This is not me

My son came to me yesterday, asking  for a passport-size photo of his, for his class soft-board.

I took out the pouch, where all our passport size photos are usually kept. I pulled out one and gave it to my son.

Out of idle curiosity, I browsed through the photos, and my face fell. Why do passport photos make me look so ugly?

In each one of those photos, I look consistently bad. The photos are taken too close for comfort and the caricatured features are so prominent.

In some photos, my face seems to have been enlarged and then shrunk into a frame, making it look like my face is spilling out of the photo’s borders.

Since you are not expected to smile for passport photos, and if your smile is your only redeeming feature, then you have a real problem.

From photo to photo, over the years, I seem to have stared into the cameras, blank and listless.

“Are these me?” I ask myself. I look so serious and lifeless. Looking at these photos, people would put me down as outright boring. But maybe this grave look is needed to prove one’s true identity when travelling.

Courtesy – http://www.shutterstock.com

I close the pouch with a gentle shudder. I am not those photos. I am not.

Do you feel the same way?