"Face on the Wall"

I can now now accept that unflattering younger version of myself.

‘If I stop paying attention to it, it would stop bothering me.’

I thought it would work. It wasn’t that easy.

The good thing is that you don’t see it when you’re entering the room. If you stand at the door to look inside, you wouldn’t see it. You’d notice it only if you’re inside the room or you’re about to leave it.

That’s when you’d face it. Once you do, you would stop to take a closer look. The face on the wall!

I am talking about the photo wall with three laminated photographs from the time I got married.

In the first, Aniruddha and I are sitting, waiting to be married. We both look calm, happy and eager. I am smiling more than I should. Perhaps because I knew I was being photographed. I had made a mental note that I had to smile my best. I had to get the wedding pictures right. Next to it is the one from our reception. With our marriage, the Samantas had gone from being a family of 4 to becoming a family of 5. In that picture we stand in a pattern to show our new unit. This was taken before the guests arrived. At another wall in the room is a blow-up from my sister-in-law’s marriage, 3.5 years later. By then we had gone from being a family of 5, to 7.

Back to the wall with our wedding pictures, is the third. 

One that I hate(d). That everyone love(d).

I am in the middle of a blink. My eyes are half closed. I have half-a-smile. I think I was in the middle of a smile too. I was caught a moment just before I could fully open my eyes or smile well enough. My hair is all over the place. I remember fastening it in place with clips. Clearly they weren’t doing enough.

This was the morning I came into my married home. There was a little ceremony before the new family and everyone had got into a frame to remember that moment. A few minutes earlier, Aniruddha had carried me into the house. Not in the romantic way, you see in the movies. Instead it was in the most ceremonial way one could manage to keep pace with a ritual. Of course, it was enough to keep us all laughing. There were a few games to get us acquainted as a new couple. We played along, to entertain everyone.

One day, almost 5 years after I got married, my marriage pictures came up on that wall. The wall that was inside the room of ‘our’ bedroom in my in-laws home. This wasn’t the house I got married into. I had fond memories of one in Kadma. It had the room where this picture was taken. In this new house that I would visit a few weeks every year, this room, this home was hardly my own. My in-laws had planned the photographs as a surprise. Their way of welcoming us into the new home,  and our new room. Aniruddha didn’t seem to mind. My toddler looked at my disheveled look and crooned, “You look pretty Mumma!”

I was shocked! Why this photograph? Noooo!!! This was totally wrong! I wasn’t pretty at all! I looked wrecked! This was not a flattering picture! I imagined visitors coming home and my mother in law showing them our room and our wedding pictures. After all that’s the only way you can make ‘room’ for your children when they have moved out of it. I understood their emotions, but I failed to understand that lamination!! There was so many more that could be on that wall. 

I looked tired, exhausted and most importantly, I remember how I felt. Overwhelmed!

Being a new bride was tough. That smile was barely real.

I was sitting on the backrest of the sofa. In my wedding saree, complete with new jewellery that my mother-in-law had entrusted me with. Days before the wedding, I had discovered my distaste for jewellery. Particularly the kinds that make a young bride the cynosure of a wedding. My mother, aunts and grandmothers had tried to warn me that people may ask who gave what…I must hold my nerve and answer politely. Every nerve of my body wanted to rebel at this idea of marriage. I was marrying the love of my life. I chose to play along.

That morning, as I entered the new home, I entered with what I was wearing. I now had to wear the new jewellery that would inherit in the new family. There was the large P.C. Chandra necklace, the one I was given the day I got married. Aniruddha had made matching earrings with it. You can see a pearl necklace. It was the second in my trousseau. My mother had given me hers and now my mum-in-law too. There is the chokher around my neck. The velvet was fraying in parts. You could tell it was old too.The large earrings (which I think were lent for the day, I don’t remember now). Then the centrepiece of the ceremony, the ritual, the photograph, the tiara on my forehead. Before the loving eyes of the extended family, my mother-in-law had ceremoniously pinned the tiara on my forehead.

“Thamma (A’s grandmother & her mother-in-law) gave it to me when I came home as a bride. I now give it to you. Welcome home,” she said, pouring her affection, admiration and attention into that moment. We locked eyes and I knew she meant every word of it. Everyone cheered and clapped around us.

Then we took the photograph.

I sat at the edge of the sofa so we could fit everyone else in the frame. Aniruddha was not next to me. Or maybe he was. Around us, were his family of aunts, uncles and cousins who had travelled to join the family wedding. This was our very first big happy family photograph.

“Why did they crop and prop me up?” I wondered looking at the lamination on the wall. “I wouldn’t mind if the entire photograph was laminated. That way there was a lot to see other than me!”

I didn’t like it. I protested heavily. I fretted. I complained. I was hurt. I wanted to take it down. Could I even dare to? My in-laws assured me that I looked soooo pretty. Thankfully my mum didn’t agree. “Oh no!” she said quietly looking at it. I looked towards Aniruddha for help. He stood before it. Looked at it. Shrugged and turned to look at me, “Why is it bothering you so much?”

I like to tell myself that I am not a victim of vanity. So why is that photograph bothering me? Maybe I am…

That’s when I pivoted my thoughts. I chose to ignore it. And so this (unflattering) lamination lived in our bedroom, unlike the many other (flattering) photographs in our wedding album.

I have never worn that tiara after my wedding reception. For 15 years it has lived in a safe box in Jamshedpur. My goynaar baaksho (Bengali: jewellery box) is my private possession. A few tidbits have come out for family weddings. Most of the bigger, shinier, louder than life items like the tiara have lived in darkness for a long time. Earlier this year, I took Aniruddha and Vihaan to the locker with me for the first time. When I showed V the tiara his eyes gleamed. He took it in his hands and said, “Wow!”

“Your partner would get this from me. Just as I did from Thammi (his grandmother),” I offered. He was thrilled. He was instantly drawn to its unknown history.

“How old is it? How long have we had it in the family?” he asked, his mind quickly doing a math to imagine his great grandmother as a 16 year old bride.

Who would know? His grandmother? Maybe grandpa? Or his elder sisters? Women tend to remember stories around family heirlooms anyway. I wanted to help him go back to the roots of that tiara.

Suddenly, in that fraction of a second, even as we were standing inside the bank locker room, my thoughts pivoted again. I had lost my father a week earlier. The idea of Story Heirlooms was taking roots in my heart.

For the first time in many years, I looked at that lamination in our bedroom through a prism. I could see the moment the photograph was taken. I could see everything that was happening around me. I chose to look at the other faces in the room. The parents, aunts and cousins in the room. Aniruddha’s face and how happy he looked. Isn’t that all matters? I came back to the present, to see Vihaan excited to find a family heirloom. Something that belonged to his grandmother, then me and then his partner. Now that’s something to hold on to!

I looked at myself. The pretty-young-tired-overwhelmed bride in the past. Then the present body positive-aware-confident-accepting version of myself. I love my wrinkles, curves and greys in the present. I can forgive my half-opened eyes. My incomplete smile caught midway. I can now now accept that unflattering younger version of myself.

Most importantly, I can accept how upset I have been with that harmless lamination on the wall. Somethings need to be where they are so you can grow around them. 

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[This post was written during the Ochre Sky Workshop with Natasha Badhwar and Raju Tai]

Our prompt was I didn’t pay attention to it but I didn’t let go of it either.