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Where do you see yourself 5 years from now

A little over five years after beginning my pursuit for happiness. At Regal Cinema, Colaba, Mumbai. October 2011.
I take a moment and look back into my last years at engineering college. During those days, Campus placements/recruitment was the hot topic among my friends. We were to soon graduate from one of the finest colleges in the country (R.V.C.E), and it was inevitable that most of us had a job in our hand even before we graduated. So the questions was not whether one would get a job. Instead, it was whether one would get a job in the sought after IT company.
And in this quest for the dream job, we would go through an ordeal of written tests, group discussions and personal interviews. The most common question during the interviews would be “Where do you see yourself five years from now?” I wonder why that was so important to have a definite answer to that question. I don’t even remember what my answer to that question was. And I guess the panelists who interviewed me wouldn’t remember it either.
Many people answered with clarity of their future positions in the IT industry. Team leader, Project Manager, Software Architect, etc were some of those answers. I don’t know if that was really their thought or an answer to impress the panelist to get a job. After graduation, almost everybody faces this question in nearly every job interview they face. When it comes to this question, there is very little room for innovation among panelists. But, one question asked to me was slightly modified, and it did question one important aspect about my work.
“Do you see yourself shooting at the age of eighty years?” asked Krishnaprasad (called KP among media circles), the former editor of Vijay Times (now defunct English daily), when I was showing to him my portfolio for a photographer job. “Yes,” I replied honestly. This was nearly five years back.
The point that KP tried to investigate was, if I was passionate enough to spend a lifetime doing photography. And this emphasis for passion is important in my honest opinion. One has to be passionate about the work he/she does. A smart-phone advertisement says “Do what you Love. Love what you do.” This is true. I wasn’t in love with my first job as a software professional. There was something else calling me out.
It has been little more than five years since Friday, 13th October 2006. It was my last day at a software company. I left the job to lead the life of a photographer. By the way, I didn’t even have a professional camera then.
In the last five years, I have held jobs as a photographer in newspapers, got few scholarships and fellowships to travel abroad and study photojournalism, won couple of awards for photography and film-making, made a documentary on a subject that I was passionate about, published a book, left the job of a chief Photographer at a publication to go completely independent with my work, fell in love, broke my heart many times, laughed, cried, laughed again, finally met the woman I’d spend my life with, and eventually fell in love with her. As this year comes to an end, I will soon be getting engaged to her.
Five years back if somebody asked me the question on where I saw myself 5 years later, I wouldn’t have answered with the exact above details. I wouldn’t know how the five years would unfold. Nobody would know about their next five years in detail. And I think life would’ve been boring if we knew exactly how our future would be.
But, one thing I was always sure of five years back. I saw myself doing things I loved, things that I had my heart in, and things I was passionate about. I saw myself make decisions that I believed in, irrespective of their outcomes, and have no regrets. I saw myself listening to my heart and pursuing my dreams. That’s what I have done in the last five years.
Where do I see myself five years from now?
Five years from now, I still see myself continuing to do things that I love. Life, I love you.
(Note: If you like my work, then please do share the link to this website with others. Also, if you’d like to support me in my projects, then feel free to click the ‘flattr’ button at the bottom of the post. Flattr is a social micro-payment system. )
Posted in Blog, Education, Personal
Also tagged career, dreams, krishnaprasad, life, love, mumbai, passion, photographer, rvce
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Photographs, Autographs and Memories

My mom's College photo from the year 1970.
One of the things that I will thank my Engineering College for, is a circle of friends. Most of my friends have gone abroad to work, or to study, or have followed their spouses, and I stay in touch with them via social networks and emails. But, some of us, a ‘leftover’ group of around 5 to 6, are still here in India. In the world of IT era kids, we are a strange ‘leftover’ to many people in the society
Once in a while, the gang meets for a house-party, where everyone gets drunk all night, discussing life, ex-girl friends, future, and so on. We have our annual pilgrimage to Goa, but this year we haven’t had one, and I wonder if we will have one soon before Santhu leaves for the States (God bless America!).
