The family was also into sports, and I had taken up boxing and wrestling, but gave up when I was knocked down by my older brother. Instead, I turned to swimming, entering that year for district championship. I also made my first film around this time, with a 12 mm hand-cranked camera that my father used to make home films which he inflicted on guests. My film was called Chhuttiyon Mein Mauj Maza (Fun and Games on Holidays), starring everyone in the family. It was about a boy who gets lost during a picnic and is found after a long search.
On the day the Nizam's army surrendered, we went to watch the Indian army marching into the city. My father came along to take photographs. It was a memorable sight: the natty Major General J.N. Chaudhuri marching in with his men, while on a parallel road the Nizam's army retreated in trucks with white flags. The crowds greeted them with Inquilab Zindabad, and ran across to the Nizam's battalion hurling stones at the retreating trucks. A rock hit one of the retreating soldiers in the head and he started bleeding. We had just moved from medieval India to modern India—a journey of nearly 500 years accomplished in a little over a year.
