I think, therefore I write

Tag: Wedding

Posing for a Candid Click? Think Twice!

We all are narcissists, at least in secret. Whoever thinks otherwise is living in denial. Well, don’t tell me you don’t do a mental jig every time you have a good hair day or when suddenly the mirror seems to tell you that you are fashionable. It is not the narcissism that’s bothersome, we have all been there, done that. But the heights to which we seem to be reaching, that’s something! Since I am in the range of “that right age” that the bane of a society tags you with, I have seen a lot of weddings (including mine) and wedding invitations doing their rounds in 2014-2015. And hence the mad rush to schedule photo shoots, book the dates of photographers etc.. And afterwards the psychic state of mind to get them developed and edited (You wouldn’t want a hair out of place, would you?) and then… what else, let me think, Oh! uploading them on FB. I am no exception here because I too wanted to be a part of it and would have done all of these if my marriage had been the conventional one. People who know my story know that my marriage was an oxymoron – Every bit conventional but then again every bit unconventional πŸ˜› So I would be a hypocrite if I said that I am holier than thou. I wouldn’t have done the FB bit because I am not on FB but then I would have done every other part of it.Thankfully(This is where I thank my stars and everything else), I did not get the chance to do it. I got the lesson without having to attend the class.

Well, I have observed a lot to safely say that nowadays all kinds of photography, especially for a wedding, are termed candid. Yes, there is no more clicks that are like those pics that you saw in your parents’ wedding album. But do we know the meaning of candid? Check Wiki’s definitionΒ  of Candid Photography here:

candid

Image Source : Screen Grab from Google search of ‘Candid’

You cannot do the “without subject’s knowledge” in a wedding picture obviously and that’s fine. But then you cannot call it candid either. And do you think the bride and groom would not notice/remember that the camera’s clicking away throughout the ceremony? One part of their mind will be busy arranging their facial features so that they get decent clicks all the way, while the other part is busy looking up in the directory, how the aunty in the red saree is related? They would have to answer when the (in)famous question is uttered no?

“Congrats beta, I saw you when you were this little, Do you remember me?”

“Of Course I don’t, you just said it. I was this little when you saw me.”

So my point is, when the photographer is asking you to pose every bit since that is indeed the finest day of your life, how can you call it candid? You can go to parks, empty roads and villages and pose like you are all one with the nature for your shoots. But the truth is you are posing (consciously or sub-consciously) for a click. And posing for a click makes it the opposite of candid. I have seen all rosy smiles in post-wedding shoots and the albums put up in FB for some friends to like and for others to go green in jealousy but in reality, the couple were having a tough time adjusting to each other. Especially in arranged marriages, a lot of disagreements crop up once the honey moon period is over. Because, that’s when you wake up and face the reality. You run a household, catch up with work, take care of in-laws and do grown-up stuff with this new person. That’s when you realize, all this while you have been on cloud nine and you are slowly landing on earth. It happens in love marriages too because the role of a girlfriend/boyfriend is much easier than that of a wife/husband. Taking up responsibility is new and it would bring you face to face with reality, whether you like it or not.

chandlerbingImage Source: questionablechoicesinparenting.com

Okay, now let me get to another point. Everyone cannot be photogenic and we know that. We all have our pitfalls. So when a person who is not so good with the camera and goes like Chandler in front of one, what would you do? Take my hubby for example. Although he is not as bad as Chandler, he cannot fake a smile/pose for the life of him. But when he does smile, he’s awesome. So if we choose candid clicks for him, then I would end up with a smiling me and a very uncomfortable him by my side [Which is what kinda happened to us]. Since I couldn’t entirely get out of this candid click mania and also since our photographer insisted that we pose ‘candidly’ because nowadays everyone does only candeeeed potograpy, we did what we had to do. But the bottom line is we never bothered about it. We ended up having a big laugh over the pics and then gave the albums to our parents to continue the routine of showing to every relative visiting us.

We couldn’t care! Heck, I know the guy for more than 2 decades and have been in a relationship for more than a decade! Do you think your camera can capture his expressions more candidly than my eyes? I can still remember how he looked every moment on our wedding day without even seeing the album. So spending thousands on wedding photography is more because the photographer handles the camera much better than you and he knows how to edit the pics to make you look like you want to look. It is NOT because the photo is candid. So please oh please, accept THAT. Relive the moments and not the poses. Bring out all the smiles not just for putting up on social media but for yourselves. And if you want a nice click to freeze that moment for you, go ahead and do it. I am not against preserving memories, I have preserved a truck load of them in form of pictures, video and audio recordings. Just don’t label them candid when they are not. Smile for yourself, not for the world!

Until later πŸ™‚

P.S: This post is not to trash wedding photography, I understand it is also someone’s livelihood and even I have a few friends who make a living out it. This post is just to drive home the point that what is termed as Candid photography is not the case everywhere. And that spending thousands on it just to satisfy peer pressure is not worth it. If you don’t like it… Well, I can’t do anything about it. I probably won’t, even if I can.

