We had a bicycle at home which the servant used to go to market

etc. and we (My brother and I) used to "borrow" this once in a while and take it

for a ride. (You know - cross-pedaling, not sitting on the seat!) Great fun, too.

Malleswaram 13th cross Margosa road down, right turn on East Park Road, up

11th cross full-pelt and back home. The one thing I remember about this bike

is that it had one of those original BROOKS saddle - you know, the long one -

I don't see them any more. 

I must have fallen a zillion times. My mother used to remark, I was always in

some bandage or the other - usually on my legs. 

We both got our own bikes once we finished SSLC. (Though he was elder to me

by two years, we were in the same class. He started schooling late, and I got

a "double promotion" from 3rd standard to 5th standard) I remember the trip to

RAJA CYCLE WORKS opposite Town Hall; dad wouldn't allow us to ride the bikes

home so they were "delivered" by the shop assistants. BSA bicycles. I was 

taller than my elder brother, so I had a 24" and my brother had a 22" bike.

Dad said "no" to dynamos, because he didn't want us to use the bike at night.

I was in heaven! If you buy me a JAGUAR sports or a PORSCHE now, I would not be

as happy as I was with the BSA, back in 1951.... didn't sleep that night. Would

take a look at the shiny new BSA once in a while to make sure all's well.

I used my BSA right till I completed the two years' "intermediate" in St.Joseph's

and then I joined the R.C. COLLEGE OF COMMERCE. With a group of 4 other

friends, I made a trip to MYSORE on my BSA - for Dasara of 1954 or 55.

After college, I joined the NAL (National Aeronautical Laboratory)  - 1960 - and 

I didn't fancy using the bike to office;it was kept at home in Malleswaram - finally 

Mom gifted it off to someone whobadly needed a bike to go to office. I really don't 

remember what happened to mybrother's bike... I used to commute by BTS #17 

(Shivajinagar bus) and get off atCanonment Rly.Station along with a bunch of 

my colleagues; NAL was in thatarea when it started). 

I got my first motorbike JAWA in the year 1965. 

I had saved all the photos* of my bicycle days, but lost them while moving from

Malleswaram to Vyalikaval and then to Rajajinagar and then to Basaveswaranagar

before I moved to B.R.HILLS.  :-(

Circa 1948. I was the proud owner of a KODAK Box Camera which used a 6-20 roll film.

I was all of 12 years old - it was not common for a boy my age to own and use a camera

those days!

My dad smoked PASSING SHOW cigarettes, and each packet contained a coupon

and the company offered various rewards against these coupons. I collected some

130 coupons and sent them along, to receive a KODAK box camera.

Dad used one of those more advanced KODAK Folding camera (with bellows which

folded up as a flat piece, and which offered 1/500th speed (Compur Rapid shutters

were the in-thing those days) and f:3.5 to f:11 aperture and all that jazz) and we

were not allowed to use it.

This box camera was cool. After the initial couple of rolls of film, the problem was how

to buy these film rolls costing 6 rupees 8 annas? (Until we turned Metric in 1957, a

Rupee was equal to 16 annas, and one anna was 12 paise!) Much persuation, recom-

mendation by Mom, my promising to study hard, etc. resulted in a sanctioning of one

roll film a month and none during exam time. There was no way I could buy that roll

with my pocket money of Rs.2 per week!

Photos of the two dogs at home; our cow, buffalow (we had these at home) the scenery

around home, photos of mom, my sister, her school friends, BTS bus passing in front of

home, you name it!

But the problem was getting the film developed and printed. That cost some 2 rupees

for developing and 8 annas per print; if I got all the 8 shots ok, then it would be 6

rupees again. So most of the time I used to just get the film developed and show

the negatives at home; when the elders liked some of the pics (like the ones of

themselves) they would offer to get them printed. Lakshmi Studio on Sampige Road

was my processor. Heh Heh!