Santhu a.k.a Santhosh (a.k.a kitta a.k.a ‘mafia don’), my good friend has been a leftover like me. We have been friends for a decade now. We go back a long way to college, internship, first tech job at IBM, and still remain in regular contact. Around the time I quit my IT job, I took-off on my first photography trip to coastal Karnataka. Santhu had accompanied me on this trip. It was a special trip for both of us as we were going back to our roots, our hometown.
One evening last year, when I was cleaning my wardrobe to make space for my new lens, I stumbled upon my mom’s old autograph book dating back to the year 1970. The 40 years old book, was filled with autographs of her classmates from the College. It was a simple notepad unlike the modern-day slam books which have predefined sections to be filled. Memories have faded, but unbelievably the ink and pencil work in the book was still dark and legible, as if it were written yesterday.

My mom's autographs book from her College days.
It wasn’t the first time I came across her autograph book. In the past 29 years, I have found it time and again. And each time I used to be fascinated reading the quotes written in it. Some funny ones like “First comes knowledge, next comes college, third comes marriage and finally comes baby in a carriage” always made me laugh. I always asked mom one question “Mom, you in touch with them? Have you met anyone after college?”
Her answer was always a ‘No’, and that left a burning desire in me. I dreamt that someday I’ll find one of mom’s old friends and make them meet my mom.
She always mentioned that her best friend in College was a girl named Rose Christabel. She never saw Rose after college. They never had Facebook or phones to be in regular touch and follow each others lives. She and Rose lost touch, and last she heard was that Rose moved to Vellore in Tamil Nadu.
That was 40 years ago. The day mom first told me about Rose, I always had this thought – at least once, I should find Rose Christabel and make her meet my mother.
Coming back to the day I brought my lens, as usual I was lost in the autograph book, and kept reading the quotes and names in it. I asked Mom the same rhetoric question, “Have you met them again?”
Then suddenly I read a page and I froze. My heart skipped a beat too. I had gone through that book time and again, but I had never gave a though to that page before.
It read “Best Wishes. Bhaskar Adiga K. Kuppar house, Shankarnarayana, Udupi (S.K)”
My friend Santhu’s full name is Santhosh Kuppar Bhaskar Adiga, with Bhaskar Adiga being his father’s name. The house that I stayed at during the journey to our hometown was called the Kuppar house, and it was in a town named Shankarnarayana, in the present-day Udupi district of Karnataka.
What are the chances that there could be two people with same name and the same address?
I screamed, “Mom, do you know him?”
She had no clear recollection. But, then she went inside and came out holding something in her hands.
A week before that evening, mom had gone back to hometown to take part in grandpa’s death anniversary ceremonies. While cleaning up the almost uninhabited house (few years back it was full) one of my uncles picked up few stuffs from the items meant for throwing away. One of it was an old black and white photograph. He gave it to mom. It was her only group photo from college. Taken during her graduation, it was the ceremonial class photograph.
It was this photograph that mom was holding now.
Humidity and lack of maintenance over the years, had damaged the photograph.Very few faces could be recognised in it. My mom’s face was barely recognisable, but Rose Christabel’s face was crystal clear!
I asked Mom, “Do you know who is Bhaskar Adiga in the photograph?”
Forty years later, I was asking her to be part of an identification parade of faces that were hardly recognisable. She took time sometime.
Then, from left to right, all the names of the girls in her class, she said it in seconds!
But the boys, she wasn’t sure.
She said “Maybe the 5th person from the left, on the top row, with a tie, could be the guy named Bhaskar.”
She didn’t know him that well. His face was hardly recognisable. I had met Santhu’s dad many times, but could not picture his face with this one.
I immediately called up Santhu and asked him if his dad was a graduate from Poornaprajna college (PPC), Udupi? Was he from the year 1970 batch of BSc, Zoology?
He was on his way to Mangalore with his mother. He was amazed when I told him what had happened. He wasn’t sure about his father’s college details at that moment.
