life in the age of the selfie

Everybody has their spouse’s one best friend that they want to impress. Mine was Shravan who enjoyed mothering N. When we first met, I expected him to run his checks, to see if I complied with the background information that he had been collecting. Just as I was about to exchange a few mundane pleasantries, he remarked, “Hey Shakti you look just like your FB profile picture!” I blushed. It was the best compliment I had received. He had just aced my test.

We are the generation whose thumb eternally twiddles the phone camera and editing software post that. We want to document everything. And showcase on social media thereafter. Our motto being, let’s take a flurry of pictures, the odds are at least one of them will look good. Every time we wear a new dress it warrants a picture. Meet-ups must always end with the customary group huddle for a selfie. We also like to stage the candid shots.

It’s hard for me to compete with these gym selfies, the filmy wedding albums, party pictures that incite our FOMO, ‘the exotic vacation albums’, and certainly not the scrumptious food platters. Right now I can contest only in the ‘see -how -cute -my -baby –is’ category, and the chronic lack of sleep isn’t helping that cause either.

There comes a good day, when the sun bathes the room with perfect lighting, the hair behaves itself and the zits make a brief disappearance. I employ the perfect angle at which my cheeks appear less chubby, and flash the perfect number of teeth. Yet I have to plead my innocence with #nofilter!

I recently read a story on HP inventing a new wearable camera, which is always on to capture all our life moments. Well Google Glass is already here. But let’s face it; we aren’t leading the most exciting of lives. We never meet the cute co-passenger we have instant chemistry with. Adventure is when we get lost in the maze of our city traffic. Instead of being the ‘cool’ person that I think I am, I am now busy scrutinising the colour of my baby’s poop. Imagine, our wearable cameras are going to churn our footage more boring than an apartment lobby’s CCTV.

  At the risk of sounding old I must say that I marvel at today’s young girls’ enthusiasm and effortless posing for the camera. I had shepherded a bunch of 20 year olds on a college trip. “This is the temple where Buddha attained enlightenment,” said the tour guide. “Wow” they chimed. Out came the cameras. Inhibitions were shed, tresses were tousled up and hands were strategically placed on the hips. The girls who I had labelled as coy magically metamorphosed into pouting divas. The next one-hour rushed past in furious clicks from different angles. By then everyone had forgotten who Buddha was, including me.  

During all the marvelling I realised that I am in the process of raising one of gen –next too. I still look cock eyed in all my futile selfie attempts, not knowing where exactly to focus, but my eight-month-old daughter never misses the target. Evolution has already prepared her for the survival of the fittest!

When N and I decided to get married I squabbled (unsuccessfully) with my father over doing away with the reception. “I feel stupid, standing and clicking pictures,” I groaned. My legs throbbed with pain. “But how else will we know who came?”  My mother argued. As an afterthought the albums certainly helped given that the whole spectacle seemed like a blur. Our parents may be a generation older but we are no different, this desire to document every moment seems to have only doubled with ours. 

We will never find the sepia toned photo, partially crumpled and fading at the edges, in the pages of a book and remember the story behind it. We are owners of hard disks with gargantuan masses of pictures that will perhaps never be revisited. Here I am, desperately waiting to document my daughter’s first walk. She’s probably going to fall fat on the floor not being able to see her mother’s reassuring smile. Well, obviously it’s hidden behind the camera.

-Originally published in the column 'Pop Pourri', The New Indian Express, Bangalore, September 19th 2015