Reflections of my birthday

Well, after writing the first blog yesterday, I was hooked. And today is my birthday. Though, I had planned to go out for my morning walk today morning, I overslept. Tanwee woke me up saying that there is a surprise gift for me. A bouquet of roses and a tasty cake- from the business head of the team, which I currently belong to. Nice little surprise and felt good too.

Ahwaan, one of my closest buddies, had wished me around 12 and was the first one to do . Wishes are flowing in today morning. Everything is great...

Why do people celebrate birthdays, its just another timeline milestone and in its getting achieved, the individual has no contribution ;-0) But the happiness lingers and makes me a tad philosophical.

I feel happy that I have had a rocking 31 years of life full of ups and downs, pleasure and pain points, trials and tribulations, new and old until now. Last year was particularly great because many a pending passions and goals were achieved. I shall talk about one here.

I bought my first DSLR last year after waiting for 11 years. Yes-its almost 11 years now. I still remember the Budh hostel, front wing. The flame started burning in 1997 in my third year of Engineering @ BITS, Pilani. My sidee Naveen Parthasarthy (may god bless his soul- he passed away in an accident sometime ago) introduced me to the first SLR, "a second-hand Pentax", he had said. It was a basic film SLR but that was enough to charge me up. And then, I still remember very vividly, I had immediately rushed to C-not (This was a small shopping center inside the campus) and bought two rolls of 100 ISO film. Naveen had agreed to lend me his SLR for one roll only. And I felt free for some reason and never knew why :-) I didn't know the basics of photography so well but what was to stop me!!! There were too many locations to shoot in 32 frames and too little time. Bunking classes was the only option and an option which I would never regret. In approximately 2 hours, 36 frames got over. I quickly loaded the second one and kept shooting for a total of 2 days. And when the rolls were over, I gave back the SLR to Naveen thanking him profusely. He was stunned that I had finished one roll so early. And when I cheekily confessed that two rolls went under the shutter, u should have been there to look at his face. He couldn't believe that 72 frames were over in just two days. He was also taken aback seeing me jumping like a kid because the rolls were already in the lab for processing. I could not hold back the innocence and the joy and he felt happy too.

The frames came in 3 days later. When I showed him the frames, Rajesh (one of my wingies and a close friend) was also there. And when both of them saw the frames, I got my first point of appreciation from Rajesh. "The photographs have a professional feel to them. See the Clock tower and the Insti (our institute building) and the blue sky. It all seems so symmetric. Brilliant work, Sumo."

Well, that is when both he and Naveen had fired my ignition and imagination. When I see those shots today, I realised that I had unknowingly applied the rule of thirds and had exposed them properly by instinct. Well, probably this is my calling...

After that incident, I had borrowed the camera for couple of more rolls and had read a few photography magazines in Naveen's room. Each time, just holding the camera in my hand was giving me a great high. For sometime, I continued with a point and shoot Minolta film camera-which I had gifted to my sister. But that was that.

I did not have money to buy my own SLR for the next 11 years...1997-2008 was a long long wait..And the flame kept burning...

Now having started shooting with my own SLR, I still feel the rush of blood when I hold my Canon 40D in my palms and give it a small loving caress every time before I shoot the session.