Picture Perfect

Hunted for the "lost" bag of photographs at home, the bag that contained all my childhood snaps, school, apartment ones...Finally, after looking into every nook and cranny, found the treasure...

There are snaps of every hue. Some of these I could gladly tear up, just so I don't have to see myself looking like a clown waking up from sleep with the mask on. One, in particular, is where I have held out my hair on both sides of my head, in an attempt to be funny. It worked. You can be sure I'll NEVER try that again.

Then there are hordes of snaps of my sister in a variety of camera angles. There was a time when she was a teen and so obssessed about her looks 24/7. I was the ever-interested, curious pre-teen who thought dressing up for photo shoots at home was the pinnacle of cool. So, now we have over two dozen snaps of sis, smiling her charming smile (yeah, she practised in front of the mirror for hours), in poses that we then thought were very cool. Now, they seem horribly corny but very very cute too.

There are assorted pictures of birthday parties, outings, annual days. There is one, where I am dressed in a pink shirt and red pants, all of 12 years, dancing on the stage with a girl in a yellow frock. We are dancing to the song "Khambe jaise khadi hai". I am Aamir Khan, my friend is Madhuri. Ya, I was a funny kid.

I wish there were more school snaps. I have some class photos. Isn't it incredible how goofy most of looked in our childhood? In most snaps, we kids are laughing giddily, with lips pressed together, an attempt to suppress the natural laughter that all kids strangely feel when a photographer says "Smile please".

Welllll, am I glad I hunted out the treasure. My next step is to scan all these pics, so even if some hard copies get torn or lost, the images will still be there. This is going to take time, coz my computer at home is not fitted with a scanner. I've already scanned afew, rest will happen in phases. Here's to that!