But he cross-checked and called back later.
The credentials matched him – Santhu’s dad.
Santhu asked me to email the stuff – the photocopy of the autograph book, his dad’s autograph in it, and a copy of the damaged photograph.
I did, and he replied. He could not believe it.
There where only two Adiga families in Shankarnarayana, and only one Bhaskar from the Kuppar house. It had to be him.
Santhu said on the phone that he saw the photograph. He said it was unclear, but the 5th person from left, on the top row, wearing a tie… he said resembled his dad.
Matched! Both, my Mom’s guess and Santhu’s guess.
I do not know how he reacted there, but I was in tears here.
He said the same thing that I was muttering to myself – “How I wish I had stumbled upon that page at least a year or 2 earlier.”
Santhu’s dad was no more. He had passed away a year before.
I was numb. I always had it with me, but it was too late.
We graduated with Facebook while our parents graduated with an autograph book. Things have changed so much. For my parents every meeting with an old friend then, was a special occasion, a rarity.
My mom and Rose didn’t have the luxury that I enjoy now. I can narrate something so important to me, with you through my blog while I sit at home.
I was late here. All along, I just had it within my reach to fulfill that burning desire of finding somebody from mom’s college days and give her a small reunion.
I slept that night with visions. Visions of Santhu and I getting our families together and partying. We the second generation of classmates ( second generation! and we didn’t know even though we were best of friends) partying in the company of our families. Getting high, getting drunk, and talking about life. My mom and his dad recognising each other at the party, and talking about old times, about old friends, and about Rose Christabel. Probably, Santhu’s dad knowing where Rose is now.
But, I know this will never happen now. That’s it. It left me shattered.
On the brighter side, Santhu was glad to see his dad’s calligraphy skills in my mum’s autograph book. He said he’ll try hunting for his dad’s college photograph at his grandpa’s place, if at all it is still present there. It could be our last chance to have a proper photograph of our parents from their college. Chances are bleak, but we are glad to have uncovered a shared history. A shared history that brought us even closer.
Here’s to you, Santhu. Cheers!
Get all the boys home. We will party one last time before you leave for foreign shores. A bottle of Jack Daniels still lies unopened for all of us – the leftovers.
And for others who are now in a timezone that still reads Sunday, 19th June 2011, I wish you a happy father’s day.

A page from my mom's autograph book.
Posted in Blog, People, Personal
Also tagged autograph, bhaskar adiga, fathers day, friendship, memories, photography, poornaprajna college, ranjini rathnakar, rose christabel, santhosh adiga, shankarnarayana, udupi
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Notes from the field:Politics & Media

Chief Minister of Karnataka B S Yedyurappa and Governor of Karnataka H R Bhardwaj at the KPSC premises for the diamond jubilee inauguration event of KPSC. Wednesday, 18th May 2011. - Nishant Ratnakar/DNA
Wednesday morning coverage of the Diamond Jubilee inauguration of Karnataka Public Service Commission(KPSC) could have been just another event if not for the events chief guests – Governor HR Bharadwaj, and Chief Minister B S Yedyurappa – the two people, at loggerheads in the current political drama in the state. Them sharing the same podium, was medias’ ‘orgasmic’ moment.
Shutterbugs in hordes along with cameramen and correspondents who either tugged at their notepads or microphones, waiting impatiently for the guests to arrive. Rumour had it that the Governor would submit his resignation at the end of the day. And everyone there wanted a reaction from the Governor to end the speculation.
The CM presenting Governor with a bouquet, started the ‘show’ and the cameras didn’t stop clicking after that. Every movement was captured, to be dissected in the newsroom later. There seemed to be no tension between the two as they sat next to each other exchanging words. For the next one hour, all cameras were glued on to the podium observing the body language and every single move made by the state actors. Every time the two spoke or shook hands, the camera flashguns fired rapidly. And this would be repeated even every time one of them raised a finger to wipe the sweat of their eyebrow.
