Story of a 100-year-old camera, Rajan uncle & else

People close to me know about my love and craze for antiques, especially Indian fountain pens, watches and spectacles. Few months back my elder cousin brother who lives in my father's ancestral home offered me his late father's spectacles which he had preserved safely. I refused to take it because my brother had kept it very fondly and safely in memory of his father. Few weeks after that incident my uncle in Bombay gave me his 40-year-old Seiko 5 automatic watch when he knew about my love for old watches and about my modest collection. It was the watch he had asked his friend who was then working in the Gulf to bring for him. My uncle had used it for long, and later kept it in his cupboard, almost as if forgotten, when he got newer watches. After years when he took it out to give me, he and I were pleasantly surprised. A couple of shakes and the automatic watch started working! Similarly, my friend's mother, too, gave me her HMT Asha which she had used while she was doing her graduation. I had refused to take it, too, because it would have very good memories attached to it. But she insisted that I take it. 

Yesterday, I was very blessed and deeply fortunate to get another antique item which had scores of memories attached to it. I was at my another elder cousin brother's home (Mine is a very big family with both my father and maternal grandmother having 9 siblings each!). He called me into his room saying he had something for me. I went in with no clue what he was talking about. He placed at my hand a small, dusty, black, iron box. Before I could ask him what it was he said that it was a very old camera which he had got as a gift from his father-in-law. I was shockingly surprised! Shocking because I wondered how that crude a box could be a camera. It was a plane black iron box, with two small dust laden glass pieces and three holes covered with glasses which I, after my brother telling me, knew were lenses. There was a small circular screw with which the back side could be opened. It had a tiny leather strap that served as a carrier, and had 'Kotak London' printed on it. My brother, who is a photographer by profession, could get a hang of the antique camera easily and explained to me quite a bit about its working. But, I was not satisfied. I wanted to hear it from his father-in-law who had gifted it to him. I somehow guessed that there would be stories attached to it, for I knew that my brother's father-in-law, Mr Rajan, was neither a professional photographer nor had gone abroad.

(The camera need not be raised to the level of the eye; it was to be kept at the level of the photographer's stomach and the glass piece on the camera's side facing the photographer would show the image that was about to be captured.)

Late evening my brother and I reached the house where Rajan uncle was staying. He wasn't there then but when I showed my brother's wife the camera and told her that I wanted to speak to her father to know the story behind it she was happy, and, as if like a gentle warning, told me that her father, who is otherwise very silent and reserved by nature, is known to talk a lot about stories of his youthful days, so much so that they had to often start a countdown for him to stop reciting his stories! My excitement peaked, for I love to hear stories of good old days. 

When Rajan uncle returned home I showed him the camera and told him that his son-in-law had showed it to me and explained a bit of its working but I wanted to know more. "It looks so old," I told him. "Very," he said. "At least 100 years old!" For a second I could not believe my ears. "What!" I exclaimed. "Yes. I am sure it is at least 100 years old," and immediately added, "I had had got it from my friend in 1973." My excitement found a higher peak. I knew for sure that if uncle could recollect the year he is sure to remember the story, too. I volleyed him with questions like who was the person who gifted this to you, why did he gift this, were you a photographer, et cetera. For the next half an hour he spoke of stories that were worth listening multiple times. 

He began... "It was 1973 and I was working in a hotel as a cleaner. I was 18 years old and I had gone to Bangalore (from his hometown Keralassery in Palakkad district of Kerala) in search of a job. I had to take up a cleaner's job in a hotel because I could not get a job elsewhere as I had failed my tenth standard examination. When I was working there I met this gentleman who later gifted me this camera. His name was Michael. Michael Rosemonde. His father was from Gujarat and mother from London. He was working in Rallis." "Do you know that company," he asked me. "Yes, the cycles; I have heard of them," I replied. "No. Not that. Cycle company was Raleigh and this is Rallis," he explained to me with the spellings. 

