Written By Anvita Srivastava (Grade 11)
A picture says a thousand words. Maybe that’s how it was, as she looked at the girl in the photo. Adorned in a black minidress, perfectly hugging her body, the girl had a small but pretty smile. Her hair was left loose, shoulder-length black tresses covering her collarbones. Still at the tender age of about sixteen-seventeen maybe, she had no such makeup on her face. Her shoes were those black dainty ones with a little bow on the top. The lighting was the shade of golden yellow, and the hundreds of liquor bottles in the background perfectly reflected them off from their expensive labels. You could almost see the bartender of this extravagant place, clearly trying to be cut off from the frame. She looks happy; perhaps a great night is ahead to come. With all that short dress, hoop earrings, and lavish liquor bottles that were only for display, you’d think that this was the night to be recorded and played on her wedding day, for she would laugh coyly, cover her face, and say, “Oh, I was just so wasted that night.”.
A picture says a thousand words. She’s yet again clad in the same black dress, her hair updo this time. Small, wavy strands fell behind her ears, pecked with shiny pearls. No liquor bottles crowd her background in this one, but instead a red carpet is at her feet—her feet in those same black bow shoes. Her hands are around the waist of a girl wearing a similar black dress. Except this girl had left her short hair down and had makeup done all the way from foundation to the glitter touch. Her shoes are also different—black, but the kind with those fancy straps that come all the way to your calves. They both smile at the camera, teeth showing in perfect synchronisation. It is daylight, with a graduation banner peeking from behind them. The podium stands to their right. Still in their late teens, you’d almost wonder, “How wonderful must’ve their graduation been? I bet she had one of the best nights ever.”
A picture says a thousand words. She’s wearing a skirt this time. The upper part of the dress looks the same, with the frilly puffed short sleeves and boat neckline. Although the bottom half is a grey formal skirt, hugging her curves almost too perfectly. Her hair is longer and left down, and she looks at the camera with a small, demure smile. With two ID cards around her neck and her background surrounded by green leaves, white walls, and tables on the sides, you’d know she was out for work purposes. She looks older in this one. Her shoes are still the same. She’s wearing hoops in this one, and the way she looks so beautiful, so down to earth, yet confident and collected, you’d know she was probably the best speaker out there, making her case for whatever she had to.
A picture says a thousand words. And I think to myself, is it the picture—or the way you see things that say a thousand words? Sure, the girl may be clad in the same black dress with the same heels and the same smile in the three different pictures. But are those three thousand words even about the girl, or, for that matter, what might have happened that evening? Looking at a picture, we often think we can read everyone’s lives. A thousand words: ‘Isn’t that enough?’ we ask. The clothes, the shoes, the background, the look on the face. But it is not the person, or rather the person’s life, we are reading, but instead a translucent reflection of who we are, what we think about certain situations, certain ideas. We don’t look at her black dress, her black shoes, her hair, the surroundings, or, for that matter, even the smile on her face to see what she was going through that evening. We look at what we might’ve done if we were in her position with the same clothes, same shoes, and same opportunities.
She looks back at those three pictures of hers and smiles to herself. Oh, that evening with the photo in front of those liquor bottles for display! How she’d made an excuse to use the washroom right as they were about to leave and begged her friend to take that photo, quickly removing her coat and stockings from underneath. She’d hoped the picture would say nothing about how she didn’t like the way the bartender looked at her legs or the fact that she was merely trying to fool herself into a lifestyle she wasn’t meant for. Either way, the rush of it all had given her the high. She laughed, remembering how excited she was to walk on that red carpet—as if she were at the Met. Balancing her weight on one leg and tilting ever so slightly so she would get that right angle for the slim waist, she had nailed that photo. She remembered anchoring and singing for her seniors’ graduation. How the lights had beaded the stage as dusk approached, and how she walked back to the washroom, limping. She had switched the bow flats for painful heels, and the principal had made her wear white stockings underneath. And finally, as she looked at the last picture, she shook her head. She had indeed been to a formal event, pitching advertisements for a competition. Although, at the time she recalled feeling like she was nothing more than a side character in the auditorium cramped with more than a thousand students. Now as she looks at the picture, so young, so lovely, wondering if she’d ever look as beautiful as that girl, she feels silly about how she thought that day that she was not even half as good as the rest of the thousand students out there. A thousand words perhaps—for how much prettier, smarter, and better than her she thought they were.
A picture doesn’t speak a thousand words about the image, no. It speaks a thousand words about what you might’ve done and what you might’ve felt if you were standing right there—in that place. It’s not a collective set of observations or information about the picture itself, but instead a reflection of what you deep inside wish to happen. A reflection of who you deep inside wish to be.
Featured Image Courtesy – English Plus Podcast
