Cameras are uncomplicated, eh? Have you tried handling your computer? Huh? HUH?!?!?

This is exactly why I hate technology. I go off on a wonderful holiday with a new camera (a professional Canon DS21251, might I add), wanting to finally educate myself about photography a little. But along comes my mesmerized father who wants to push every single shiny button on the camera - not that I blame him for that, I did all the fiddling I had to on the train to Delhi and then accused him of slowing down the shutter speed to five seconds. And then, he insisted on photographing every single cottage on every single mountain road, leaving me to kick random pebbles and start a minor landslide. I hate it when elders behave like children. All the sanctity goes out of childhood.

If I had a normal, boring, black camera, I’d click a picture, maybe click again for safety, then resign myself to fate until the film developed. If the picture came out bad, I’d say “Oh, well” and face the world with a smile. But with a digital camera you can take the perfect picture, so you have to – it’s like a compulsive action to click, check the photo, delete it, aim two inches to the left, click, check, delete, aim two inches to the right, click, check, delete, and so on till you realise you missed watching the sunset you set out to drink in, all because of a metal box with fancy knobs.

I did take my share of pictures, though. I’d realized long ago that you have to lose every degree of your self-respect and sanity if you’re behind a camera lens, but this trip made me reconsider every bit of the intelligence I thought I possessed. I chased butterflies till they alighted on a leaf and clicked for all I was worth – and realized the camera was still in black-and-white mode. But then I went up to the prettiest Himachali girls I’d ever seen in my life and asked if I could take a picture of them. I got away with it, getting only an uncertain smile. Had a boy my age tried it, he’d have been assailed by shrieks and a heavy branch in his face. I made little kids roll about on a meadow. I photographed white flowers and yellow flowers and orange flowers, and felt like I’d revolutionized the world. I lost my footing, fell into piles of dried horsedung, and still felt powerful. I could Click. I could Capture. I was invincible. I suppose technology does have its merits. Sometimes.

Back to the present. I get back home, and plan a nice blog entry about the holiday. I try to upload the pictures onto the computer (including the mathematically calculated sunsets) and discover that the USB thing is faulty – so faulty that it makes my computer restart and shut down seven times in a row without me touching a single key. I whimper at the strange sounds my computer’s making, then try again. This time, my computer shuts down and stays that way for two days.

Sometimes, technology is a pain in the wrong place. I miss my old camera, and I miss my old non-blogging days. At least I didn’t feel this overwhelming desire to share the darn sunsets with the entire universe.

I think I shall revert to painting.