my first camera

i have always observed, people are sometimes emotionally attached towards things; those things might range from a refrigerator to a bicycle to a radio and so on. and the best part about this attachment is that even after a decade if you ask them about those things, they will be able to relate you with exact date, time, punctuations, commas, and question marks, the whole story of the purchase.

recently i bought a new camera, a NIKON D50, and i am really excited about it. this is the second camera i own. but i admit, i am emotionally attached to my first one, the KODAK KB12.

i was scheduled to travel to KANPUR, UTTAR PRADESH, for a couple of weeks during winter of 2001 on an implementation rollout in one of the GODREJ factories at UNNAO, a place 40 odd kilometers from kanpur. i remember i was the one who was chosen to be extradited to KANPUR, as nobody in our team was ready to go to this remote place. i never had any issues in going to anyplace in india, but then i had heard a lot of things about the remoteness of this place, which made me a bit concerned. anyways the ordain was already out against me, and i had to go.

after two weeks of stay i was supposed to travel back to KHANNA, PUNJAB, which was our temporary base for this project. i always grab the opportunity to see nearby places, especially historic, whenever time permits in a project. this time, even if the government of india would have proposed a free royal tour on an elephant back, to see historic places nearby, i too would have royally said “NO”. those were the toughest two weeks i had ever spent in my career, and i was eager to go back without any more adventures. the daily adventure was more than satisfying - from hotel to GHANTAGHAR in a cycle rickshaw (sometimes i felt guilty, seeing the lean guy pull the rickshaw. some more time in kanpur and i think i would have asked the guy to sit at the back and i would have pulled him till the place i wanted to go, and would have paid him too!!), approx 2 km, from ghantaghar to UNNAO PHATAK in a state transport bus (before commissioning for people transport these buses might have been used for transporting animals for sure), approx 35 km, from unnao phatak to DAHI CHOWKI in an auto rickshaw (theoretical capacity of the vehicle was 7 persons, practically more than 20 people would be in it), approx 7 km, from dahi chowki to the factory by walk (inhaling the fragrance of the dead animals from the leather factories around), approx 1 km, plus no lunch during the day (as there were no hotels as far as 5 km from the factory).

no adventure? there was lot of arguments between my heart and my brain, outcome - my heart won 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, in straight sets. amazing! we three(my heart, my brain and me) made a plot. the day i was supposed to travel back to khanna from kanpur was a SATURDAY. why not break the journey? we thought. lets travel to AGRA on SATURDAY, see the TAJ and if possible FATEHPUR SIKRI on SUNDAY, catch a train on SUNDAY night for khanna and be in office on MONDAY morning. now the practical problems as we saw were the train timings and the saturday night stay. i did some findings on the internet and fortunately everything was perfect. fortune favors the brave, you see. i could proceed with the plan. i woke up early on saturday, went to kanpur railway station, and booked the tickets. i jumped in a cycle rickshaw hurriedly to reach the hotel, i still had to pack up my things. the train to agra was in the afternoon. alas! suddenly i realized i did not have a CAMERA!! how was i going to capture the memories of the WONDER of this WORLD?

for the two weeks, i had saved on lunch (without any intentions), sometimes dinner (too late to get back to hotel, everything closed, even the hotel kitchen), i had also saved by buying a second class train ticket to agra instead of an air-conditioned one. it came to around 800 rupees, 299 rupees from here and there, and i bought a brand new KODAK KB12 for 1099 rupees at a KODAK shop on MALL ROAD, KANPUR. this amount may seem less today, but it was too huge for me that time.

as planned i did visit TAJ, AGRA FORT and FATEHPUR SIKRI and still enjoy seeing those pictures captured by my first camera. since then i have traveled almost half of india and few other countries, capturing memories.

i realize now the reason for such emotional attachments.