M. J. Rajeev Gowda is a talented photographer from Kolar. His photographs have been exhibited at several places. He has been an enthusiastic admirer of Bappa's books for a long time, and then he saw this picture (shown below).
He writes: (translated from Kannada; paraphrased)
One of the complex experiences in life happens when a person you were familiar with, but one you least expected, goes on to achieve great things in life, and you exclaim "I can't believe he did that!" Quite another type of excitement happens when suddenly you realize the person you accidentally met (like in front of you in a line) is a great man you admire. The thrill is even more when you don't recognize the person immediately, but have a good time with him anyway, and only later come to know of his identity, and exclaim "I can't believe it was he!"
When I saw the picture of the smiling man in front of the closed, dusty doors of Scientific Photo Lab, I felt this second type of trembling joy. I just couldn't believe it was the same man I had met accidentally in 1992, and even had learnt a few photography tricks from! I just did not know this Kamat was the same Kamat who captured our imagination via his travelogues, research, and website for so long!
My buddy Mallikarjuna, also a great admirer of Kamat, deeply regrets even today that he never got a chance to meet Kamat in person. Coincidentally, I had not only met Kamat, but had been his customer/student. Through my interactions with him, I had recognized Kamat's extreme simplicity, his refusal to get rich from his talents, and his helpful nature of sharing his own light. What I didn't know was it was that gentleman in that tiny shop of Malleswaram was Dr. Krishnanand Kamat!
I Can't Believe That was Adiga
Q: How does the teacher know the students cheated?
A: They all have made the same mistake!
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| Mistaken Identities | |
Poet Gopalakrishna Adiga was frequent visitor to Bappa's lab, so was poet V.G. Bhat. That was twenty years ago, and my visual memory failed me and once I made the mistake of identifying Bhat as Adiga. After a relative of Adiga contacted me, I promptly apologized and corrected it (see Vikas's Goof Log).
Anyway, the funny part is, all those people who had stolen our pictures over the years didn't know that I made the mistake, and it was a tell tale evidence of their content theft!
What is surprising is, Yahoo
Search's top match is making the same mistake. Perhaps their crawl-cache is
old, but now you know who the culprit is. 
