Patel Snaps

My parents have been pestering me for photos for a while now. I have somehow managed to steer clear of that question for a long time. I guess one can do that only for so long. They constantly intimidated that they will use the picture they had, which I had know idea where they got from. When inquired, I learnt that it was the passport photo that I had taken for my visa interview a couple of years ago. "Grrrr...". I finally had to succumb to the pressure when my siblings joined the bandwagon.

I sat down to surf through my four year digital archive trying to recall all the places I had gone to and all the solo pictures I had my friends and family take of me. As I looked through the pictures, the fond memories of the trips I had with my family and friends kept me from focusing on my job at hand. All those fun multiple trips to Grand Canyon, Sea World and the Bay Area, those quick weekend visits to the theme park, National Parks and ski resorts and the best of them all, the trips to home. I realized my passion to travel and kept drifting away from the assignment. After all the memories breezed past, I realized that I had involuntarily (or so I like to believe) picked up a dozen or so “Patel snaps”. I wondered why the name?

Impulsively, I googled the phrase and found that the entry was “proposed for a speedy deletion” from Wikipedia due to copyright infringements!!! "hmmmm…". Before I started to digress further, with quick “desi” instincts, started searching for sites that provided “free prints”. Like any resourceful “desi”, I recalled one of the sites that printed and shipped the first twenty prints for free and so signed up for a new account (though I already had an account with them and misused up the offer earlier). Then again, as any computer savvy “desi”, I decided to “fix” some pictures using Picasa2 before I uploaded and printed them.

Some pictures needed more lighting, some needed more contrast and some even needed “paintbrush” skills. It was at that moment that a thought struck to me. “Poor girl, whoever she is, has to deal with me”. Amazing how people tend to believe in what they see on paper. I was a bit worried that it could happen to me as well with people like me let loose. After a quick dose of reality, I got back to paintbrush and erased the blemishes. After I was thoroughly satisfied with the final version of the “Patel snaps”, I uploaded the pictures and ordered the prints. Now, it was time to wait.

After four days, I received my 4”x6” matte finish prints. I started going through it and realized that I was wearing sunglasses in more than half of them (at least four or five different types in three years – man it feels like I buy more sunglasses than anyone in this world) . What if they think I was blind or even worse if they thought I had eyes like a “bush baby”? Then I thought to myself – “who cares… it's just like my blog postings, who cares...”