He continued... "He used to come to the hotel where I worked daily. Back then a Wills cigarette costed 20 paisa (Re 0.20). He used to smoke there daily and he used to engage me to get him the cigarette. He used to give me 25 paisa, 5 paisa as tips. This happened for few days and one day he asked me, "What is your name?" I did not know a word in English. I did not know what he had asked and looked at him blankly. Another person who heard this explained to me what he was asking. When I told him my name he asked me if I would be willing to work elsewhere if he found one for me. I replied in the positive. Very soon he found me a job in the bar of the prestigious Bangalore Club. It was a club where the elite used to come. I was very happy working there. The beer there costed Re 1 back then. But that was a big amount those days. We used to get a week's vegetables for Rs 10, a litre of petrol for Rs 2.75. Money has lost value now. Michael and I soon became very good friends. He told me that I should learn English. He started giving me English books to read." Taking a break from the story which I was listening with rapt attention, he said, "even though we are not interested or we do not understand what is written in a book by just looking through the pages we get a hang of few things like a sentences or two and few words and spellings. That is enough." "I started watching English movies," he said resuming the narration. "And soon, I started watching one English movie everyday. Many days he and I used to watch together. All of the English language that I learnt is because of him and him alone." 

Rajan uncle is sad that he does not know where his dear friend currently is. He even has doubts whether he is alive now because Mr Michael was, uncle told me, quite senior to him. "He had a home in Coonoor by the name Cortney. I have not gone there but he had told me." I was surprised that uncle even remembered the name of his friend's house which he had not visited even once but just heard of.

Rajan uncle heaps praise on Mr Michael. "He was a very good gentleman. He helped me a lot. Not only me, he helped many other people. One Mr Das was in love with a Brahmin lady but their families did not allow them to get married. They got married without the families' support and it was my friend Michael who gave them space to live in his house for few days." 

Rajan uncle recollects.. "Michael used to ride a Bullet bike. He used to really like his bike. But when he was getting old he was scared to ride his Bullet and got a car, a Fiat Standard. He used to tell that he was getting old and he needed a roof over his head and hence he bought a car." 

Rajan uncle also told me about a lady, whom he referred to as 'chechi' (elder sister in Malayalam) from Lingarajapuram, Bangalore who had helped him a lot during his stay in Bangalore till 1992. 

When Rajan uncle finished his stories and we were called for dinner, I asked my brother to click a picture of the three of us - Rajan uncle, the camera and me.

When Rajan uncle and his wife came back to their hometown in Kerala they carried with them two bags. One of very fond and harsh memories and the other of books that Rajan uncle had read and learnt during the course of his nineteen-year-long stay in Bangalore. The bag of books remained unopened for a long time, and recently when it was opened, his daughter said, more than half of it had been eaten away by the termites. 

Most things we use have scores of memories attached to them. Instead of simply throwing them let us all preserve them and tell to our younger generations stories and memories attached to them just like how Rajan uncle does.

Meet the Butterfly Man from Belvai, Karnataka

We all love butterflies. Many have noticed the drop in their number; few have bothered to find out why. Even fewer have taken the efforts to bring these beauties back to our lives. Mr Sammilan Shetty, 31, is one among these very few. ‘Sammilan Shetty’s Butterfly Park’ in Belvai, Karnataka spread over 7.35 acres of forested land is a result of his long years of relentless work and effort.

As a young boy, Shetty was no different from other children in terms of his love for butterflies. He ran behind them; he was fascinated by their colours and patterns. However, his fascination did not dwindle. Rather his curiosity and hunger to acquire more knowledge about these ‘winged jewels’ kept increasing. This led him to take up Zoology after schooling, and for his graduation project he did a study on local butterfly species in his native, Belvai.

