My first project was a simple camera

I always remained curious to know secrets of any working system. I came to know about my creativity at the age of 13 when I found a simple convex lens that fascinated me a lot. Initially I used to make fun by burning some papers in the Sun. But, when I saw some images of clouds along with the bright spot on the paper, I discovered its useful property. It was not difficult for me to imagine the working principle of a camera when I saw someone using a box camera. 

I started making a camera on my own. Used tin sheet of a used container, cardboard, inkpot lid, a part of a electric bulb holder, a small hammer, (the brass lever of an ordinary water tap was fixed with a small wooden stick) a small wooden block and an old rusted scissors. The paper back of a used film and empty rolls were used to make the necessary measurements.

Started my work in the corner of a room of our small house. As my family considered it a nuisance, I had to carry on my work in the open on the roof top of our giant building of several houses. The other children were mostly busy flying kites.  Elder used to pass joking comments.  Some of my age group used to watch my activity, frequently picking up some item and asking me " ye kya he?  Kya kr rehe ho? ( What is this? What are you doing? ".  During summer noon I used to work all alone under scorching heat, dusty winds.

 Designed the shutter system on my own and used a piece of cycle's rubber tube as a replacement for the spring. Finally when it got ready in about six months,  it was tested by using real camera film. Used my six months pocket money  ( Rs. 3 and 75 paise) to purchase and develop the film. Took the same empty rolls to the photographer's shop to purchase a similar film. It was very difficult to convince my friends and parents to pose before my ugly looking camera.  Tried it on my younger sister and other kids.

The most difficult part was to get the film developed. Although I was very confident of the results, I was not able to prepare myself to face the humiliation from my friends in case it flops. Kept postponing going to the photographer to collect the prints. Made several rounds to his shop to see if there is no other customer and he is alone. 

Finally I dared to collect the prints from the photographer. Can still remember my heartbeats when he looked at my face and gave a strange smile. He asked me, "which camera are you using?" As I was already prepared for this question, I replied that it is not mine and I am taking it on behalf of someone else. He said, " Some five prints are good and for the rest the light was not sufficient. So, he has created the positives for only five prints." Within minutes I reached my home to give the news to my parents. They were surprised to see the results. Thus, by developing a working camera at the age of 13 years, I became the youngest scientist among my friends. 

This is my first camera. Picture taken by my second camera

Photo by this camera

My sister

My school honored me with the post of president of Science Association during 1961-63.

My projects for the next  years were a motion picture projector and a singing alarm gramophone.

My singing alarm

I have also observed strange phenomena during the use of my gramophone as an alarm clock. I attached it to an old clock to let it play as an alarm clock. I used it to wake me up in the morning during my exams. After about two months I noticed that I was getting up from my sleep just few seconds prior to my singing alarm. Later whenever these songs were being relayed from the radio station I found my self just singing without being aware of their actual broadcasting. I used to confirm by switching on the radio to test if the song that I am remembering is being relayed. Many times it was found to be matching. This explains that the brain is capable of picking signals from electronic devises but is not programmed and trained to identify them. The same can be otherwise where brain is supposed to be sending electromagnetic signals that can be recorded by electronic gadgets or directly by other person's brain.

One more camera under development

Ready to work

Photo enlarger

The success story

The above picture is by self made camera of  1967. The picture is of my sister's son. The camera was capable to take multiple shots on same area of film. Taking such pictures was like creating a movie scene.  The child is actually looking at me when I was pulling the camera button with a string in my hand. Lot of family members were around. I was to take care of mood and pose of the child. Oh yes, the flower pot in the middle was also created by me. This flower pot shows my ability to create beauty out of waste items.  When we shifted to newly built government flat, two building construction iron rods were found as waste material.

During those days I was having hundreds of friends. Every body wanted me to try trick photography for their family. My residence was like a picnic spot on every holiday. They used to bring the film role for their use. But they all left when my camera got rusted.

