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Thou shalt do the paramount tasks in thy life... but ne'er taketh thyself seriously...

Shit happens...

Experiments galore!

This story starts a couple of months back, when I hadn’t yet started working full time at the place where I do now, and just when I was running out of ideas

It was one of those days when the events are consequential to many more amusing times ahead. Amusing, I say because they are!

That fateful day, Nandu uncle lent me his old Rollie to experiment with. According to him, it hadn’t been used in decades! At first he was to give it for repair and cleaning up to some professional he knew, but something made him change his mind… someone told him I’d do it decently too… suicide for the camera, you may say, but I was thrilled! He wanted me to make use of it the way I wished to. He even gave me his kind permission to rip it apart, and synthesize it as desired. That’s just perfect! Some exercise for my grey cells (whatever’s left of them) at last!

The rollie is a big camera! Bulky and really old! The viewfinder, although big, was not clear at all, and needed bright light to be able to display images. The other lens was better than that one. This wouldn’t do too well for Ttv (through the viewfinder) I decided. And wanted to experiment with square format photos on film, but getting the film would be the hardest part. And I’m very lazy when it comes to the labour-intensive effort of probing for certain atypical stuff and finding out were it might be available! Instead, I just turned all my messy drawers inside out to search for a few old 35 mm film rolls that I threw in there a year back, when I stopped using Pooja’s camera, borrowed a long time ago!

So the story actually starts a year back, but let’s not get into so many details.

So with a 35 mm film in one hand, and a heavy rollie in another, I was weighing my options… how do I fit the 35 mm film in the medium format camera? How do I use the spools that are there? What happens after the film gets over? How can I spool it back in without opening? What If I open it in the dark and rewind, when I can’t see a thing myself? What about fixing the free end of the film to the other spool? Will it wind after I load and fix in its place? What if the pictures don’t get exposed? What if they get washed out? Too many questions… and I didn’t have the answer. So I did the next best thing: I Googled! Google has the ultimate answer to all of mankind’s problems! Or as a friend said: ‘if no, at least it gives the source where the answer might lie…’ Hallelujah!!

So I found the ‘almost right’ answer. This link by this guy who tried similar stuff had him using the old spool, chopping it off in three parts, and using the sides to fix into the 35 mm film spool hollow ends. He’s a smart dude, I must say! He also had another ‘almost right’ answer to another ‘almost perplexing’ question I had… about how to avoid spooling off in the dark.

He talked about using and old empty 35 mm spool and its central rod to hook up the free end of the new film in, and attaching it to the other end of the camera using similar methods as the first. In this case, the film that one winds is directly getting into the other spare empty spool!! Brilliant!

So I did that too. And I started clicking. Not for the sake of composition, but for the sake of finding out if this camera still worked. It had to! Accepting the fact(s) that the shutter speed lever was broken, the lenses were not clean, couldn’t view the frame in the viewfinder properly, and a meagre improvisation with a 35 mm film, and the camera squeaks protests at periodically… it does not sound clickable! There is a certain need to clean and lubricate the camera for smoother functioning.

Well, I finished the roll a few days later. And had quite forgotten about my little ‘avoid unloading the film in dark’ experiment … And I was anxious as to how I would be able to rewind it and get it back in the spool. So in my room, sans any lights at 2 AM, I opened the Rollie hatch… and hey! What do I see (or rather, don’t see because of the darkness…) the roll completely inside the old spool! My experiment worked… And then… time for a reality check… I furnish the photo studio, my film, unexposed, in the half open spare spool… wondering what they might say to that spectacle called a film roll… They did fuss… acting smart… that over smart female said: ‘there’ll be nothing appearing on it anyway, but if madam wants, we’ll do it’ … Time to swallow some pride. ‘Ok… I said… just develop it for me'

So they did... and i got some pics... and the results... well... not exactly great... but hey! experiment worked technically... so I'm pretty pleased!!

night mara hai!

I've been freelancing for the last one year, and took up a full time job just recently. Its a small office, and that means a lot of work, for the scale of projects we handle!
The last time, I worked all night was for my thesis a year back, and then yesterday... I was thrilled!
I was used to working at night during my architecture course, and this was more like it! it feels like work at last!!
I'm not a workaholic, but sometimes, do get carried away by work. Like this time at night yesterday, when my boss called me to discuss something, and I didn't realise, i had my headphones around my neck. And post discussion, when I started work again, i forgot my mp3 walkman, and the songs playing in the headphone around my neck.
I was feeling a little sleepy and washed my face, and went out at the steps for a while. everything was quiet, and I wasn't thinking at all... when all of a sudden, a little 'twiiiiing' of Clapton's guitar from headphones snapped me up, and I realised that I had been working for 10 straight songs forgetting the headphones around my neck, songs playing all the while, without me listening to a single one!
Normally, I can't do without my music... and so, was surprised at all of this..
One of those days I guess... but in the future I'll make sure that working hard doesn't become a habit with me! :)

Meghana!

I’ll do pretty well as a character from Asterix. If you notice the names of Gaulish ladies, they all end with an ‘a’ – Impedimenta, Bacteria… etc… now, they should have a character called Meghana.

She would be smart and also, the village wise woman! Full of life, enthusiasm, good humour, and sharp - with an eye for details. Now… wouldn’t that be super!

She would be Obelix’s cousin twice removed who has studied in Rome - the arts, architecture and modern roman construction, and she’s thinking about redesigning the village settlement in a contemporary ancient way! That seems to be the thing now a day in the whole of the ancient world!

Meghana’s self designed house (incidentally, the only design of hers ever built) is a mess always, with a lot of papyrus and stone tablets with drawings of modern dwellings and complex buildings, that the ancient world knows no use of, most of which never come into existence, and remain carved on stone. Little does she know that two millennia later those would be copied by ‘great’ architects of the future…

She would be short, stout and fairly dark, with a jolly face, good looks and high spirits. Looking smart with Bravura’s oriental Djeans too! A woman of many talents, Meghana would even be capable of giving Cacofonix a run for his money… (ahem.. ) She would accompany Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix on adventures at home and abroad as long as there’s a good fight and plenty of wild bore! … She will not be any old bore for sure!

Appointed by chief Vitalstatistx (actually the woman behind his success - Impedimenta dear…) as a vital advisor in village matters, she is also the Getafix’s assistant, and for the first time ever, a Gaulish druid is considering handing down his knowledge and more importantly, the secret recipe of the magic potion to a woman! …

Nobody would read Asterix comics ever again… but wouldn’t I be pleased!