Selfies

Before selfies became an art, a photographer’s research area, a psychologist’s study, they were something that we did covertly. The duck face selfies, the funeral selfies, and the half naked selfies that essentially are supposed to centre around the new ear ring - are a relatively new fad. Long before these trends became popular, we had the silent, hidden, old fashioned, selfies –not called selfies but selfies they sure were. Yes, I clicked my first displayable selfie in 2005 or 2006. And when I displayed it shyly to my husband fishing for a compliment, he asked me, “Motte, did you smile yourself?” I mean he didn’t say did you smile FOR yourself? He asked did you smile yourself? I knew what he meant, but I asked, does someone else smile for you? And gall aye gayee ho gayee, but naal di naal meri lassi ho gayee. ( That picture not displayed here. I don’t want any riots on FaceBook. As it is, the world doesn’t seem a very safe place to be anymore.)

A few weeks ago, at a wedding, when I thought I was nicely dressed up, and had some tolerable makeup on, and when I thought it was a good occasion to get myself clicked, I handed over the phone to Rasan to click some nice pictures of mine. She is the one who gives me all my cover pics for the FB, she is good with the camera. However, only she knows or God knows what happens when she is clicking me. She forgets all her art. Or perhaps the teenage is fast catching up with her? I thought she would act like the paparazzi, and click some pictures when I was not looking, and in the process capture some nice shots to keep. What she came up with was some real ugly mug shots with my chin drooping, eyes popping, my fat displayed and hair disarrayed. Thank God, she didn’t make a point of taking the picture of the right ear. Then I called out to Jai, and he is, as you know by now, being raised as a mercenary kid. I had no money to spare, so he didn’t do a good job at all.

Finally I had to resort to, yes, clicking selfies. With age fast getting on to my side, my needs are also diminishing. I just need an angle that shows off a dimple and a mole, perhaps the one from where the cheek looks slightly thinner, chin singular, eyes slightly bigger with eyelashes prominent (sans that grey eyelash, of course), hair less grey and neck slightly longer – and the dupatta has to be in place and the background people have to be minussed. That’s all that a girl asks for.

Vanity, ah vanity !!

P.S. – By the way Microsoft word still shows selfie as a non existent word and gives me “sulfide,” “sulfite,” “sheltie,” “self,” “shellfire,” as alternatives. More on this later, I like "shellfire" !! But I wonder why selfie has not joined the MS Word default vocabulary.