Images! So important for all of us. Images that help us to understand a situation, a person, an idea...Be it a time of celebration- the crumbling down of the wall of Berlin or a time of crisis- the Twin Towers crumbling down...Always helped us to arrange events in the shelf of the memory, neatly stacked, often to pop up at the right time sometimes at the wrong moment, just like when you are clumsy enough to stack too many books on top of each other and then pull at the one at the bottom.

Apart from all those famous photographs and videos, there is our own personal collection, of our ancestors, long gone but their images still remained, mouldy, black and white-turning-grey and yellow, faded but still stuck to the heavy photo album, the ones with black card sheets as the pages and huge metal (usually gold plated) spirals to hold and turn them...and others, old reminders of life's milestones, first birthday, college farewell, first car, wedding, first trip abroad and all the trips that followed the first...

Still remember an old photograph of my grandparents (paternal), Thatha (grandpa) with a turban and long sherwani, garlanded, looking very thin and too young (he was just seventeen) and Ajji (grandma), hair decked in jasmine flowers, a large nose ring, head bowed, garlanded and in a light coloured sari, she was twelve...Fast forward a little to the future, my father in pants and shirt tucked in garlanding my mother, smiling at her and my mother(God! she had such long, thick hair and a beautiful face) looking down...

Once upon a time, photographs were taken artistically, a skill was needed to get hold of that one moment in life, to be framed or showcased or to be awarded. The lighting, the shutter speed, the exposure time, the lens, the angle...technical stuff. Today anybody takes a picture, even my two year old can click away with no worry.

Result, an overload of images...

Images can be so deceptive at times. The well-circulated picture of the white-clad politician garlanding the statue of the Mahatma and later heard mixed up in homicide or the well-known police chief who would let sparks fly as he spoke against drug dealings in schools and colleges only to be later caught red-handed with a fresh supply of marijuana and brown sugar at his home.

Images can be so delusive. The beautiful couple married off in all pomp and splendour, send back snaps of their honeymoon trip to their waiting friends and relatives. Images of them both holding hands, hugging, smiling from ear to ear, all are happy. And then drops the bomb shell of divorce, exploding in their faces as a firework doing its work at the wrong time. Behind those smiling faces, was there hatred, bitterness and cussing?

Images can be so misleading. The wrong person with you at the wrong time and circulated to the wrong people and hell is broke lose. The influential can deny, claim it to be doctored, blame the media. The not-so-influential is expected to endure the shame, the blame and the maim...

Once I was asked by a girl in a social networking site to add her as a friend. Her profile picture was that of a thin, innocent girl, probably in her late teens with a sweet smile. i checked her profile to get to know her better and I regret it even today!! She turned out to be a lesbian and her page was filled with filthy stuff of porn that made me retch. Who would have thought that under that innocuous smile and angelic face lay such dirty thoughts??


Go to any social networking site and you see snaps of friends, families, kids on a vacation, couples hugging, friends at a party...You go for a party/get together, snap, snap, snap as you pose deliberately (most often), say cheese and then freeze. The moment captured forever. You carefully put them up, one by one, for others in the list to see, others who are far away, wondering occasionally about you and your life (do they? how stupid!!). The most amusing thing I have discovered is that it doest matter that all cannot be in your good books but you can always add them in facebook!!!
Often you feel compelled to project your satisfied life to your friends, to convince them about...what??
An acquaintance once asked me after getting in touch after a long gap, through such a site, "I heard that you are married, to a Muslim...is that true?" and when i said "Yes", responded back, "But you look happy!!" Excuse me!! Then another one said, "Oh! you look happy". Thank you for your observation and the revelation!!
This nudged me to post a host of snaps, a happy me, happy kids, happy me and Manoj...happy, happy, happy!!!

So life was not all that boring for me all those years, chum. See, me, 'enjoying'? And if those glossy pictures (sometimes photoshoped) are absent, then does it mean that he/she is not really happy in life??

How much do we take care of our image that sometimes has taken years for us to build around us. An image often unlike the real us. Some hide fear in their bold life or statements. Others laugh off their sorrows. Others cover up their disappointment in their endless cynicism.

I am told and often pleaded to believe by the media is that the world is coming closer with technology, through the internet. Everything is laid bare before us or rather it seems. There is transparency everywhere whether you need it or not. All seem to be too honest about their faults and failures. Everyone seems to be so lovely and loving. And yet people are so stone cold. There is no real passion in us anymore for any cause.
We live life and now capture those precious moments in our lives not as just keepsakes but as a spectacle for others to watch. Some sites for socialising aid you in this direction. You sneeze(I wanted to say 'fart' but don't you think it too crude?) and the whole world will know. It is so convenient to create an image that is pleasing to others now. Hold that stray puppy and say cheese and you become an animal lover. Nobody will care even if you kick the puppy on its a**. You can let the whole world know that you love God and so pray day in and out and then go party, sleep, indulge, who knows and who cares? You can say sweet things about your wonderful husband/wife or hint subtly or obviously being such a devoted spouse and then be as passive as possible in real life. Nobody would know!!

The one image that wormed into my memory recently and keeps coming up above others is the picture of all those fans of the movie actor Chiranjeevi. They had all appeared wearing masks of their favourite actor. A sea of chiranjeevi faces facing the chiranjeevi!!!