And then, the 8 exposures weren't enough for me with so many subjects to shoot. So

I did some modifications on the camera. (This was about an year after aquiring the

camera). You see, the print size was 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 inches, so I masked half of the

picture area inside the camera with thick black paper, and then a thin white paper

showed me the upside-down image of a subject on the remaining half of the picture

area - which enabled me to paint the view-finder appropriately (with cutex nail polish

which my sister reluctantly provided) so that I could photograph exactly what I saw

in the clear half of the view finder. The size of the picture of course, was 2-1/4 x 1-5/8". 

The camera had two ground-glass view-finders one for a horizontal pic and the other

for a vertical. I painted only the vertical view finder in half, as this gave me the

horizontal picture of half the size of original, which I preferred over a vertical.

And then, advancing the film after each exposure was a bit of a problem because the

camera had one round-red window in the back which showed the number of the shot,

and this would show only 8 shots. So what I did, I got an exposed (waste) spool

with just the red paper with the numbers, and tried it out to see how much I need to

turn the film-advancing knob to take it exactly half way - this turned out to be just

one-and-a-half turns (three turns used to take it to the next number). So, with a

standard 6-20 roll, I got 16 exposures!

By this time, I was an expert of sorts. I tried some trick shots. Three images of my

sister (she was the most co-operative guinea-pig for all this experiments) in the same

frame. Image in the center looking at the camera, two other images looking at the center

image. All I needed was a black background to take this multiple-exposure shot! Then

I took another multiple-exposure pic with her wearing a different dress in each pose.

Another one was the photo of our dog (Jingo, a fox terrier) - two shots in one; one

sleeping, one standing! I took several such multi-exp photos which amazed my friends

and relatives to no end.

One day, my dad suggested why not develop and print the photos at home? That would

be a lot more economical. We had THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE at home (something like

the Encylopaedia Brittanica) and my brother and I spent a couple of days studying how

to process films at home. 

My brother was more of a moral support to me than physical help either in the darkroom

or out of it. He was more into smoking cigarettes (pinched from dad's packet) and such,

whereas I was the good boy, the NERD at home. I started smoking only when I was

17. Heh Heh

I thought taking prints was easier than the messy film-developing. The nearest photo-

material dealer was V.G.CHIMMALAGI & SONS opposite the MOVIELAND Talkies just

after Ananda Rao Circle on the way to Majestic. (I think they're extinct now).

Armed with 10 rupees, I went to Chimmalagi and asked for the smallest packet of

AGFA-100 developer (metol-hydroquinone, I remember) and 1/4 pound of HYPO. 

He took one look at me, carrying school books and in half-pants, and asked me "And

who do you want these for?" 

 "My brother and I are trying printing at home; I alsowant six loose AGFA postcard size photo papers". (Postcard size was the smallestavailable, and if you cut it in half, you get two 2-1/4 x 3-1/4" which cut in half again would give me the correct size for my small negatives.) 

The old man was so taken aback, he called me in, made me sit and asked me all about

my father, my school (Seshadripuram High School) where did I learn about photography,

what camera I had, and the rest of it. Finally, he said he would charge me only for the

photo-paper, and he gave me two small, loose packets of chemicals telling me how to

mix them in half a gallon of lukewarm water. This could be re-used if I store it in a

amber bottle in a cool, dark place. He accepted my ten rupees for the photo-paper,

and the chemicals were "on the house". Added to this, I was served tea! 

 Believe me,I was already feeling seven feet tall!! He was a good friend thereafter. God bless him!

We didn't have a dark-room; my brother and I were put up in a room upstairs and the roof

was tiled. The only way was to wait for night, and presto! - we had the dark room. Printing started

in full swing - dad contributed the red lamp required. Two enamel trays were purchased.

For the "stop" tray before putting the prints for fixing, I used a vessel borrowed from the kitchen.