The turning point, however, he says, was when he read ‘The Book of Indian Butterflies’ written by Mr Isaac Kehimkar. The book changed his life and made Shetty realize his calling. He converted the land he owned into an open conservation park for the butterflies. In 2013 the park was inaugurated by none other than the man whose book inspired him, Mr Isaac Kehimkar. Today his park hosts around 135 species of butterflies which also include ones that are endemic to the Western Ghats. This organization focuses on conserving butterflies as well as educating people, especially the younger generation, about the need for the conservation of these flying jewels. 

“For butterfly population to sustain we must have nectar plants as well as host plants, i.e., such plant species on which butterflies prefer to lay eggs,” says Shetty. Lemon trees, false ashoka, cinnamon, Ficus sp, mango, curry leaf, Hopea ponga trees are the most commonly found host tree species in his park which springs to beauty during the months of August to September when the butterfly population is most diverse.

As Shetty was explaining about these plant species and the egg laying pattern of butterflies, he suddenly shouted, “Look there! The Southern Birdwing,” pointing his finger towards a tree where this black and yellow beauty endemic to South India was seen flying magnificently. “The female of this species is India’s largest butterfly. It has a wingspan of 19cm!” Shetty explained.

However, his favourite butterfly isn’t the Southern Birdwing. “I want people to spot the Malabar Banded Peacock when they come here. That is my favourite and the park’s logo is this butterfly. I chose this not only because it is my personal favourite but because it is an exquisite butterfly endemic to Western Ghats.”

To two families from Mangaluru who had come to visit the park Shetty explained in detail, among much else, why different butterflies fly at different speeds. “There are butterflies that fly fast. It is because they have to escape from their predators. But there are butterfly species that fly very slowly and leisurely. These species are the ones that taste unpleasant and are distasteful to their predators. If at all any predator attacks these butterfly species and try to eat them the flavour of these butterflies make the predator spit them out.” He explained that in the caterpillar stage itself the toxins from the host plant get into them. It is retained inside the butterfly and it is the presence of these toxins that impart the unpleasant taste. Since every butterfly has their own host plant the characteristics vary.

Butterflies that are distasteful generally have prominent patterns on their wings. This helps the predators to distinguish them from other butterflies that are palatable. In the park, Shetty showed a female Great Eggfly butterfly which is palatable but, is known to uncannily mimic the pattern of toxic butterflies called Crow. This makes the female escape the predators.

       

        

During the walk through the park a Malabar Banded Peacock was spotted. Shetty’s excitement then was such that it is simply unexplainable in words. He talked of another special feature about that butterfly species. “The peacock blue colour of its wing is such that it displays two different shades when viewed from different angles.” Shetty's voice showed how amazed he was. He admits that the amazement has never died despite he having already seen the butterfly a lot number of times.

To every visitor in his park which is open to the public on Sunday mornings there is a power point presentation that Shetty gives showing beautiful photographs that he has captured and also videos of life stages of a butterfly, how they are attacked by predators, etc. One such video showed a special case where ants and butterflies shared a symbiotic relation, which is in stark contrast to the normal case. In this video, the ants were seen guarding the caterpillar and pupa of one of the Oakblue butterflies. Shetty explained that this was because the ants got honey dew from the caterpillars in return for the guarding work they do to the initial stages of the butterfly, thus preventing them from being attacked by other insect predators or parasitic wasps. He also said that this symbiotic relationship between ants and butterflies was seen only in lycaenidae family of butterflies.

Shetty chose his park to be an open conservation park where the butterflies have the freedom to fly out and enter the park at their wish. “By planting a lot of host and nectar plants we have given them a very good environment. Why will they not come here or want to go out?” he asks.

Butterfly Man Shetty, who holds an MBA degree in Tourism, is also a lecturer is a college in Mangaluru. But, Shetty is working on something big now and has taken a break from teaching. He is working on a documentary on the life of butterflies which will probably be a first of its kind on Indian butterflies. He ended his presentation by reiterating the causes for the reduction in the population of butterflies, viz., increased use of pesticides, deforestation, forest fires, and overgrazing resulting in habitat loss, and asking the visitors to try and plant at least few nectar and host plants in their home gardens.

