Author: Swati

Pictures are remarkably sticky in our brains, aren’t they? It could be the image of “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” “the Battle of Iwo Jima,” “Gandhi and the spinning wheel,” or even a super old class picture that you went to looking your best, only to close your eyes and bare your teeth at the unfortunately timed ‘Click.’

Picture superiority effect is a term that I heard only very recently. Simply put, it is a phenomenon in which pictures and images are more likely to be remembered than words. 

We are no strangers to that little nugget of information, though, are we? 

I distinctly remember and am immensely thankful for those one-page ‘infographics’ I learned a day before the exams only to purge myself of that information the following day on reams of paper.

I can likely provide a line-by-line account of scenes from a movie that I like. Written words, however, don’t come to my mind with such clarity and precision. 

I blame it on my tiny brain; there is only so much information it can store and effectively retrieve. If I give preferential treatment to reams and reams of high-rated IMDB movie content, it’s only fair that that’s the first reference it returns when I search for information.

Why this rant, however?

Well, a TV series, of course! 

I recently got hooked to Endeavour, a British TV series based on the famed Oxford detective, Endeavour Morse. Especially the latest rendition starring Shaun Evans as Morse and Roger Allam as Thursday. 

There is a lot to love about this Oxford dropout detective – his sharp brain, refined taste in classical music, meticulous work, and the heap of extremely complicated cases with which he flexes his IQ. 

I have been chided by my friends for obsessing over him. And you can see why.

I won’t ruin the show for you to do justice to it (if you ever decide to give it a go). There are so many of his one-liners and smiles that will floor you. 

The most recent one that did me for a momentary distraction ogling at ‘lunch atop a skyscraper’.

The scene is of a police station:

Colleague: A picture speaks a thousand words.

Morse (casually, walking away with his back to his colleague): Depends on the words.

Classic Morse!

Peepholes, in my mind, are one of the most underrated conveniences of the modern world. How it came about to be invented is another and no less fascinating story. 

From the quite rudimentary fisheye lens that allowed you to quickly peek at your visitor from your apartment’s main door to today’s sophisticated home security systems, which let you monitor the space from pretty much everywhere in the house, this technology has had quite the evolution.

It has quite a few names, from the unoriginal doorhole and doorviewer to the more exciting magic eye and spy hole. 

Although the origins of the installation of such a device are primarily rooted in security, it is fascinating to see now that it has begun to serve a purpose much more varied – including satiating socially awkward cheap thrill seekers.

I was totally uninitiated in this realm until one of my very close friends from school decades ago decided to give me a surprise visit. 

After the first few days spent catching up and fangirling, things quieted, and I noticed a unique pattern. 

The minute there was the slightest noise or commotion in the hall, my friend would run to the apartment door, ensuring she wasn’t making any noise, and then patiently wait for the noise maker to appear within the peephole range.

Once she identified the source, she would describe the person to me and ask me who they were. It was fun in the beginning, seeing her unbridled childish joy. “She has not changed much since then,” I thought to myself and kept entertaining her curious requests. 

Though, things started to change when she began describing people I could not identify.

After living there for so long, how is it that I barely even knew all my neighbors on the floor? 

Seven families were on the floor; I should have known them all. This friend of mine had only stayed there with me for a few days and already knew as much as I did. That says something, doesn’t it?

My friend and I were socially awkward at school, which might have been why we gravitated to each other’s company in the first place. 

While she had continued to burnish her curiosity and the childish zeal to live her life, I lost that curiosity somewhere along the way. 

The realization was unsettling. I introspected and realized it was not me and that Google and IMDb search engines were to blame!

After the clouds of introspection and my friend departed, I came to a very logical conclusion in the interest of self-preservation.

Peepholes suck!

Also, to love thy neighbor, I need to know them first.

The world is full of appreciation for smiles. Talk about literati, pop culture icons, your friendly neighborhood social media influencer, or even a noted political figure; people have much to say about smiles. 

But what you don’t see as ubiquitously are the challenges of mustering a natural smile. 

This is an ode to the folks that know what I mean.

1. Not everyone has a natural smile-friendly face. We must accept that only some are attuned to delivering on the requirement of a genuine smile. The right length, width, and circumference are not up everyone’s alley.
2. Not everyone has perfect teeth or the confidence to rock the haphazard teeth ‘devil may care’ smile. There is a unique emotion that courses through you when you are asked to smile for a picture, knowing full well that your front teeth are a picture from the aftermath of a scene of a road roller gone awry.
3. Not everyone was a good kid growing up. Aka, not everyone listened to their parents when they were told to not disturb their mouth’s ecosystem after they broke their milk teeth. For those few days, the intimate relationship between the tongue and the teeth has to be on hold. These kids decided to play the rebel and make sure vertical teeth growth was impossible (that’ll show my nagging mom, they thought!)
4. Not everyone brushed their teeth before going to sleep. It is no fun. You know it’s a must as an adult, but we all know that as kids, we live like there is no tomorrow.

