Portrait

We had our family portrait taken at JC Penny’s last Saturday, which is fast turning into an Americanesque ritual every year, and even more so after Sidharth’s birth. Despite the cold and wet conditions outside we put on our ostentatious Indian ethnic best to pose for the camera. Sidharth has a beautiful purple ‘Sherwani suit’, bought for his first birthday, which we are afraid he might outgrow very soon. So before we loose the opportunity to exact every measly cent of the handsomely tailored and decadently priced Sherwani, we decided to get its existence documented in the form of a portrait.

JC Penny’s is OK, but not as good a Babies R US, where they have different backgrounds and the studio is spacious and well-light. At Penny’s the studio’s were dingy and dark and we felt cramped. But not Sidharth, who was at his merry best. It truly amazes me how much mirth and laughter you can exact from a child with a fuzzy stuffed animal contorted around him. The photographer would mount the teddy on her head and Sidharth would bellow uproariously like he’s witnessing the best comedy on the face of this earth. Not once or twice or thrice but many times over. Simply amazing. And the photographer happily clicked away.

We also has a family portrait done where me and Seemz were asked to pose in various mercurial embraces, and for a minute I was wondering if the photographer had misunderstood the nature of the portraits we desired. But it all ended well and we should be getting our portraits on 23^rd April, which will adorn some corner of our house to incessantly remind us in the days to come of “the way we were”. Whenever apt, I could be admonished by the lady of the house by judiciously pointing at the portrait “Look you need to lose some weight. See how you were then and look how you are now?”. I’m just not that crazy about family portraits.