(An edited version of this article appeared on The News Minute) 

Story of India's first crowd funded e-bike, SPERO

Ampere, BSA, Hero, Mahindra, TVS are all big names in the electric two-wheeler segment in India. 2016 has so far witnessed two startup launches in this segment. In February was launched Ather, a Bengaluru based company that germinated in the incubation cell of IIT Madras in 2013, and had later received jaw dropping funding from the founders of Flipkart and venture capital investment firm, Tiger Global, to the tune of Rs 6.3 crore and Rs 75.3 crore respectively. In contrast, the other launch, Spero, albeit sharing a few similarities with Ather in terms of technology, took to crowd funding to raise a sum of Rs 30 lakh. Partnering with Fuel a Dream, an online crowd funding platform, the Coimbatore based company has raised more money than what it aimed in just three months (At the time of writing the funding stood at 129%), and has earned the distinction of being India’s first crowd funded electric bike.

A management graduate by education but an engineer by practice, Spero’s founder thirty-nine-year-old Mr Shanmugasundaram Manikandan is also the Managing Director of Milltex Engineers Pvt Ltd, a company that has been dealing with textile machinery spares and innovation kits for almost four decades.   

“We are not from that league to convince someone to give us few million Dollars with just thoughts and ideas. We come from a brick and mortar family. I am a second generation businessman and I put my savings into this idea and made a prototype,” says Manikandan explaining why he resorted to crowd funding.

Spero’s crowd funding has become a success. It has already raised Rs 38,64,800 from 146 funders with few pre-ordering the vehicle and few others contributing as less as Rs 100 for the idea. Manikandan is completely overwhelmed by this. 

“The fact that we had people contributing money not to own a Spero but for the idea was visual when you had people contributing Rs 100, Rs 500, and Rs 1000. Hats off to those people! As per our charter we cannot give them a Spero but in return I can give them a good product, a good business opportunity for people. That is what we can show them in return for the trust they had in us. Our heart actually bleeds - a person who spent Rs 100 would have aspired to own a Spero but he couldn’t; this is all he could set aside. Wonderful! There is nothing overwhelming than this. It is as good as meeting a strong financier and taking money from him. We are taking this small token with humility.”

He further says that out of the 99 ‘backers’ for Speros, i.e., such people who have given money to own one for themselves, only 30 have done a test ride. Others, who form a majority, he says, have just seen the photographs and videos of the Spero online. “They have not even seen Spero in real. This is amazing! We are not Amazon to sell One Plus. We are Spero and Milltex,” explains Manikandan completely moved by the trust people have reposed in his new venture.

Makers of Spero are insistent that every feature of the vehicle must be used by its owner. They have thus tried to keep things as simple as possible. 

“There is a general theory that we use only 30% of our smartphone’s features. Even Steve Jobs might not have used all applications that were available in an Apple product. We do not want that to happen in the case of Spero. We would like people to use all the features. Therefore, we have ensured that everything is kept as simple as possible.”

Manikandan is quite confident that Spero is going to act as a benchmark in the electric two-wheeler segment. “For a simple electric bike, which is a pedaler, this is the platform. People will not accept anything inferior to this anymore,” says Manikandan exuding confidence in his product that will officially be launched in September.

Behind his confidence is not book or theoretical knowledge of how an electric bike can be manufactured but know-how gathered by trial and error.

“I wanted to make a product that will be a part of the solution to global warming. We had 7-8 young minds in our core team and we all came up with a list of products out of which Spero was chosen. But the problem was that we were neither cycle manufacturers nor electrical experts. We were mechanical people. Ludhiana is the hub of cycles for the world. It meant that what could be done there could be done in Coimbatore also. It is just geometry and putting together! We studied the history of cycles and tried a lot of combinations. We made few, pedaled them. We bought few from the market, broke them down. We understood minute things – raw material, thickness, tubes, etc. We learnt it this way. But cycle was just one aspect. Other was electrical. We split our team into two. Heart, the battery, was separated from the soul, the finesse. After about 9 to 12 months we had both ready.”  

