Day before yesterday, as I was sipping tea during the office teabreak, I happened to read a news report on the financial situation of Eastman Kodak Limited. Though I and numerous photography enthusiasts like me may not have anything do with the company, the report took me back to my middle school days when my father gave a kodak box camera as a compensation to the assistance which I rendered when he worked as an examiner for State Board Examinations (he used to mark students' answer sheets and I was asked to add the marks after he finished marking).

The gift came at a time when `Kannan', my most favourite childrens' magazine, carried a series on how to take good pictures using a camera. This paved the way for a very interesting hobby, which I continued pursuing until the late '90s when I returned from South Africa.

I used this box camera to take my first ever photograph. The camera and the photograph (of my brother and sister) are shown below:

Though I moved on to better cameras such as Agfa buffer type (which my father had used earlier) and then to smaller cartridge cameras, the first camera is unforgettable.