After some goofups, my prints came out quite professional. A table lamp with a 100

watter provided the needed light. To make the prints glossy, I borrowed a stainless-steel

dinner plate from downstairs and stuck the wet prints face-down on the plate and kept

it in the open for about half an hour; the prints came out quite glossy. I used to print

four negatives at a time and cut the prints out after drying. Cool. I couldn't afford the

"guillotine" type trimmer; I used the scissors at home for trimming the prints.

I tried developing the films, but found it rather messy - and I could not afford to buy the

developing tank; so it was manual developing with the metol-hydroquinone solution in

a large tray. If I mix the solution for developing just one roll of film, it was not economical

as the chemical would go waste. So I continued to give the roll to the Studio for the job.

The next trick I tried was to take photos without the film! Very simple. I inserted a photo-

paper in the camera and took long exposure shots. No tripod, so I used to rest the camera

on a table, chair, or sometimes an inverted bucket. Usually portraits (with the subject not

moving or even batting an eye for up to 10 seconds) and some scenery around home - like

trees (when there was no wind) etc. Process the paper and I got the "negative" print of

the subject. The camera had a "portrait" lens for close-ups, and by using this I took another

shot of the negative, kept about a foot in front of the camera to obtain a proper "positive"

print. Not as good as the regular photo, (hazy like crazy) but good enough for just under

one rupee a photo!!

The ultimate was a PIN-HOLE CAMERA! I knew a book-binder (Ponnuswami, R.I.P) who

"built" the camera body for me. A strong cardboard box roughly the size of my camera,

lined inside with thick black paper, making it light-proof. Arrangement for sliding in a

photographic paper at the focus, and a small hole in the front which was the "lens".

Numerous hole-sizes were tried before finalizing on the correct size - literally a "pin-hole"

which got me the correct focus of image on the plain-paper slid in place of the film.

I tried this with a lit candle at 6 ft. 

With this, I could take photos of still-life. Once the image was composed, all I had

to do was to slide in the photo-paper after covering the entire system with a shawl,

and "expose" for 5, 8, or 10 seconds depending on the ambient light. The only hitch

was that I could not easily use this camera outdoors, in sunlight! The paper always

got fogged notwithstanding all that black-paper lining etc. 

I wish I had saved the numerous (negative) photos I took with this simple 'camera' -

you'd be amazed even now!! I am sure, if I had used cut-film in place of the paper,

I would've got some memorable photos!

The best photos with the pin-hole camera were of a partial solar-eclipse during the late

fifties for which exposures of the order of between half-a-second and one-second would

suffice! (Photos taken from inside home, sunlight coming through a window).

My sister got married in 1954 - brother-in-law was with Sir C.V.Raman, and when he saw me

printing photos at home, he was quite pleased and he went and got me a FUJI enlarger and

he too joined the act - printing, enlarging and the rest of it. He had a VOIGTLANDER camera

which was pretty advanced, and I used this now and then.

This went on to such an extent, our friends used to bring negatives and say "please let me

have some enlargements, if you don't mind" and I couldn't say "no" nor could I say "you need

to pay for the enlargements" - so it was quite a problem. We had no alternative than to say

"the enlarger bulb has burnt" or "we are out of paper" etc. many times to get over the problem. 

I just couldn't afford to give free service! Some of them kindly offered to pay, but how could we

take money from friends?? (and relatives?).  

By 1960, I joined NAL - and photography and printing at home was not so thrilling, after all! 

Other interests had cut in - like Ham Radio, Astronomy, stamp collecting, etc.

That's how the great hobby ended! I mean, I'm still crazy about photography, but no more

"developing" "printing" and all that; my first good camera was an ASAHI Pentax (SLR) which

I got in 1975 or so; and the next was an OLYMPUS OM-10 (also SLR) which I got in 1984;

with a "fisheye" wide-angle and a 55-210mm zoom. I presented my old Pentax to my nephew.

(I believe it's still working!) 

Presently I am using a NIKON D-50 (6.1 Megapixels) with a 300 mm zoom. You might have

seen some of my photos posted on the net...