Then came the moment the Governor addressed the gathering. His excellency spoke of the importance of public service commission, the constitution and the judiciary in this democracy. Every statement he made was analysed by our conspiracy theorists to squeeze any remote reference to his rumoured resignation or even to alleged differences with the Chief Minister. But it were not to be so. And it was ‘game-set-match’ for conspiracy theories when the Governor praised the Chief Minister as a hard working man who puts in nearly 20 hours everyday to his work.
The event came to an end as the Chief Minister made way for the Governor to leave the podium. This was probably one of those rare moments when the Chief Minister got to his car without any camera following him. It was his quickest exit ever as the entire media fraternity had surrounded the Governor to prevent him from leaving the venue without giving a sound byte.
There was a media frenzy as journalists, security personnel, police, and Governor’s staff jostled around pushing each other in the line of their ‘respective duties’. Tensions soared high as everyone kept screaming at each other and falling over. The Governor finally answered a ‘No’ to the question, putting an end to the rumour as he left the KPSC premises.
Before everyone could come to terms with what had happened, somebody had lost a camera cable, few correspondents discovered their footwear had gone missing, and police officers had lost their badges. This collective sense of loss had united the people who were fighting each other moments earlier. And it further reached a happy ending when all agreed that ‘our system’ was good, as in a neighboring state no cameras would be allowed within fifty meters radius of the Governor.
The Ice-candy seller outside KPSC had a great day as TV news crew kept going back for more while they went live to update the country with the political drama unfolding in the state. Somebody suggested to him that he should shift to Raj Bhavan Road by evening as Chief Minister was scheduled to visit the Governor then. I don’t know if he followed the advice as I stayed away from the action for rest of the evening.
Posted in Blog, Photojournalism
Also tagged bangalore, governor, hr bhardwaj, india, indian, journalism, Karnataka, kpsc, media, politics, yeddyurappa
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My Deepawali
Today, as I look back into my childhood years, Deepawali (Diwali) was always a fun affair. We used to head to grandpa’s place in Pangala every year, and celebrate Deepawali in the company of cousins and other relatives. It was a big thing from a child’s perspective. Grandpa’s verandah (and our cricket pitch) would be the location where we played with fireworks and crackers. It was a village setting: bustling with celebration in tiny areas, but yet peaceful. It was in contrast with the Diwali that I got to indulge in Bangalore as I grew older. Too many people, too much of noise, and too much of pollution in the air. As I grew older, I began to dislike taking part in it.
Looking back, another realization hits me hard. I only have memories of Deepawali, but no photographs…
We were too busy and involved in the festivities and never bothered to record those events on a camera. After all, those days shooting in film and developing it was a costly affair. There were no digital cameras then. However, on one particular Deepawali (I don’t remember which year it was, but it was around a solar eclipse) dad’s close friend from United Kingdom was visiting us. He had something called as a Handycam - an analog video camera that recorded footage in small video cassettes. I was bowled over looking at it. He had record some celebrations held at our Bangalore home, but I have no clue where that tape is now. Anyways, bottom line is that there are no photographs from my hay days of celebrating the festival of lights.Circa 2010 AD, Arnav (my nephew) is at our home and it is Deepawali again. At least, let his Deepawali be documented in frames for him to look back and cherish the memories from his growing-up years. With that thought, I picked up my camera on a holiday and went about photographing things that I loved. But, it was an anti climax!
Arnav didn’t seem to enjoy the noise on the streets. He retreated, with rest of the family, back into the safety of our apartment. I was left stranded amidst strangers and the noise that I have grown to dislike. Even I withdrew from the scene in few minutes. And I went about searching for things that spoke to me about the festival and that I could relate with. In tranquil locations, not far from the epicenter of pollution, I did find elements that spoke of Deepawali in a language I could related to…
And then I said, Happy Deepawali everyone.
Hope you have a great year.
P.S: I love Deepawali, but not the way most of us celebrate it.
Posted in Blog, Personal
Also tagged celebration, deepawali, diwali, festival, lights, noise
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