My journey up to KAMMO

The day  I was born , there was a flood situation in my village(as my mother told me). There were lightnings and the clouds were roaring due to the electric discharge.....

Anyway this doesn't have any thing to do with my interest in photography(:D). I grew up in a village, there were only two or three photo studios in my vicinity. According to my family photo records I was photographed first time when I was around 2-3 months old, Well that was my first encounter with the camera(I must have thought oooo what is that guy is doing with the funny black stuff).

After that I saw my self on my first b'day(damn that's how I look like: funny bald, brown guy in a green top with injured nose/photo not available/ ).

Well! The years passed and our family planned a tour to Himachal and Kashmir but at that time we didn't have any camera so we took it on rent....alas! The camera didn't work very well and we ended up cursing the camera guy, still it worked some times & we got some snaps...But upto that stage I wasn't allowed to touch the camera because there was a risk factor involved with it.(Oh yes! I am the small guy that u are seeing)

At this point I was pretty curious about this equipment that how it can capture the moment on a small black thing(film) and what is so special about it that I am not allowed to touch it. But my curiosity led me to a nasty result when no one was around I accidently pushed the button which caused opening of the film role and exposed the shots to sun light, I was "the" unhappy guy, but thanks to my mother and other family members I escaped my furious father.

Well! That was my first hand on a camera after that I decided to not touch the damn machine which led me into difficulties.

But there was not an end to it, when I was in seventh standard we bought our first film camera and it was KODAK 991EX EASYLOAD and my father was pretty excited after buying it.

We went on a trip to Mount Abu, there he gave me the camera and told to click the photographs and it was an amazing moment of my life, I thought Hell yeah! finally I will give it a try and took the pics for the trip, the photographs were really nice(according to my father). After that, on every occasion I was the person who used that camera.

During the same trip I discovered one more sort of camera which was known as POLAROID camera or an instant camera, I became fascinated toward this camera but my father told me that it is not very good for our pocket.

After that I fell into the complex web of studies, but whenever I got the chance of taking photographs, never missed it.

When I was in 9 th standard My uncle showed me a pic with the date and time written on it, I wondered how it came there? He told me that one of the relative of his colleague has a digital camera then he further described that this sort of camera don't have a film roll in it. I was really amused by this fact that there exist a thing which doesn't need a film role(I immediately thought of having such a camera ).

Then my sister's in laws came to our house with such a camera again I didn't dare to ask for it since it was pretty expensive and imported from U.S.

Afterwards the mobile phones started to come with camera options. One of my cousin bought

a camera phone just after it's launch(believe me he was the man), when my sister got her first job I made her to buy a camera phone and it was an awesome feeling for me. It was nokia 3230 and I liked its 1.3 mp camera.

During my sister's marriage I encountered with first SLR camera, of course the photographer was having that one and I saw big-big lenses at the same time. I thought why some ordinary person will buy that much costly device.

After that I went to KOTA for my JEE preparation and forgot every thing except JEE. No T.V., no playing, and irregular diet schedule drove me nuts.

After coming to IISER one of my friend NIKHIL who was really interested in photography brought his OLYMPUS digital camera with him. I took my first pic with a digital camera in my first year of BS-MS dual degree. It was legen.......wait for it ......dary!

In my first summer @ IISER I went on a trip to JAGANNATH PURI and KONARK with my parents and my sister's in laws, they took a digital camera with them (CANON 120SX). They(The in laws) handed me the camera and said "Manuji iss trip ke photographer aap"(and I was like yay! I got it), and the trip went awesome.

After the trip there was only one thing in my mind "I need a digital camera" and I bought one 'CANON IXUX 95IS'. My friend Nikhil was with me at that time(neither me nor Nikhil will forget it because at the same day he went on a so called date with a Bong..../Nikhil please don't Kill me/).

I started to click the photographs with my tiny D.C. and there was one particular shot, after which I thought 'well this camera gives nice photos I should try more' and the things started.

After that I was unstoppable I clicked the pics for almost every occasion...........................................................

By the end of summer of 2010 I started to follow many famous photographers around the world and there was only one thing common among them, yes! it was the SLR.

So I thought of buying it in future and suddenly all things changed due to one comment on one of my pic "Yaar mast shot hai ab to too SLR le hi le"......

There was a lightening in my mind at that time, I thought is it possible for me to have one?