Coimbatore based Manikandan does not want to limit the Spero within the boundaries of India; his thinking is global. A peek into his global thought was when this author heard him deliberate with one of his team members over phone about the number of digits required for the chasis number. “Let us increase the digits and make it 17; that happens to be the global standard,” he told his colleague. 

  

When asked about this he explains a bit further of another plan that is similar. “Electric bikes come under the unregistered system. But we don’t want it to be like that. Every vehicle we sell will have a unique serial number. Later, we also want to add a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag with the approval of the owner to tag the vehicle forever. It is pertinent that we give the government a way to track any vehicle that we sell.”  

But in his global thinking Manikandan affirms that it ‘shall not be done at the cost of the aspiring Indian.’ The first priority shall be India, he says, adding that by March 2020 they will have a presence in every Indian city. “There must be support and comfort for the buyer. Whatever happens they should have somebody to go to.”

Apart from being the first crowd funded bike in India, Spero also has the distinction of being the first Indian electric bike that uses regenerative braking technology. “A considerable amount of energy is wasted while braking. We did not want that to go wasted and to that effect we have incorporated regenerative braking by which that energy which would otherwise have been wasted goes to the battery and recharges it.” Recharging of the Li-ion battery which Spero uses also happens when the rider is using his energy and pedaling.   

Spero also boasts of a digital interface by which, Manikandan says, the rider can “talk to the Spero.” The interface will let the rider set speed limits, disable power connection from the battery, and also display information like the battery capacity, motor temperature, etc. There is also a cruise control activated when the Spero is driven at a constant speed for six seconds, thereby letting the interface take over and move the Spero at the same speed without having the rider to throttle. “When cruise control takes over you can leave your wrist to relax,” Manikandan says with a smile.

Manikandan is in love with Coimbatore, the city which has been his home. He wonders how Coimbatore missed being an automobile hub and wishes that Spero will bring a name to Coimbatore.

“The spirit of Coimbatore does not just mean entrepreneurship; it also means automobiles. People from Coimbatore like Karivardan (Indian formula racing driver and designer) and Narain Karthikeyan, Karivardhan’s father GKS Sir (referring to Lakshmi Mills founder G.K. Sundaram Naidu), ELGI Sir (referring to ELGI founder LRG Naidu), have all been auto enthusiasts. Somehow I fail to understand how Coimbatore missed becoming an auto cluster. It is an auto ancillary cluster but it never became an automobile cluster. The city is an education hub, machinery hub, medical tourism hub but somehow automobile is elusive. It is a golden opportunity. I thought why not give it a try. We chose electric because that is the future.”

Being a South Indian it is hard for anyone to miss the traditional three-course meal. Manikandan makes a comparison to the way a three-course meal is had to e-mobility and hybrid technology.

“In a three-course meal after having rice with sambar there will be a little bit of sambar left. You don’t wipe it off. The same happens after having rasam and then curd. There will be a bit of all these left on the plate. What we do is we take bit of rice and have it with all that remains on the plate. Why can’t we replicate this into mobility? Why can’t we have a mix of petrol, diesel and electric?”

Manikandan believes that with the risk of global warming looming large an immediate intervention is called for. In electronic vehicles he sees hope. “Hybrid has already been positioned but has not taken off. Electric has lost momentum. Now is the time to come back with a bang and say electric is the future.”

“For e-mobility to grow there has to be a people’s movement. We can’t wait till the end to make a change,” he adds.

He also shares his thoughts on using as many Indian made things in Spero as possible. In case of the motor and the battery, he says, there is no choice but to import. “I will say that we have a judicial mix of imported and Indian products. We want to have more of Indian than imported,” exuding hope that in the near future there will be some good motor and battery manufacturing units being set up in India.

(An abridged version of this article was published in The News Minute)

If you like to fund Spero or buy one, click here.