Everybody smiles for the camera 2.0

I was going through my old posts the other day, and I found that my blog, like my life, has gone through phases. It began purely with content. I talked about my life, things around me, short stories I submitted as an exercise to Writing.com. Then, I went on to document more through photographs. I took pictures of myself, the crafty things I did and places I visited. Now, I find myself leaning towards a mixture of photographs and illustrations.

In June 2010, I wrote a post titled Everyone Smiles For The Camera. Here's what I wrote:

The other day was spent scanning old photographs with my brother. A task which sounds quite dull was actually a lot of fun. This was because it gave us a chance to look at ourselves when we were teeny little people, something we both hadn't seen in a very long time.

One of the albums was from my first birthday party. I completely agree with anyone who says that a child's first birthday is a chance/excuse for the adults to meet and celebrate(the child has no idea whats happening) And celebrate they did! Well, everyone except my mum, who had to carry me around all evening. And I was one fat little thing!

While going through the pictures, I noticed how happy everyone looked. People whom we had lost touch with, and now met occasionally in formal situations, were sitting and chatting like good chums. Some we saw had left us a long time back, and some have left us quite recently. I thought about how it was such a simple time, and seemed filled with joy. Being the sorts who thinks about something a lot, I kept thinking about it.

I wondered how happy everyone actually was? I mean, they would obviously be, celebrating the first anniversary of the birth of an extremely cute baby(hah!). But apart from that, there must have been a million things to worry about (like handling the extremely cute baby, and her elder sister and brother?) Resources were not very abundant, issues always ensued with people, simple times meant simple ways of doing things (which is sometimes synonymous to difficult). I'm sure those times wouldn't be completely 'filled with joy' as I thought earlier. Yet, at the end of the day, when the lens is pointed at us, no matter what is going on in our lives, and in our head; everyone smiles for the camera, right?

So, of course I decided to make a quick illustration. All the characters are fictitious. If you feel you resemble any of them, well, good for you!

And yes, past Priya, they do.