Journey to a smile

"Smile!"

"You too, Prashanth!"

"But I am smiling."

"You've gotta be kidding me!"

This was the scene at Beijing when I was taking some farewell pics... see, I'd made some friends at the World Mind Sports and it was highly probable that I would never meet them again (probability is still the same). The thing is, I'm notoriously bad at posing for photos. Above mentioned friend commented on above mentioned photograph on facebook, "You don't know how to smile. Period."

It's not that I don't know how to smile. I just don't know how to smile on demand. I laugh and smile very well. But, you see, that's only when I am actually laughing or smiling at something. If I'm told to smile for a photograph it inevitably comes out like a half-smile... or a half-smirk as somebody once put it. Anyway, I count those ten minutes of smile lessons at beijing as an investment that paid off later.

Later being this week. My bachelor days being numbered, I was ordered to get some photos taken at the studio for distribution to the owners of matching horrorscopes. And that brought me back to my old arch-nemesis: a camera lens pointed at me. The cameraman actually had to plead with me to smile. "An open-mouthed smile! An open-mouthed smile!" he begged, when all I could muster after five minutes of entreaty was a widening of my lips.

I was reminded of that scene in Harry Potter when he has to get summon a Patronus by thinking happy thoughts. Well, here I was faced with my own Boggart and fresh out of inspiration to smile. So I filled my thoughts with how ridiculous I thought this exercise was... you know... the whole arranged marriage process... and broke out in laughter. The cameraman didn't lose the serendipitous moment and clicked away, leaving a photograph that my brother proudly described as my best one ever.

It's been a long journey to find my smile. And even though I found it for the strangest of reasons and in the strangest of ways, I'm still glad I found it. I hope it sticks.

Cheers,
Prashanth.