Click!

I don’t like looking back or flipping through old photographs, period. I really don’t understand the big deal behind them. I know it bring backs a flood of memories of how cute we were or how blissful those times were. I understand how old photographs – maybe black and white, small… tiny actually, rounded edges, some hazy, some blurred, with lots of fingerprints on them – has us all reminiscing about old times, but sadly, not me. Call me complaining, but old pictures, according to me, should be where they are – in albums, all stored up in the box labeled “photos”, surrounded by cobwebs, deep down in the basement.

For me, looking at old photographs brings back a downpour of bad recollections. Don’t believe me, I can point out a number of reasons I stay away from “photographic nostalgia”.

Old pictures are filled with innumerable neighbors some long forgotten and some long lost. Every “picture session time” ends with my mum saying “You’re so selfish and cold, how come you don’t remember these people, these kids played with you in the colony park, these bought you presents on your fourth birthday, they lived in the apartment right across, they called you by your pet name, cried when we shifted to a new neighborhood and now, to listen to my own daughter simply forget them. What has the world come to?”

Then, there are the unmistakable “bad pose pictures”. For the lucky lot who never experiences such displeasure, let me divulge what that phrase means. “Bad pose pictures” as is obvious, is the perennial shot most likely associated with the some doomed un - photogenic lot, including me. Or is it that as kids, we pose in the most unspeakable manner there is to be. Whatever it was, it has me running for cover. There has to be a picture with oversized glasses, blowing off birthday candles (yes, that exact moment when your mouth is full of air), two ponytails standing like antennas, squinting in the sun or the classic shot wherein your aunt or whoever it was, dressed you like a lady, complete with sari, makeup and high heels and clicked away to glory. Looking at them now, I am all red faced, others around me are “Oh look at you, so foolish yet so cute”.

Oh, I could just go on about this, but don’t worry I won’t. Next time you flip through those captured moments, hope you don’t find reasons to abhor them like I do.

Also, I would like to take a moment to thank the architect of the digital camera. May you be blessed for having put the delete option… Amen

I Arrive!!!

All right, let’s begin with a confession.

I am currently unemployed. Tired of watching all the reruns on television (yes, I know F.R.I.E.N.D.S dialogues and plot like the back of my hand), tired of catching up on all the movies I missed (including the likes of Dude, where’s my car) , tired of reconnecting with my Facebook “friends”, tired of uploading my CV on websites that promise a job, tired of thinking and planning on what my next “move” in life will be, tired of answering aunties and uncles that “Yes, I am 25, it’s high time I settle down and have kids”, tired of watching the needle on the weight scale moving ahead than it should have, I decided to cry my heart out on Microsoft Word (God Bless Mr. Gates…)

There are three phases of unemployment, okay let’s get to this later, first the kinds of unemployment. Now, don’t worry, haven’t been a management student, so I don’t know if I am “right”, but as I view it, unemployment can be forced or by choice. Forced is the one we all dread, and by choice, though as pleasant it may sound, is actually the one we SHOULD dread.

They kick you out, you lose your nerves, you hysterically search for a new job, you get a new job, maybe low paying but at least your working couple of months later. By choice is when that funny, mean, cranky mind of yours tells you, “Let’s take a break, my profession is recession proof, I’ll find a better job, let’s unwind”. Some couple of months later, the realization dawns… the break is too long, its actually a break (pun intended) … its aching now, recession proof is not necessarily competition proof, everyone is a “well qualified and a highly motivated individual” now); there are no better jobs, what you had was the best “better” you could have had; unwind is suffocating. But alas…. It’s late , the damage has been done, here I am, idle, bored and unable to fit into dresses I bought as a “treat to myself for turning a fresh page of my life, for a new start… Amen”.

Now, for the phases… ummm… forget it, I need to get back to the reruns of How I Met Your Mother…