Staring at the brutal honesty of AI 171 selfies

Economic Times

a day ago

Agencies The much-derided selfie - the self-photograph - is the signature of our times. The derision is, of course, self-righteous, a flimsy insurance against charges of vanity, self-obsession, and banality. And yet, it is, arguably, the most potent marker of individualism in human history. Not only is the subject of the portrait oneself, but so is the portrait-taker, a closed circle that was once only available to artists creating self-portraits, and people with cameras in front of mirrors.
But within the now-perfectly acceptable (but ritualistically frowned-upon) act of selfie-aggrandisement, there is a sub-genre: of taking selfies before a journey. Among the many heart-sinking reports on those who perished on Thursday's cursed Air India AI 171, the most tragic 'stories' are the selfies taken by passengers before the flight took off.
These pictures have entered the public domain of collective grief only because they had been sent off to loved ones who were at the place from where the selfie-taker was departing (Ahmedabad, or other places in India), or to the flight's never-reached destination (London, or other places in Britain). These are pure, non-intervened, non-media(ted) photos, most of them brimming with excited anticipation, of looking forward to the latest leg in yet page of the calendar. There's one selfie that a woman is taking - and a selfie forever-freezes the act of taking the photograph - where she seems extremely chuffed, smiling under her face-mask, to 'catch' a VIP, former Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani, who's a row behind her in business class fiddling with his phone before take-off. Rupani is, as with most subjects 'caught' (deliberately, or as collateral) in the background of someone else's selfie, unaware of the lady taking a snap. In the same image, another man, sitting at the back with his face mask pulled down to speak on the phone, seems to be aware of the sly potshot being taken. The frame holds that furtive moment, a childish glee of an adult - 'Look who's on the plane with me!' - which is utterly impervious to what we know will follow, soon. The selfie, by being ridiculously honest, with no sense of propriety for future tragedy, becomes a rectangular memorial of life - of three lives - for us to simply stare at, as if there are clues of what is to come embedded in it. There is another selfie 'doing the rounds' - the idiom perfectly capturing the powerful banality of shared sorrow - this time of a family posing and looking into the cam held by an invisible outstretched arm. By now, many of us know the context of this photo of a young couple scrunching themselves to be inside the frame, with their three young children smiling from across the aisle. Dr Pratik Joshi and his wife Dr Komi Vyas can barely contain their excitement of restarting life in London.
Along with the palpable excitement of the five, the ordinariness of the setting is breathtaking. The screen in front of the adults bear the message in Hindi and English: 'Viman pe apka swagat hain' and 'Welcome Onboard'. The unshaved stubble on Pratik's face. The sharp incisive incisors-flashing smile on Komi's face. And the children - the eldest girl smiling to show how mature she is compared to her two bashful twin brothers. This selfie, of a young family screaming, 'WE'RE OFF!', must have been sent to the couple's parents and friends, Even the open tray in front of one of the boys seems to be caught in this personal zeitgeist.
There are other selfies from passengers and crew of AI 171. Each one tells a story with much more brutal detail than any news story, or image of the wreck can ever communicate. Ironically, selfies memorialise us - even with pouted lips, tongue out, flashing V sign and finally selecting 'the right pose' - with the least artifice. And these 'AI 171 selfies', of individuals with zero hindsight, tell us, individuals with the luxury of still living, what Shelley made Ozymandias say, 'Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!/ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/ Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare/ The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
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