This was way back when I was in school, standard 8th I guess. It was a Saturday, a holiday, some time in June when amazingly, instead of it being scorchingly hot, the sky was overcast and weather was pretty good. This was the day Mum had chosen to make mango pickle. So, after all the heavy breakfast et al, she set out on the chore. There were loads and loads of raw mangoes that she had sliced and we were now in the process of mixing up the masalas for the pickle. Well, I should correct this, it wasn't we really, it was her with us on with our non-stop twitter about what happened in school, how our friends did this and that and blah blah. The solemn picture of patience, she would keep nodding and 'hmmm'ing to all that we said while we would go on with our incessant chatter. While on with this we were somehow reminded of about 5-6 pictures remaining in the reel of our Yashica camera (yes yes we had real cameras in my childhood, not digital ones and you only got 36 pictures in a reel so you would have to be very careful about what you clicked, unlike now, when people click pictures of just having tea everyday)
I had this idea of clicking 'natural' pictures which I was strictly warned against by Mum with her Papa-will-not-like-this-at-all speech. Nonetheless, I went ahead and got the camera and started clicking pictures much to her annoyance coz she felt she was too shabby to be clicked (again, bear in mind that my mum comes from an era where clicking pictures was a very formal affair). Anyway, the pictures started, Mini was a sweetheart and started posing immediately, holding a slice of the raw mango in her hand and pretending to eat it. After some time, the child in my Mum came to and she too decided to play along. It was at this time that I managed to catch Mummy right when she chewed into a big slice of the mango. It must have been real sour coz her grimace lasted for more than a minute, plenty of time for me to click a picture of hers. Her expression was unmatchable. In fact, that picture remains to be the cutest picture of hers that I ever clicked. But anyway, she drove me around the house for having taken the picture, coz unlike now, if something goes on film, it stays on forever and she wanted to have a 'good' picture clicked. By now, we were on the very last picture of the reel so Mum said she would click me. I don't exactly know what happened but just as soon as I handed the camera to her, it got 'clicked' accidentally and we had a big hearty laugh about the whole thing.
Later, when the photos came out, it turned out that it was not Mum's picture, but mine that was the funniest of the lot. Coz while hers was just a cute lady chewing on a super khatta mango, mine was that of a villager caught unawares in the city wala expression. So much for 'natural' photography. :)
