“Daddy, that’s a loudspeaker!” exclaimed a younger me. I had
drawn a huge triangular shape on a large A1 sheet. It was a 5 year old’s delineation
of a rusty ‘Ahuja’ trumpet horn
speaker. I found trumpet horn speakers fascinating. They are conical structures
with a tapered frustum protruding from within them. These days you would only
find them hanging atop railway platforms used to announce vital train stats. I
wondered how they could produce such loud volume that reverberated through an
entire field. Dad used to provide innumerous drawing sheets and color crayons
so I could portray my imagination on the sheets. He used to say “This is real
learning.” Time flew, I grew.
I developed the habit of painting in my early childhood.
Though I wasn’t a good painter in any sense, but I was given a small area of
freedom of expression. I was given the clean white sheet which was mine. I
could draw anything on it, just anything. That could be a hat, a cat, a dog, a
car or any whiskery person I found captivating on the road. So I tried
mastering the art. Mum and Dad invigorated me to follow my intuition and draw
just anything I liked. This is how it should always be. When I’ll become a
father, I’ll make sure I fully equip my children with tools that they can use
to express themselves. Times will change and the medium will change, but they
will keep on innovating and inventing as they would not fear to tread the
untrodden.
From the past few months, I had been researching quite a lot
about DSLR cameras online. I watched YouTube clips where filmmakers sought to
DSLRs to create some film sequences. I was glued to how they could take studio
quality photos and documentary style movie. I have always had the creative soul
inside me. Always wanted to create things with tools that I found enchanting. I
had stopped painting long back, and was very idle since past few months. I
didn’t write for the blog, didn’t research on anything new. I wanted a new
passion that I could develop. So I had the urge to have one. I called dad and
asked him. He assured me that he would get one for me during the Puja holidays.
I was happy. I was finally getting a new tool.
By a certain turn of events, dad told me that he couldn’t
get me the DSLR. I was gloomy. It felt like I was denied my freedom of
expression. I requested him if he could reconsider my plea. He just asked for
time. And I had none. If I have an urge, and I train my brain that I can’t have
it, then my faith on the idea is prone to flinching and wavering. But something
about this passion endured it. I was losing sanity at the thought that I really
wouldn’t have it. I was looking too hard for a silver lining but could find
none. Being a father is not easy. Dad somehow detected that I badly needed it.
So dad surprised me by gifting me a Canon EOS 700D. My first
DSLR. Thank you dad. Thank you for keeping the flame of creativity alive inside
me. On our way back home with the DSLR, dad enquired me, “Remember the time in
your childhood you used to waste the outsized A1 sheet sketching huge
triangular shapes and called them loudspeakers?” I blurted “Yes dad.” He said,
“I used to provide you them so you could always keep on expressing yourself and
I made sure you never ran out of sheets.” “This DSLR is just another such sheet.
So go ahead and capture your imagination.” It was one of those exultant moments
that I wouldn’t forget the rest of my life.
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