After Diwali my newsfeed on Facebook was filled with updated profile and cover photos! I’m not complaining - after all the occasion demands that you be well dressed and in good spirits, and, therefore, an ideal time for pictures. I went through the ritual of liking all the pictures, commenting only on a few, those of my close friends/relatives. There was one picture, however, that caught my attention; of a teenaged relative of mine. The picture was untouched by the advances in digital technology that caters to vanity, its only embellishment being it’s simplicity - there was a break-out here and a scar there. But the smile reached the eyes. The simplicity of the picture brought a smile to my face. I loved the picture instantly. As I was about to comment on the picture, I saw a line below the photo: ‘Dancing with the Daffodils’.
“Ah, she knows her Wordsworth, I thought”!
I instinctively began reciting the poem that I had learnt in school :
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
I expected some interesting comments and read on curiously. Of the twenty odd comments there was only one comment by another girl that caught on to the reference.
This made me wonder how little a picture tells us of the person - intact the most interesting aspects of a person simply gets relegated to the invisible background. Social media has altered the way we understand people and the way we acknowledge them, even, perhaps, causing us to base our own acceptance of ourselves on other’s perception of a two dimensional picture!
A picture is limited by its dimensions.
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