My Blog

     Ever since I shot my first picture with a Kodak instamatic, the ones that required a magnesium flash cube, I was hooked on photography. To be sure, it was the explosion of light that attracted me, and not the craft itself, but it sparked the beginning of a passion.

     My first real camera was an Olympus OM-2. It was a marvel, even though it was second-hand, had no shutter control, and still smelled of the sweat of its former lovers. Looking through its viewfinder, trying hard to focus, holding it against my face, I was an apprentice to wonderful magic: capturing light on paper.

     It was frustrating, that craft. Many a moment passed unrecorded. Many a frame got burned, overexposed; I once shot an entire 36-frame roll of film and managed to get 2 shots. Another time, I forgot to put in film. Oh, an exacting taskmistress she was. Oh, what a clumsy student, me.

     And then, my mistakes bore fruit. One good photograph followed another, and yet another. By that time, I had access to a Canon and a Nikon (and virtually unlimited film). I began to bring out, on glossy paper, the emotions that I saw with my heart. One instance comes to mind: a photograph of my enamorata as she was reading  a letter that I just gave her, taken at THE exact moment when she smiled. Well, things didn’t turn out well in the long run, but that’s for another blog…

     Save for the occasional photo taken through a cellphone, I haven’t fired a shot for three years. I haven’t handled a camera since. I miss the scent of new film, the excitement of stepping outdoors, looking for that great shot. It is like being away from your love, and missing the feel of her hand and the scent of her near you.

     Click.

     It was tuli season again. Children squirmed as mothers dragged them towards the health center. There were a few brave boys who came alone. Everyone invariably wore extra large shirts, some so large as to almost cover the feet of the wearer. They came in droves. Here and there were the inquisitive, who peeked into every window, to see how the tuli is done.

     And here comes my first client. He was shaking almost as hard as I was.

     Only after much coaxing were we (yes, it took three of us) able to inject some anesthetic into our unwilling patient. After a while, the time came for us to turn the boy into a man.

     First, the straight forceps. I had to clip it onto the foreskin. Unsure of my abilities, I first tried locking and unlocking it, to practice. "Click-click-click!" "Tttrrrrrrriiiiik!"

     Our patient let out a yell, and sobbed in sheer fright. "What’s wrong? We haven’t even touched you yet!" It transpired that he thought we were already cutting into him, and, on cue, he screamed. Naturally, he hadn’t been in pain, much less, felt anything. This is going to be tough, I thought.

     The first cut. Remember to angle the blades upward, I thought to myself, in order to avoid injury to the glans. Snip! Snip! Snip! Not too much! Whew!

     And, blood! Wipe, wipe, wipe, then stitch! I was sweating. I was shaking. And this was supposed to be routine? Stop thinking, and keep stitching, I told myself.

     "Are you doing it ’skin-to-skin’, Bullets?", my classmate asked me.

     "Er, yeah, right, I am", even though I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

     Stitch, stitch, stitch, while the patient goes, yell, yell, cry, curse. Wonder of wonders, I’m almost done! After two tries at locking the suture, finished na iya penis, mam!

     Outside, our client’s friends were sniggering. Outside, our client’s mother is smiling faintly; the clinic’s walls were thin, and her child’s yells transmitted to the outside with high fidelity. But, now, the kid, sensing that it’s done, has quieted down.

     We dressed the wound, cleaned our client up, and released a man into the world.