Photocracy

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'Was there a secret marriage?'

'None.'

'No legal papers or certificates?'

'None.'

'Then I fail to follow your majesty. If this young person should produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is she to prove their authenticity?'

'There is the writing.'

'Pooh, pooh! Forgery.'

'My private note paper.'

'Stolen.'

'My own seal.'

'Imitated.'

'My photograph.'

'Bought.'

'We were both in the photograph.'

'Oh, dear! That is very bad! Your Majesty has indeed committed an indiscretion.'

...A Scandal in Bohemia...The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Movie at:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shLYcUVOMb4

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Google tells me that there are 867,800,000 cell phones in India. And I guess most of them are equipped with a camera of sorts.

We did some more pandal hopping yesterday...the budding Cyberabad Puja at noon, and the vast Secunderabad Keyes Girls High School Puja in the evening in the pleasant company of my good friends Mrs & Prof NP, and Sailaja's dad...there was this Batukamma Puja which held us up in a manic traffic jam on the Tank Bund Road for all of two hours on our return...we came home at midnight.

What impressed me most in these places is that everyone...every one...was clicking away madly on their cell phones. From kids of 3 to oldies of 80.

The cell phone in India has democratized photography. I recall times when camera was a luxury. Father, with all his higher education in the hallowed Madras Christian College, never owned a camera, nor clicked one in his lifetime. His only photo of the period was taken in a studio...he was a suited-booted fop in specs. It was meant for the inspection and approval of his prospective brides. My mom tells me that her granpa objected to the alliance on the grounds that the groom may be shortsighted; or even night-blind, which is not too bad since all kitties are proverbially grey in the dark.

My first photo was taken when I was 3 by my Air-Force Uncle who had a passion for photography. He was visiting us in our village when he was a lad of 18. A good 60 years later he was visiting us at KGP and the gift he brought me was this sepia-tinted photo with me wearing his sunglasses and holding Father's tennis racket as if it were the mace of Bhimjee. This memento is still with me (although he left us recently), to the immense pleasure of little Ishani who has by now a thousand pics and videos of her, some posted on her dad's Facebook and some in my blog. She takes a picture of herself in the mirror nowadays and commands me:

"Put it up in your blog!"

I never owned a camera till I was a research scholar at my university drawing a fabulous stipend of Rs 250. It was a Kodak Box which meant that it was a 'see-and-click' affair...no aperture, focus, distance and a dozen other adjustments of the professional variety. The film was black and white and had silver iodide. I clicked a few pics with it, and two of them fetched me a whopping Rs 20 along with a copy of the weekly Andhra Prabha in which they were published...the weekly was rather weak-minded...it thought here was a budding Raghu Rai.


They were taken in the verdant Lawson's Bay Approach (now extinct) in Vizagh and were titled: 'Sarugudu Thota (Casuarina Grove)' and 'Mogali Podalu (Candle Bush)'.
 
My didi's first camera was gifted by her IAS hubby when she was 50 and they were going on a holiday to the Andamans. I asked her how many pics she had taken. And she said: "A Hundred". But continued:

"Don't ask me to show them...the camera slipped from my hands and fell into the sea"

My son bought his first Canon on one of his visits to the US. It was stolen by our maid servant...all we could do was to dismiss her.

And then came the photocracy of the cell phone.

I had my first cell phone when my son upgraded his and gifted his old one to me. And he said it has a lovely camera but I was too tech-scared to learn how to click. 

Once I was visiting Madurai to attend the Wedding Reception of my nephew. And I traveled from Nellore all the way to Maduari (12 hours it took) in my driver-friend's Ambassador Car. We both put up in a hotel for the night. And next evening we were both attending the Function, with the newly-wed couple on the stage receiving gifts and blessings from a thousand invitees.

And then my driver-friend went right up to the stage and clicked the picture of the couple on his cell phone.

That, sort of shamed me and I learned on the spot how to click pics on my cell phone...with his help. And I too went up and took a picture. It was great, since my 90+ mom was at Gudur and was desperate to have a peek at her fond grandson's wife...all she had by then were mere word-pictures.

I halted at Gudur on my way back to Hyderabad and whipped out my cell phone with a flourish and showed her the gorgeous photo...and it was her turn to be delighted...of course she was more interested in the bride than the cell phone camera.

How times have changed!

But every democracy arrives with its evils.

And the lovely 'Scandal in Bohemia' would never have been written were Conan Doyle living now...

The last of Sherlock's one-word ripostes would have been:

'Morphed.'


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