Kiddy Pics...

they are everywhere on orkut.people seem to think puttin up innocuous old photographs in which you cant really be recognized as anything more than a pre-pubescent knicker-bocker, can attract/repel strangers from their profile. it doesnt do either.

i also realized while i was goin thru my friends' profile - the ones who had their kiddy pics, and my own kiddy pics - that, however pretty and promising we may seem to be when we were young, our bones and fat in adulthood turn us into pretty hideous creations of god.after all Homo sapiens is the only species on the planet without any interesting physical attributes. no long necks, no exotic spots, no rhythmic muscles...just a block of flesh with loads of ossified columns holding it up...n a 3 pound electrical box on top, that currently seems to be turning into a vestigeal organ.

to make things more clear i'll talk abt a type specimen...myself.when i glanced thru my kiddy pics from two decades ago i saw this really cutesy-tootsie little angel with a button nose n shiny big eyes. it seems i went thru a series of somatic mutations as i grew up - the button nose turned into a huge samosa, the big eyes became tinier than Mao's...n overall after 16, my diameter started increasing rather than my length. now dont read this as self-mollification - i knw many of my frnds who have gone thru worser n more amazingly miraculous transitions.its a surprise we dont all look like vogons...(if u wanna knw who they are, please refer to hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy n dont bug me with stupid questions!!).

some of us tho turned out better than expected...

n yet...we like lookin at those worn out photographs...yellowing a little becoz of age...torn at the edges perhaps becoz of excess handling...not becoz we like self-mollification...rather becoz welll we like travellin time...go back to the days when the afternuns were sunny n full of daring escapades in abandoned buildings or factories - not sitting arnd air-conditioned cubicles staring at some damn cold-hearted computer screen which gives u a blinding headache and an addiction for caffeine...when the autumn air still smelled of the essence from the durga puja pandals - not carbon filled exhaust from the fuel pipes of expensive cars dashing past u on a crowded street....when shahrukh still waved away his sweetheart at the doorstep wearing a sexy red n white striped pullover....not jump arnd girls half his age wearing tight spandex trying to look hot...

we all get over it...eventually...those awkward days....

yet every now then it does feel nice to taste an ice-cream in the rain...or intentionally put chalk-dust on ur proffessor's chair....we were all rebels back then...with blood full of sun's energy....

we still are....if we are brave enough to acknowledge it.