Taken from the archives of the Deccan Herald
The news that the girl in Bombay who won the Mrs India contest is from Shimoga and learnt Kannada at the school there, took me back more than half century when her grandfather had just set up shop on the Station Road in Shimoga, my home town.
He recorded our family as it grew from four then five and finally to six siblings. That day when all six of us marched to the studio of Gulvadi, actually a little Mangalore tile and mortar beauty, is still vivid in my mind.
Gulvadi functioned only on appointment fixed well in advance.
The day so fixed was touched by magic, an instant holiday from all our other daily activities. Father had to call off his hectic running around in the charcoal-fired buses. Mother had to plan the kind of food that would keep. School was off for all of us, the main reason the name Gulvadi was music to our ears.
But there was nothing warm about the man. He treated us as surgeons of today, never making his appearance till action time. We would sit waiting in our ill-fitting, unfamiliar clothes that we never knew existed till the big day, sweating through pomaded hair and powdered faces.
He was a man of very few words. He would drink us all in at a glance and usher, no, order us into the hotter black room of his magic.
There, we were in his hands. His castor oil face would be busy behind the black hood around a thing that looked like the shroud of Mandrake. There were no lights except the weak GSLs and no fans. He hated sounds. We sat there miserably, sweating away all our pristine primness.
When at last— at long last— he emerged from the black hood, he would methodically ‘fix’ each one of us. There were stools of varying heights placed to emphasis our preponderance in age, regardless of height. We had to be arranged in the form of the keys of a piano accordion. No individual whims were allowed.
We sat swabbed and speck free stiff with glowing eyes burning fire, staring at the shroud. Left leg over the right leg. Right hand over the left. Spine straight. He was such a meticulous worker that he made an exception in the case of my youngest brother who was a leftie. His left hand was atop the right.
And then he would retire for good under the black shroud. Time passed painfully. It was mid-day and we had difficulty not bursting out laughing at the distinctly loud rumblings of hungry stomachs that were held sucked in by stiff spines.
When he emerged again we had come to revere him as God. God or Gulvadi utters the final commandment as he puts his hand on the front of the camera— like on a trigger. The boy next to him holds something in his hand. And then a heart-stopping moment. As breaths are asked to be held there is a meteor like object that bursts. The light is blinding. One is hard pressed not to wink. You see the sleight of the hand that has uncovered the eye of the monster and blinded it again for the duration that only Gulvadi knew by instinct in his mathematical mind.
All of us were sure that we had winked or winced or shifted. There was no way we could ascertain the truth from Gulvadi. He would act like a surgeon after a critical operation. Yes, the exposure was all right but no one can say till the results come out.
Our wait for Gulvadi’s pronouncement seemed painfully longer than the customary anticipation of the SSLC results. Have we foozled? How on earth did it work when each one was doing his own thing? Surely we were a communal disaster and for a variety of reasons. There were cramps under the neatly folded hands. The eyes were surely closed at the burst of light. And for heaven’s sake, what about the stomach rumbles!
Weeks pass in agony of anticipation.
The great day arrives. We miss breakfast, lunch. We wait for the father who hardly appeared at home, so we are sure the picture would not be collected.
In the afternoon, when we have given up hope knowing father’s penchant for abandoning our dreams for exigencies of business, we see a freshly laundered cardboard covered package— too good to touch.
Not being patient, we tear through. There is a black paper sheet reminiscent of Gulvadi’s shroud smelling of chemicals. Underneath that in white, blinding light we see ourselves. Come to life. All the harrowing moments of sweat, readjusting pomaded hair, the worrying on the disappearing of stiff ironed lines of the half pants all gone in a moment. We look with wonder at this magic.
This magic of Gulvadi that has caught and registered for posterity— the way we were.
An article by Shri M. Bhatavatsala, KFCC
Accessed at - http://archive.deccanherald.com/Deccanherald/jun182006/artic155182006617.asp
| Before digicams and automatic cameras, one had to trot to a studio for a photo. M Bhaktavatsala describes the exciting experience of having a picture taken in the good old days. |
He recorded our family as it grew from four then five and finally to six siblings. That day when all six of us marched to the studio of Gulvadi, actually a little Mangalore tile and mortar beauty, is still vivid in my mind.
Gulvadi functioned only on appointment fixed well in advance.
The day so fixed was touched by magic, an instant holiday from all our other daily activities. Father had to call off his hectic running around in the charcoal-fired buses. Mother had to plan the kind of food that would keep. School was off for all of us, the main reason the name Gulvadi was music to our ears.
But there was nothing warm about the man. He treated us as surgeons of today, never making his appearance till action time. We would sit waiting in our ill-fitting, unfamiliar clothes that we never knew existed till the big day, sweating through pomaded hair and powdered faces.
He was a man of very few words. He would drink us all in at a glance and usher, no, order us into the hotter black room of his magic.
There, we were in his hands. His castor oil face would be busy behind the black hood around a thing that looked like the shroud of Mandrake. There were no lights except the weak GSLs and no fans. He hated sounds. We sat there miserably, sweating away all our pristine primness.
When at last— at long last— he emerged from the black hood, he would methodically ‘fix’ each one of us. There were stools of varying heights placed to emphasis our preponderance in age, regardless of height. We had to be arranged in the form of the keys of a piano accordion. No individual whims were allowed.
We sat swabbed and speck free stiff with glowing eyes burning fire, staring at the shroud. Left leg over the right leg. Right hand over the left. Spine straight. He was such a meticulous worker that he made an exception in the case of my youngest brother who was a leftie. His left hand was atop the right.
And then he would retire for good under the black shroud. Time passed painfully. It was mid-day and we had difficulty not bursting out laughing at the distinctly loud rumblings of hungry stomachs that were held sucked in by stiff spines.
When he emerged again we had come to revere him as God. God or Gulvadi utters the final commandment as he puts his hand on the front of the camera— like on a trigger. The boy next to him holds something in his hand. And then a heart-stopping moment. As breaths are asked to be held there is a meteor like object that bursts. The light is blinding. One is hard pressed not to wink. You see the sleight of the hand that has uncovered the eye of the monster and blinded it again for the duration that only Gulvadi knew by instinct in his mathematical mind.
All of us were sure that we had winked or winced or shifted. There was no way we could ascertain the truth from Gulvadi. He would act like a surgeon after a critical operation. Yes, the exposure was all right but no one can say till the results come out.
Our wait for Gulvadi’s pronouncement seemed painfully longer than the customary anticipation of the SSLC results. Have we foozled? How on earth did it work when each one was doing his own thing? Surely we were a communal disaster and for a variety of reasons. There were cramps under the neatly folded hands. The eyes were surely closed at the burst of light. And for heaven’s sake, what about the stomach rumbles!
Weeks pass in agony of anticipation.
The great day arrives. We miss breakfast, lunch. We wait for the father who hardly appeared at home, so we are sure the picture would not be collected.
In the afternoon, when we have given up hope knowing father’s penchant for abandoning our dreams for exigencies of business, we see a freshly laundered cardboard covered package— too good to touch.
Not being patient, we tear through. There is a black paper sheet reminiscent of Gulvadi’s shroud smelling of chemicals. Underneath that in white, blinding light we see ourselves. Come to life. All the harrowing moments of sweat, readjusting pomaded hair, the worrying on the disappearing of stiff ironed lines of the half pants all gone in a moment. We look with wonder at this magic.
This magic of Gulvadi that has caught and registered for posterity— the way we were.
An article by Shri M. Bhatavatsala, KFCC
Accessed at - http://archive.deccanherald.com/Deccanherald/jun182006/artic155182006617.asp
