The angle is all wrong -either the person is looking upward as if awaiting beatification by the Pope or looking downward with the ghastly under-the-eye bags highlighted for all to see . Sometimes it is a head tilt that makes one look like a person undergoing a bout of temporary insanity or it's a stilted smile so fake that it would make the air-kissing socialite cringe . When it is such an obvious conspiracy to make one look uglier than usual, one wonders why anyone would want to do it except in a moment of masochistic pleasure . I am indeed talking about the taking of a "Selfie"! Wherever I have traveled , I have always found that strangers not only oblige when asked to take a picture of you in front of a pillar or a market or whatever but sometimes kind souls who see you clicking camels, bazaars or wherever takes your fancy and do offer to take a picture of you standing in front of it. Returning the good deed that these unknown souls have done for me over time , I too have offered the same to giggling young ladies , lovey-dovey couples , geriatric lovebirds, extended families with innumerable cousins fitting into frames et al . Struggling to pan the Vatican with my camera I had this very tall gentleman watching my effort and smiling . I requested him for a picture with me in the foreground and so he took my camera and walked back a few steps. He obviously had a problem with adjusting the three factors ; his height, my diminutive self and the grandeur of the Vatican Square in the frame - so he went down on one knee to get the best shot . As he stood up after a couple of clicks I heard a voice behind me : That is the second time he has gone down on his knees to a woman. His extremely attractive wife stood arms akimbo laughing at the scene and it was then that he and I realised how it must have looked to her and the motley curious crowd that watched us mildly amused. "Groupies" are even worse because it looks like a gaggle of mindless geese sticking their neck into the camera , something more appropriate for the Discovery Channel programme on Funny Animals than a cherished moment of camaraderie of human beings !
I spent the weekend correcting answer sheets which left me squinting and cross -eyed as I tried to figure out the sentences as I was handicapped by illegible scrawls , outrageous spelling, hastily constructed grammatically-hacked sentences and absolute gibberish. Some students adopt the ploy of repetition to cover space , something that would read like : Jack is a boy in blue , therefore Jack wears blue because he is boy and so blue is the colour that Jack the boy wears as Jack is a boy who like blue and we can conclude that blue is a colour as Jack the boy wears it . Either the student have concluded that those who teach are idiots incapable of spotting the subterfuge (and sometimes they really are justified in thinking so ) or that those who correct papers are doing so while listening to head-banging heavy metal and therefore will not pay any attention whatsoever to the bilge they have spewed all over the paper. To me it provides hours of amusement and pain alternately . Even though Mr Wren and Mr Martin ( those who can remember- that was the Grammar Bible we used in school - the red cover still dances menacingly in my dreams when I mess up my Past Participle ). Even if Wren and Martin would be committing continuous harakiri , I see it as an opportunity afforded to learn new facts that do not exist anywhere but in the mind of the inventive student. To paraphrase Lord Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade suicidal mission I murmur to myself in self- destructive mode : Mine is not to reason why , mine is but to read and sigh !
When I was little my Father insisted on yoga in the morning which was basically taking deep measured controlled breaths while sitting cross legged on a mat followed by arm support on the back with the legs thrust towards the sky and the final heave to stand on the head , all the while under his watchful guidance so I wouldn't damage myself ; perhaps also to untwist me if I knot myself up in childish enthusiasm. It was a slow graceful and measured act and so I am quite amused when I hear acquaintances holding forth about all the innovations that have come in that seem to have twisted poor Yoga itself into new contortions. There is Hot Yoga in some kind of sauna atmosphere where you sweat it out ; and here I naively had thought Yoga was about cooling you down by reducing the metabolic rate with slow movements. Then someone told me about Face yoga - most of us am sure do that several times a day when we pout , grin, purse our lips , bite our tongue in anger , blow up our cheeks in frustration , (yes, you got the picture) and all this without paying someone by the hour to make faces. What scam will they think up next : perhaps Nose Yoga where you pull your nose and perhaps your neighbour's as well or rub them together as Eskimos are wont to do or simply ten ways to blow your nose . Maybe Finger Yoga where you stick the middle finger in the air while holding the other three bent with your thumb. Now that is one I would happily sign up for , heck I can even teach it for free ! Try it - it will give you the greatest satisfaction and in certain situations , done to the face of annoying colleagues and behind the back of your supercilious puffed-up barking boss ! Keep that up to relieve tension from the jaws and the pain in the neck (actually and figuratively) - it works amazingly!
More MindBlast next Monday !
No comments:
Post a Comment