February : That month of 2014

The twelfth day from today, February 9 marks the highest point of my life so far. Some of you would know that I turn one on that day. As a wife. If I could sum up all the drama in bollywood and bring it into one story, that would be my love story. The heights of drama. Accusations were made, Voices were raised, Tears were shed, Persuasions were tried, Satyagrahas were staged and every possible silly thing that seems too absurd to be reality happened. On both sides. We suffered losses on both sides. Yet something made us stand together through it all. One can call it love while others can call it destiny. Whatever it was, I am grateful for what held us together. This is not a post to relive all the pain that we had, to end up together. In fact, our marriage has not yet been completely accepted by one and all but you cannot please everybody.

This is the beginning of a series that is a kinda-sorta-gift to hubby [Apart from the actual gift which will be revealed in the final post of the series, on the anniversary]. The inspiration behind this series is Visha on whose space I found the idea of writing 12 letters based on each month to her loving Zack. She had done it for the calendar year while I am doing it from our anniversary year. So here goes the month of February.

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Dear Adit,

February had never been our favorite month of the year as the month had brought a lot of trouble and heart-breaks in our history. Hence as that February of 2014 came carrying prospects of our wedding, we became more and more apprehensive. We showed all the smiles and happiness to the world while internally we were cringing together that it should go well. Only we know how much it pained. Nevertheless, the 9th of February 2014 approached and the drama lasted till the last minute possible. The calls on the eve of the wedding to reassure each other that no matter what happens, we’d stand by each other, the sleepless night, the texts we sent till we reached the venue and saw each other, the back-up plans – all seem like they just happened. Yet, it’s almost a year.

I must say, the moment I saw you in the temple mandap was the moment I was reborn. Nothing mattered after that. I had reached earlier with my folks and my eyes never left the entrance till I saw you. You entered the mandap braving everything, pushing all your internal struggles back, pausing all the opposition from both our families. You were and are truly my knight in shining armor and I fell in love with you all over again. The ceremonies went really fast and before we could let it sink in, we were husband and wife. Remember how we were in a trance and it took a couple of months to even acknowledge that we were married? Finally!

start_of_a_journey
We chattered throughout our reception that followed the wedding and cribbing about how we had to stand for 3 hours straight. Remember the photography session where we had to pose every cheesy pose in history? I know you hated all the cheesiness but what had to be done had to be done. I could see that annoyed smile in almost all the photos while I managed to mask it perfectly. I didn’t care about the photos but I loved the cheesiness with you. πŸ˜› The honeymoon trip to The Taj Mahal on Valentine’s and other places in Delhi and Agra were definitely dripping of romance, we both had our first flight experience together πŸ™‚

Nothing was different between us but everything seemed different in the eyes of the society. I didn’t have to hide from others to take your calls, I could sit by your side and hold your hand on a bus without attracting stares. How silly the society is to trust a ceremony so much than the people involved. Whatever! The rest of the month was spent in us settling down in Bangalore, me turning the entire house down for the sake of cleaning, running from the bank to the builder for the processes associated with our new flat, driving around on our Activa, me learning cooking and making you the official experimental rat and the list goes on.

Soon it was time for mom and dad to go back and I was all tears about how I am gonna manage the cooking part (I was never the one to show home-sickness even though I was crying a river inside). I still can’t forget how you reassured me and made me believe that I would be just fine and that you’d help me in everything. All in all, February was the heights of the roller-coaster we boarded a long time back and I am glad we got to come down to earth unscathed. Also, with this we can safely consider February de-jinxed. πŸ˜€

And did I tell you? I love you πŸ˜‰

Love,

Wifey

************

Until later πŸ™‚

A wedding saved!

It was a Saturday 15 days before my wedding and I was planning to fight the crowd on commercial street to pick up some things I still hadn’t. I was set to head home for the marriage ceremonies in the coming week. I woke up grudgingly thinking of all the things that were unchecked on my to-do list. I still had to go to the parlor for the reception trial make-up and I was already worrying too much about what all the make-up would do to my sensitive skin. I brushed my teeth, splashed water over my face and there it was, a sudden sting. Ow! The water was ice cold during winters in Bangalore but it had never stung before. Had my skin become extra sensitive with the trial make-up for wedding that I tried out yesterday? I turned to the mirror and my loud shriek jostled my best friend & roommate to a wake. She had a mouthful to say to me for disturbing her in the “midnight” (Well, 7 AM was midnight to her since her morning starts at 11 AM). I had to shake her awake and show her the pimple on my forehead to shut her up. But that didn’t shut her up, instead she was suddenly wide awake and started yelling at me for a variety of reasons – For gorging on that cutlet and onion pakodi during our friend’s wedding (According to her eating too much oily food brings you pimples, especially when you can’t guarantee the purity of the oil), for not listening to her about washing my face 5 times a day, about not taking her with me for the trial make-up so that she could eat the stylist alive about what brands of make-up she uses and how she does the make-up.