For the longest time, I would just shy away from getting my pictures clicked, dreading the 1,2, 3, say cheese part. Some photographs were an absolute must, so I had no option but to conquer my fear, be the bigger person, and SMILE. 

Of course, that smile was toothless, tight-lipped, as distinctively ‘creepy’ and ‘cringeworthy’ as you can imagine. My eyes and lips would never be in synch, and I sometimes picture a psychiatrist analyzing me in one of my class photographs, going, ‘this kid might have grown up to be a psycho.’ 

I can’t say I find that image comforting.

And then there is Yoko Ono,

“Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning, and you’ll see a big difference in your life”.

Yoko Ono has yet to meet me, doesn’t she?

It was an uneventful weekend, and I was trying to shed calories by walking down the city streets after a tummy full of fried dumplings and sipping on the famed pearl milk tea (100% sugar, of course). 

Despite walking two miles to shake off the heaviness of the meal, I still felt packed – full in the tummy and full of guilt. Especially since this was supposed to be the 30th day of my 60-day weight loss challenge.

Why was it that I could never maintain consistency in my resolve to lose weight? It was not as if I was not exercising due diligence in finding suitable fitness training videos. 

Trust me, I spent hours curating the ‘right’ content.

Easily doable? Check.

Won’t interfere with my regular routine? Check.

No requirement to go to the gym? Check.

Spoon-feeding on the recommended clothes to buy for the routine? Check.

Everything is always lined up, ready to go, a day before the routine begins. It’s only on the day of or the day after that the routine starts to break. 

It could be oversleeping the day before, a stomach upset, an early morning meeting, loss of internet at the time of the workout (yes, that’s a thing!), or an impromptu meeting with a college friend who is only in town for the day. 

As you can see, given my long list of excuses, I am as far as one can be in creating and sticking to a fitness regimen. My multiple failures in maintaining a fitness routine, might I humbly say, do make me an authority on how not to lose weight.

Here are some of my personal favorites of what NOT to do to lose weight:

• Sleeping late the day before, especially if you plan to exercise in the morning.
• Strictly time-boxing your exercise regimen when you know you don’t have the discipline to go through with it.
• Overeating on the ‘exercise’ days, assuming the workout more than compensates for the gluttony.
• Pearl milk bubble tea four times a week is not a good idea.
• Watching exercise videos does not count as exercise.
• Not starting small when you don’t have a reliable history of a consistent exercise and nutrition regimen.
• Not complementing your routine with mindful nutrition.
• Taking this new addition to your ‘routine matinale’ lightly.

I consider this a journal entry, sans the ‘dear diary’ part, more than anything else. I would more likely smile in amusement looking at this decades later if not getting ready to write a 50-page document around my failures with a fitness regimen. All the while thinking about the famed diary entry by Flannery O’Connor:

“Today I have proved myself a glutton—for Scotch oatmeal cookies and erotic thought. There is nothing left to say of me.”

Let me paint a picture:

You are at a grocery store. It is well-stocked, and the groceries appear fresh. The store has enough people to make you feel confident about its appeal but not so many that you need Luke Skywalker-level navigation skills to avoid colliding with other shoppers. 

All in all, it’s a lucky day.

You pick out your groceries, including limes and lettuce, and you’re on your way, smiling to yourself, on the verge of setting your new personal record for the shortest shopping time ever.

Until you reach the billing counter.

There are six billing counters, each with a cashier manning them. They all seem to have an equal number of people in the queue. You pick your lucky number 4 and stand in the line to be served. 

So far, so good. 

A few minutes pass, and you start to get just a bit curious. You start counting your place in the queue, and it’s still six, the same as when you started. You mentally chide yourself for your impatience, take your cell phone out of your pocket, and bury yourself in your news feed.

You know you will have moved in the queue the next time you look up from your phone.

A few more minutes pass, but the news on your cellphone is boring. You have an impulse to count your position in the queue again, and it’s still six. Something’s going on.

You peek at the counter, and the lady out front seems to be bagging her groceries. There are a lot of them. You can’t help but peek into the carts of others ahead of you, and it doesn’t look good.

There is no one behind you in the queue. Now is an excellent time to switch to the other queue!

The one across from you looks like it’s moving fast, the carts are all lighter, and the cashier seems super-efficient.

This one’s going to be better for you.

Five minutes later, you’re still spot number six in the queue. The cashier at the other queue temporarily deserted his station to answer a call. The queue you were initially in is moving fast now, and the cashier seems to have had a fresh shot of Compound V. Dang! You’re tempted to switch back, but you listen to your good inner cop.

“Where’s your loyalty, buddy?”

Yes, you have a spine and will stick with your decision. You’ve spent too much time to desert your queue now. The sunk cost is too much to bear. Unsurprisingly, your original queue continues to serve the customers incredibly fast. You physically can’t bring yourself to move; you’re rooted to the spot. You never thought loss aversion bias was a real thing, did you?

Having buried your head in your device again, you notice an ad for an electronic appliance, a Morphy Richards electronic kettle. You don’t stay with it long because it triggers painful memories of a law.

Murphy’s at that.