V for V

H (or B or D or M or P or any of the numerous names bestowed upon him by his few admirers and fewer thigh-grabbers) wonders why lovers are preoccupied with sunsets. It seems that every couple he knows love to be photographed with the setting sun in the background. It baffles and irritates him even more when the photo just has the sun – “What is the bloody point?” The scenario goes from merely puzzling to tragic, and the rage-meter climbs to apoplexy from indignation, when the culprits are laymen who are as competent with a Canon as they would be with a Beretta and commit that cardinal sin which singlehandedly fills more than half of the photographers’ hell, of using flash.

Discourses about the virtues of natural light notwithstanding, he is impressed with how beautiful V looks in photos, with the head slightly cocked to one side, a few stray strands hinting at how her hair would be all over the place if not tied down, an incredibly natural smile, enhanced tenfold by the freckled cheeks dimpled in full glory and the ease with which she hugs. She would look just as comfortable throwing her arms round a stone statue, one of the many which dot the background with the frozen smile and chicken legs. This is, as V would be quick to point out and H quicker, not remarkably far from the object she is hugging in actuality. If they do, I can always say that when you are with the Hannibal Lecter of hugging, the one and only possible author of the highly improbable book if it’s ever written – The Rise and Fall of Hugging as a Professional Sport, there’s nothing much you can do, except surrender. And surrender is never easy on the eyes.

V does not like being told she looks beautiful in photos. She explains, with all the usual lawyerly cocksurety fully in place, that photogenic is not a compliment and it is a euphemistic adjective for people who look ugly in person but look marginally less ugly in photos. As is the case mostly when she assumes this air of imparting wisdom to mortals, she is bullshitting. It does not matter how beautiful you are, or how revolting you look; when a moment is frozen, most people find it hard to look natural. And only very few can look as if they are born to look beautiful in that moment. But she knows it too, and she is pleased at the compliment. She is, though she tries very hard not to be, a nineteen year old girl, after all.

Still critically glancing through the photos, H remarks that V looks happy. Her happiness is not an assumption you can draw from her camera smile, a photographer’s dream, a perfected routine which she will pull off even if you shook her awake at 3 in the night. But it’s true that there is something more, a tangible happiness to some of the pictures, which is in spite of and not because of my efforts at a natural smile which ends up somewhere between the smirk of a serial killer and a Cheshire cat grin. I cannot be so presumptuous so as to conclude I had the most part to play in it. I am there or thereabouts, yes, but over the years, both Hampi and the rain have made more people happy than I have ever managed to.

The rains in particular had miraculously transformed her mood. The ominous dark clouds were hanging above us all afternoon and I was fervently hoping it wouldn’t come to anything. But rain it did, and heavily for half an hour. But a short stay under a tree which was of little help and a mad wet dash to the Lotus Mahal –the only roof within a mile of us – later, the preoccupied air of a spinster who enjoys the sights but is not really taken in by the wonder of it had been replaced by the wide-eyed joy of a kid who oohs and aahs at every little thing she saw. I will stay eternally grateful for that bit of help from the heavens in a sultry Hampi afternoon. That spot of rain also paved the way for the Great Mobile Chase of Hampi, which is a story in itself, but for another place and time.

I wish I had some pictures of V with the locals. It was an educational experience to see this girl run over people. I would try at first to look in charge of the proceedings, which was difficult as V was the one who whittled the local gold-diggers down to our prices in rapid Tamil and later, to recede to a bermuda-wearing wallflower still attempting to be faintly in charge, from a distance. This happened with each of the characters we encountered. Ravi, the auto driver who took us from Hospet to Hampi. Muthu, the next auto driver and Man Friday who took us around the ruins and uttered the immortal lines ‘But Saar is the maan in charge’ which earned him my respect, V’s ire and fifty extra bucks at the end of the day. The nameless waiter at Gopi’s who could reel off the names of all manner of foreign dishes before taking the order back to their very excellent cook who could apparently cook all of that with the same ease. The giggling girls who all crowded into Muthu’s auto with us at the end of their shift as guides in the Vittala temple , accepting Muthu’s chivalrous offer of a lift to Kamalapura with ‘Teri Meri Prem Kahani’ on repeat in the background. The random strangers she got to click our pictures for us- the cute American guy (in her words), the Korean chap, the bald foreigner, the guide of the very South Indian family who mildly disapproved of us, to name a few.

H winds up his run through the pics, but not his critical appraisal – ‘disgrace’, ‘flash’ and ‘angle’ occasionally peppering the conversation. He feels restless having to occupy the same universe as these photos taken of a very beautiful subject at a very beautiful place by a very bad photographer and goes to work, trying to rescue what he can , in Picasa. I retire to bed after a couple of Bacardi Lemon shots.

Sometime later in the night, a beep wakes me up. It’s a text from H – “You guys look SUPERAWESOME as a couple in some of the pics I’ve managed to salvage.”

That we do. In spite of me.