My first day of joining my job at Central Water Commission was very interesting. I saw a new India that I had never imagined. I was very nervous when a peon took me to a room and told to a Homi Bhabha look like person , " Aap ke pas kam krenge. ( he will work with you). Homi Jehangir Bhabha (30 October 1909 – 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist, founding director, and professor of physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Colloquially known as "father of the Indian nuclear programme", Bhabha was also the founding director of the Atomic Energy. The person was reading news paper. He asked me to take the chair and continued reading paper. There was another person reading a magazine. A young lady was sorting some magazines and entering some contents in a register. On  one side of the room some cylinders filled with muddy water were kept on a large table. There was a familiar oven, pipet, balance and some other items. At about 11 AM tea was served by the peon. One draftsman and a tracer were sitting at the other corner of the room. The place looked like a common room where jokes and gossiping was a way of passing time. Now the  Homi Bhabha type person started telling his story of frustration to me.  He told, " I joined here as Research Assistant and likely to retire without any promotion. You are young and can find some better organization or you will spoil your life like me".  When he uttered a very ugly joke of an elephant, all his personality of  Homi Bhabha transformed to cheap vegetable seller.  In the evening, the person went to the table where some cylinders of muddy water were kept. He took contents of the muddy water with a pipet and collected samples in different discs. The discs were transferred to an oven. I could see the erroneous method of pipet use. The procedure of sample collection was over in five minutes. On third day discs were taken out of oven, cooled and weighed. Some calculations were carried out to find the contents of the discs. All this was to find out grain size of soil samples. At that time idea of a new Grain Size Distribution Detector  for different soil samples came to my mind. After some time a could see a different test for soil samples in the adjacent room. Samples were being given different pressures to test their strength to bear vertical and horizontal load.  Huge quantity of mercury was being used to create lateral pressure around the soil samples. Once large quantity of mercury was lost. There was police investigation but the mystery of lost mercury was not solved. At that time I got the idea of  a lateral pressure device.

Model of a lateral pressure device

I remained too curious to know about Ghosts, God and all that people used to talk about. I have written papers on gravitational attraction, surgery under pressure and have developed volumes of software codes related to real time data bases and river flow forecasting models. I learned computer programming on my own and enjoyed software development like a game of chess. During the last 20 years of my government job I continued software development for my office and applied my simple and straightforward style of thinking. Although I joined my office not as a programmer but my capability to create unique software packages helped me attain a working environment of my liking. But, as politics is more powerful and ruthless than science and technology, majority of us adopt it to win the opponent for our narrow gains and comfort. I too become the victim of my jealous colleagues who tried to block my research and development work related to software. As I never compromised with my freedom of thinking, and always wanted to live without shackles, I took premature retirement.

 Today (Nov/2002), at the age 57 years, I am still curious to know my own self. I can feel the freshness of my conscious system as it used to be at the age of 6 months but can feel the weakening of my physical system. During all the years of my life, I have been developing a hypothesis to satisfy my own curiosity regarding my own thinking system. 

My logic is based on my real experiences of life. By being born in India, I got the chance to interact with some mysterious persons. A man was able to predict future by some "Siddhi" technique

I was very lucky to have some very real experience of some thing called "Khumari".

During some experiment on plants, I could find that a charge like field exists that has a link to its structural growth. If this field is disturbed, the growth of plant gets effected. It suggests that some very important charge like medium may be involved for overall control of a living organism. Homeopathy, a proven science, too appears to be working by interacting with similar kind of field. I have tried homeopathy as a hobby and have observed its curing power. I am too keen to know the real mechanism of homeopathic action. Until now it is based on proving and observations. It is generally prescribed to a patient on hit and trial basis. It can access our central controlling unit, but we are ignoring it as an unimportant branch of science. Those who are associated with this mysterious science are only interested to use it as a profession.

We can prove that the head, brain and its neurons are not the actual seat of power for a living body as we can create a condition to keep alive the main structure of any living creature without its original head. I have observed such a condition for a small creature.

Recently I have also written my views on the human thinking system, brain, memory and the time. 

Can we really think ?