1, 2, 3, Slight Happiness...

I still remember going to Guru Kripa Studio in Udupi as a little kid to get my first passport sized photograph clicked. And unlike the scores of passport photos I use these days, this one was for a passport. It was an occasion at home - the two little boys were dressed in all their finery to make sure they looked good in their passports that would last them for ten years. All the excitement surrounding the photo reached its climax when I threw a tantrum - I wanted to wear my maroon Snoopy shirt for the photo, and Amma had pale blue stripes in mind. The latter would have looked stately, but the former had character. And even at the age of seven, I chose character over formality.

And so my old passport had this picture of a little boy in a maroon shirt with little Snoopys (Snoopies?) staring into the camera with his over-large eyes, his short spiky hair making his protruding ears even more prominent. Even with that shirt and hairstyle, there was something formal about the photograph, the solemn expression on a seven year old's face, fully aware that it will be captured for eternity and used by grown-ups for serious businesses. (Or it could just have been something I ate that afternoon.)

There is something about passport photos that makes people give their unnatural expressions - sometimes as if they're actually holding a slate with their names and crime numbers, sometimes as if they're apologetic about the way they look on that day, and often as if they've put their week's share of make-up for that photo.

I think it's the general weirdness of the whole clicking-a-picture routine that brings out the worst in people. Firstly, you know you're being photographed, and unless you're a model and are used to it, you tend to view the camera as this alien eye watching you, and you have this instinctive reaction to not show your true colours. Sometimes, you're trying too hard. Face it, whatever we do, we can only look as good as we are. Secondly, you know you're the only one in the photograph - that creates a feeling of insecurity because you know that there is nothing else in the photo to distract the viewer. Thirdly, this is something you'd rather not do, and unlike those pictures of you in college with hands covering your face, the point of this photo is to see your face clearly.

But that first one was the last serious passport photo I took for a while because we shifted loyalties to Studio Abhilasha in Manipal. The photographer was a stout, bald-headed man whose English wouldn't have seemed out of place at an English Spoking Class. His studio was a messy room partitioned by wooden panels into three - the main reception, the studio, and the third room to which he'd direct you with, "Please sir, fresh before photo." There was a little basin with Ponds Dreamflower Powder and Mysore Sandal Soap.

That line always made this ritual more fun - "fresh before photo". You were suddenly put at ease. All the nervous hair-adjusting, collar-straightening, shiftiness was abandoned. You were yourself again. When you sat on that little stool, he'd place the lights like Chaplin in one of his movies - choreographed humour! Always the same two things would fall down, and he'd trip on the same wire.

And then he'd say that trademark line that took away any little seriousness that we were saving for the photograph:

"1... 2... 3... Slight Happiness..." Wide Grin. Click!