There were all these ceremonies starting days before the wedding and I had exactly 10 days to make this pimple go away without a blemish if I wanted the clicks of my wedding to be as I wanted them to be. I called up the love of my life, who was sleeping joyfully with his comforter pulled over his head and informed him of the tragedy (While my friend was still yelling at me in the background) All I got in response was a grunt and something about how wolverine should not have done something in X-men. Only when I yelled into the mobile that our marriage was in danger, that he yelled back a shocked ‘What?’. I replayed the reason for which I was waking him up at that ungodly hour. Although I knew that he had no idea why this was upsetting me so much (Guys!!!), after years of experience, he knew how to tread such fine lines. “Won’t 10 days be enough for it to go away?” was his first question. I thought about it and replied, “10 days might be enough if I treat it but it has to go without a mark”. He was suddenly as nervous as I was. The last time I faced a pimple problem was before my brother’s wedding and only he knew what a bitch I was when the mark didn’t vanish in time for the photo shoot. This time around it was our marriage and he knew he was doomed to hell if this was not solved. He thought out loud and cut the call with a promise that he would check with his grandmother, sister, mom, friends and any woman alive on the planet who would give him a way to save his wedding and honeymoon plans.

The entire day, my friend was on internet surfing the various home-remedies, face-washes and beauty tips while I nervously paced the room. All the plans were cancelled, I was ordered to stay inside the room, away from all the pollution. When I meekly started about the shopping that I still had to do and the trial make-up,my friend gave me her famous steel glare and asked me “Do you want to get married or not?” After that I did nothing except pester my mom and grandma over the phone, asking for home-remedies. They told me a lot of things and herb names which I could not even dream of getting in Bangalore. When I kept ignoring all of their suggestions, they turned against me for making such a big fuss about a small pimple. I cut the call before my grandma could go on one of those “In my days..” rant. I resorted to the popular ways that the internet suggested – applying lemon juice on it(nothing happened except the pimple burned like it was on fire), washing the face often with a variety of face-washes(My hostel had water shortage and had to order tankers for water, I had washed my face that many times), applying sandalwood powder(this gave a cooling sensation but the pimple was still in all its glory). I was too scared to try anything out of ordinary lest it further worsens. So in a nutshell, the following days were a mayhem, my friend was trying to calm me down and find some remedy at the same time, my soon-to-be husband terrified like a mouse was calling every woman he practically knew.

Then on the evening of the 3rd day since the pimple showed its ugly face, I was woken up by a call from my fiance at 7.30 AM. I had to leave for home the next day and had lost all hope of getting a blemish-free face for my wedding. I had even packed the suitcases without bothering about the pending shopping. “Come out, I am waiting outside your hostel” was all that was said. I woke up with a start and wondered what the idiot was doing up so early in front of my hostel. Either way, I went out pulling a scarf over my head, hiding that horrible pimple as much as I could. There he was standing in the cold, with a small parcel in his hand. Before I could say anything,he thrust it into my hand and said “Try this, this is the last hope I have for your pimple problem.” As soon as I heard the word ‘pimple’ I was wide awake. Inside the parcel was a “Garnier Pure Active Neem” face-wash. I had given up on face washes and hence looked at him as if he was insane. He said, “Just try this one for me. My friend told me this one works. Anyway, there’s no harm in trying na?” I had no reply to that and hence decided to give it a go. I didn’t bother to look if it actually made progress because I had no hope. The next day I left for home on seeing me, my mom said, “Was this the pimple you were making so much fuss for?” I was pissed off that even my mom didn’t take me seriously and went to the mirror to check it. I was in for a surprise. The pimple was still there but it looked smaller. I wondered if I was hallucinating but no, it was definitely smaller than it was the day before.

_uploads_2014_12_Garnier-Pure-Active-Neem-Face-WashImage Source: onedaycart.com

I started religiously washing my face 3 times a day with the face-wash. Each day, I could see it drying up a bit more and on its way out. I called the man who was the reason behind this and chirped away happily. I could tell that he was relieved but later he told me that he didn’t care for the pimple but only for my sanity(Hmph!) My friend saved the day by picking up the things I had to shop and coming a couple of days early to deliver them to me. On the day of my wedding, there was nothing but a tiny spot where the pimple was. I was not bothered by it as it was too light to be visible in the clicks and I was going to marry the love of my life in a few hours. There were only laughter throughout the wedding, no pimples. At the end of the day, I told my newly-wed husband, “I now know that I have made the right choice. No man would brave the Bangalore cold to get me a face-wash and no man would ever take these girl problems so seriously. None other than you!” And his reply was, “Pimple or no pimple, I love you for who you are. But when something bothers you, it bothers me too. And that is the reason why I took it so seriously”. That’s my man!

This post is written as an entry to the Garnier Pure Active Neem Face-Wash contest on Indiblogger in association with Garnier.

Until later πŸ™‚