Lore of the lens
We, the devotees of the Shutter Sutra, know that pictures trap a moment in time before it’s lost forever.
“Sunlight is the enemy of film!” was my statutory warning to photographers attending my classes. Thirty years later, I feel like a dinosaur aboard a spaceship, confused by consoles with auto-focus, megapixels and image stabilisers.
One day our analogue world died without a whimper. The high priest of those days was a certain Mr Lord, cared for by the nuns of St. Emilian’s Church. ‘Clutter is good!’ he exclaimed surrounded by broken radios, transistors, record players, radiograms, old black-and-white TVs, grinders and blenders stacked to the ceiling. “Gives me comfort to fix broken dreams,” he’d say.
Ample evidence lay scattered on his workbench: a riot of epoxy resin, glue, pliers and screwdrivers ranged like rows of soldiers standing to attention in a forgotten cantonment.
“Man!” he chuckled. “Retiring from the railway workshop in Balasore, and moving to Landour, I bragged that I was 70.” “You can apply to the Seniors’ Club only in your 80s,” the other grey hairs told him. “With a name like mine—no wonder I became the undertaker of the Cemetery.” He reflected. “It’s back trying to fix the unfixable.”
Another worshipper of the analogue days was Hans, the lanky Swiss. He was the poor man’s William Tell—but only if you trimmed his beard, clipped his whiskers and gave him a good scrub. Bazaar gossip credits him for being a part of the team that planted a warning device atop one of our Himalayan peaks.
“Pure bazaar gossip,” I said dismissively when I saw him ride around the hillside with Lali, his pet monkey, aboard a battered Triumph motorcycle. “Be the first in whatever you do,” he advised me. “Never be the last to step into the pool.”
World-famous-in-Landour only for being a handyman. Rakesh Garg, a shopkeeper remembers when his Royal Enfield motorcycle developed a cough.
“I did what everyone did in those days—took it to Hans.” “No problem,” Hans nodded, eagerly stripping it apart: wheels, sprockets, chain, cams, engine, headlights, indicators and fuel tank. Trouble knocked when he couldn’t put them back.
“I did what I should have done for starters. I shoved it into seven boxes and took it to Dehradun.” Soon after, Khaliq’s workshop became Hans’s second home. That was where he tinkered with his milkman’s ancient flintlock. The trusty muzzle-loader was loaned to scare off the monkeys harassing his pet monkey. “Easier to carry,” said he as he sawed off the barrel.
When the milkman demanded it back, Hans welded the two pieces together. Well almost! Who would argue over a slightly bent barrel? “My gun! What have you done?” niggled the milkman. “Life is a challenge,” declared Hans, defending the indefensible: “Now you can shoot around corners too!”
By the time the digital age arrived, Mr Lord had joined his Maker. And Hans? Well, he too vanished, scattering like a gypsy camp at dawn, with me.
Ganesh Saili
Author, photographer, illustrator
sailiganesh@gmail.com