Worth a picture?

Ever since I saw that photo of a monk holding a cell phone, one of the winners in Smithsonian Magazine’s photo contest a few years ago, and it was sometime after I’d been to Hong Kong because I had my own photograph of a cell-phone-holding monk, ever since then I have decided photos of cell-phone-as-anachronism are cliché. That didn’t stop me wishing I could photograph the girl sitting in front of me on the gelle. She had henna designs creeping up her arms in snakelike vines and the tips of her fingernails were painted a matching black. And it was one of these hands that was holding the cell phone, scrolling through songs, adjusting the ear buds, repeatedly calling someone who failed to answer, wrapping a scarf around her intricately braided hair to keep the dust off. It was more than “henna-ed hand holds mobile,” though. There was also the contrast of the girl and the run-down gelle. She was carefully groomed, had stuck large and delicate silver hoops through her ears. She accepted a shiny tube of pink lip gloss from a vendor outside and dropped it into her purse. There was a faded henna swirl of flowers on the back of her neck. But the gelle was rusty, dusty, chipped paint, bent seats, sweaty people, cracked windows.

Well, that was 21.8% of the picture at least. If a thousand words is worth a picture.