :(

6:56 AM  
Blogger Mrs. Dalloway said...

Vimal : After the 'yes' he wrote to my friend! :)

Soorya: Yeah... I see I've become more reckless in my recent posts. :) And thanks for all the kind words.

10:19 PM  

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