Through its Lens: A Journalist's Eulogy for His Shattered Camera

A camera is a journalist’s best friend. If journalism is the first draft of history, photographs are the footnotes on which the written word stands.

It was with these ideas that I brought my first Digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera with money given to me by my father: a Canon EOS 60D with an 18-55mm lens included. The 600D seemed inadequate for my professional needs, the 70D was expensive, and the 6D, significantly more so.

I was a journalist surrounded by photographers and photographs, but I had never owned a camera. So, in 2014, when my camera, ordered online, found its way to The Caravan office in the Delhi Press building, I could not contain my excitement. I stared at the Snapdeal box that lay unopened on my desk for about a minute—gasping and dreaming of the possibilities that lay ahead.