Mr.nair offered, �madam, here is the deal. Ravi is a good friend of mine and I can do him a favour. I shall take some professional pictures of you in some nice poses. You can present them as a surprise so at least he is not too disappointed and if he is happy, I guess you are happy too� I was listening to him involuntarily nodding to his suggestion �and I can make use of a couple of them nice pictures in the still left over empty space in my wall there� he pointed to the wall. �Let�s do this for free, you are happy, I am happy and above all Ravi is very happy, what do you say?� I was still nodding and staring at the wall he pointed to and they were all pictures of glamorous models in mostly semi naked suggestive poses. There were a few older but very nice looking faces too relatively fully dressed. �Your kind of face is the valuable addition missing from my collection at the wall madam. You don�t know how photogenic you are. Ravi might have told you. Anyways the modern photo industry in general and my photo studio in particular will be very proud to have you in the collection there madam� with that he did a mock bow. I smiled and was mesmerized by his speech. At that outset, it sounded like a wonderful deal which had one of those �and they lived happily ever after� endings. Any case, I liked the idea of giving some surprise to Ravi as my mind is not fully out of those pictures that I was seeing. �Come in madam� this way� mr.nair said loudly interrupting my thoughts again. I don�t remember agreeing to his proposal formally, but he was already leading me to the studio room. I looked back at the pictures of those models on the wall again, one last time. I was thinking to myself, �Should I have said a NO to all this??� while I headed for the open doors of the studio.
That was my first entry in his studio and it was nothing like the last time I had been there to take a passport picture. It was years before anyway. I was a bit overwhelmed at the enormity of the set and the infrastructure in general. �Since you agreed to pose as a picture model for our studio wall I suggest you take a complete photo shoot madam. Usually it is very expensive. I shall give you some pictures to surprise Ravi this evening and eventually in a week�s time shall make a whole album out of today�s shoot.�
I was just nodding. �Ok madam; please stand there in the centre.� With that he switched on the light. I nodded and walked thinking of my shabby dress and also acutely conscious of my lack of undergarments. The very thought of this made me bothersome, at the same time excited. So, I stopped and asked him, �Could this wait for an hour or so mr.nair? So I could go home freshen up and come back with something more appropriate and better looking for a photo shoot?� He nodded negatively saying, �Madam, you don�t understand. We will just take a few trial shots now, and then we will think of the costume. Remember, this is a professional studio and we shoot for a lot of models here regularly. �Leave the worrying part to me. We have decent changing rooms here and there is a make up table in the corner if you need to use it. I believe you don�t need it for the trial shots. any more questions? I have an important appointment in the afternoon.� I noticed the sudden change in the tone and him exuberating his professionalism and authoritativeness the minute he entered the studio room. I was too shy to bring up my underwear issue and I let it pass by. If he had noticed from behind that I wasn�t wearing a bra, he didn�t pay any special attention to it. As he switched on the lights, a dummy coconut tree trunk in a slanted shape at the middle of studio came to my view and there was matching beach scenery wallpaper at the wall behind. I suddenly remembered the picture of the girl in bikini on the wall posing in the same background. The picture of the model was stunningly realistic which made me think that it was taken really at the beach. The Plaster-of-Paris coconut tree trunk looked so real in the picture. �So, please lean on the tree and stretch your hands a bit madam