I talked to my parents they told it is little bit expensive, at this time don't think of it.....PER JO CHINGAAREE LAG CHUKI THI AAG TO BAN NI HI THI.

As I explored more on SLR cameras my eagerness to get one became dominant....and I kept asking my parents for it.

Finally I told them I have saved around half of the money for the camera if you will give another half I will be having an SLR and the outcome was positive! Damn I was the happy man.

Then I started to look for a suitable model Dr. Anghshuman suggested me to go for CANON EOS 500D.

I decided to buy it on 8th April but there was some delay from my parents' side(another half of money) so it seemed impossible once, but my friend MANMEET and KESHAV helped me regarding the money issue and I bought my first DSLR on the decided date.

My friend NITISH was with me at that time. I remember I captured almost every one's face in my DSLR. On the same day ABHILASHA asked me the question,'ISKA NAAM KYA HAI YE FEMALE HAI YA MALE' then I thought 'well this is the best opportunity to have a female in my life' so I told ABHILASHA that it is a Female,

regarding the name I suggested CHEMO derived from CHEMISTRY, but all said it is too nerdy name, so I called her KAMMO!

TO DOSTO WO DIN HAI AUR AAJ KA DIN HAI MENE KAMMO KA SAATH ABHI TAK NAHI CHHODA AUR UMMED KERTA HU KI AAGE BHI BANA RAHEGA.

So friends this is the story how I met KAMMO!

HOLI ! IISER Mohali iShTYLE....

IISER Mohali has a record for its special "organic" holi. What I mean by "organic" is that we don't use artificial colours to play holi instead we use mud made up of freshly dug soil and water to play holi.

But as all we know before every play there should be some "foreplay" (haha please don't take offense) so what did we do for that? Well! we had THANDAAI and a special remedy to calm down every sense and keep us cool: BAM-BAM MUNAKKA (also known as BHAANG and it is obtained from the plant species CANNIBUS INDICA ). Preparing THANDAAI is also a big task you should know the perfect ratio of each component like almond, opium seeds, Fructus Anethi(सोफ) , and sugat. Making THANDAAI is a really challenging task so to escape the headache, we used CHAMAN THANDAAI , thanks to my friend SHIVAM for making it.

Now returning to the other cooling agent BAM-BAM MUNAKKA, according to Achyut Priya Shukla it is made up of many useful herbs like SONTH, JEERA(cumin), KAALI MIRCH(Black peper) etc but the most important part of it is CANNIBUS INDICA plant and i.e. nothing but our BHAANG.

Anyway Shivam had an interesting plan to distribute THANDAAI and BAM BAM MUNAKKA. He told it should be done in a traditional way, he poured the THANDAAI directly into the recipient's mouth, but but but..there was one more thing which went before THANDAAI….Yes! That was nothing but our BAM BAM MUNAKKA(Damn! I promised my mother so I didn’t take it). Well! I was happy with THANDAAI.

There was only one thing which every one said with his heart..."jai ho baba Bholenath"

After all this stuff, the “main course” started and that was ripping off the shirt. One of my junior, DUDI was the first victim of the “main course”, I think he will surely miss his IIT Delhi t-shirt.

All this was fine but the main ritual remained. Yes! There was a special swimming pool prepared with a lot of GHARA (soil) and (di hydrogen oxide+some metal salts) i.e. tap water for this occasion and special thanks to C.R. and his team for that.

All of us became victims one by one. But I shouldn't say victim because we enjoyed it a lot so now I would replace victim by “participant”(well this is the best word I could think with my limited knowledge of english).

There was no escape for anyone,whoever was there became the participant with a topless body and wrapped with mud all around HIS body(of course the participants were only boys ).

Girls also played

HOLI but they did it traditionally which means they played it with GULAAL and there was no wear and tear so all was FINE except for a shy

person like me who was semi nude in front of girls first time but one thing consoling me was that I was covered in MUD.

During all this DOA appeared and had a photo with us(although some of us wanted to make him a victim but they controlled their emotions some how), other faculty member Vinayak Sinha also came with some of his GERMAN collaborators, but he didn’t want to be a victim.

Ravinder(A YATN kid helping the "participants")

A mud fight

The sober version of HOLI

It all stopped when there was no one left with any cloths. After all this we got a nice lunch(long live SRC! Yay although KHEER was not good PER CHALTA HAI). At that time the people who had the COOLERS I described before started to react accordingly.