The delicate art of posing

Regret over the past is the largest source of human misery. And there are few things that bring more pangs of regret than revisiting how one looks in old photo albums.

That weird hairdo. That ill-advised colour of footwear. That awful gesture that seemed cool then.

The camera catches just a single instant (unless it is an iPhone 6s). And that's mostly a bad thing because, as Murphy would have it, at least one of your body parts will choose that precise moment to go out of whack. Mastering your limbs not to desert you in these instances is an art. And an intricate one at that.

The nuances of posing for photographs vary as per your stage of life.

Aww, so cute! That's Hitler, btw.

Till about the age of ten or so, you cannot possibly go wrong. Everything you do can be passed off under the garb of cuteness/ innocence/ playfulness. Both 'awful' and 'awesome' are spelt more like 'awwful' and 'awwsome'. Really, even if you are an ugly kid, no one would dare tell you that. This is the phase of photogenic bliss.

This, of course, changes drastically as puberty strikes - a complete anti-thesis of stage one. No matter how hard you try, you end up looking awkward. This can be blamed on the rather sudden sense of self-awareness. The minute you see a camera, you start getting bothered by where your hands are, or if your toes are pointing where they should. You worry and you start getting creative, and there lies the pitfall.

As the awareness of your loosely hanging hands dawn on you, your instincts tell you that 'doing something' might make you look good. And this is what happens.

   

Good luck on how you
feel about this later

V for 'Very awkward'

And don't even talk about the struggle that is having braces on one's teeth. Even if you stand next to Barack Obama, the centre of attention in the picture will always be those shining metal braces. And no, trying not to open one's mouth while smiling only makes it worse. You totter across your teenage years in this quandary but you believe in the Lord and tell yourself that this, too, shall pass.

And then you rush into the twenties. You are the center of your own universe and, needless to say, nothing says "I love myself, b**ches!" like an appropriately hash-tagged selfie.

The rise of the 'Selfie' and other (unrelated) trends 

Web sources say there are a million selfies taken everyday. Logic would say that this number must be understated since a lot of people are closet selfie-tards. Even if we assume each selfie takes 20 secs (which, as I would go on to point in the next paragraph, might be a conservative estimate considering the nuances of it), this amounts to over 230 man days. Basically, between your waking up today and the time you land up in bed again, the world aggregates almost a year of ego-clicking.

I, for one, have never figured my way to a proper selfie. It is just a lot of things to do at once - ensure your whole is visible, that the camera is not excessively close to you, that you are looking straight at the lens and not squinting, and press the 'click' button after that. And somehow, this has to capture the background well enough to shout, "I was here!".

Moving as per life stages, I am now tempted to talk about pre-wedding and wedding photo shoots. However, at this precarious stage of life, broaching that topic might not go down well with a large segment of my friends and acquaintances. All I would say is that, in my opinion, doing pre-wedding photo shoots is like listening to Honey Singh songs. You laugh at everyone who does it and keep claiming you are too cool for it, but, you will eventually do it, and quite willingly.

Needless to say, photographs are memories. Most of us remember ourselves looking super dapper in our memories. And we do not want the printed memories to testify otherwise. So it is understandable that a lot people go out of their way to look good in pictures. Meanwhile, some others go pout of their way to do so.

When Nature came Knocking

Carefully he nudged it along with a little stick,
The tyre wobbled, but kept in its file.
Just then the first drop of rain kissed his cheek,
And quietly flowed into his heartfelt smile.

His pace quickened, his friend he beckoned,
Their run back home was a joyful caper.
The drizzle, however, wasn’t a call for indoors,
But the time to bring out little boats of paper.

The sky, soon enough, shed its azure,
The pitter-patter quickly turned to thunder.
Anything but gentle this shower was,
How much longer, the boy did wonder.

His friend went home, mother dragged him inside,
Their boats now sunk under a bed of water.
Their tin roof looked rather keen to give,
His mother’s forehead betrayed a hint of bother.

That night went by, so did another couple,
The relentless Indra refused to rest.
The crack of dawn was heard in their ceiling,
Time had come to abandon their nest.

Mother, in one hand, clutched a tiny bag,
And held his trembling fingers with the other.
Men, women, were all wading through the streets,
They weren’t alone, was all he could gather.

His aunt’s house was another storey, a refuge,
These desperate times had led them to seek.
Their path was tricky, marred by flood,
The rainwater, soon, of their sweat reek.

Blaring horns few days back, now calls for help,
All means to reach out rocked off the grid.
Shelter, food — all rendered too scarce,
The water failed to ebb, but some lives did.

T’was barely the city he knew, the young boy,
Even the old tea stall had been swept away.
They’d walked, nay swam, for hours on end,
“We’re almost there”, his mother did say.

The torrent raged on, only growing in fury,
The deluge threatening to engulf them two.
Some kind hearts with brave hands came forth,
Of their tired feet, now, they had a boat in lieu.

They made it to their aunt’s place, at last,
It’d taken a beating but, yet, in place.
The boy and his mother huddled with the others,
And prayed for the ever-so-elusive sun’s rays.

The storm did abate, but not before it had,
Brought down the city down on its knees.
Walls had come down, but the hearts were stronger,
A lot of good, and some bad, all come to cease.

Days later, the boy, the mother, started anew,
His evenings, he began to playfully spend.
The tyre kept company, so did the stick,
But silently, he missed his good old friend.