The rocket failed to take off!

Desikan Krishnan shares his experience as a photojournalist, highlighting the hits, the misses, the goof-ups and the people.

SLV-3 blasts off into a clear morning sky from Sriharikota on April 17, 1983. Photo: The Hindu Archives

I was assigned to cover the launch of SLV-3 in Sriharikota, in the early 1980s. Since photographers were not allowed inside the campus, they had to position themselves at the SHAR gate, about 2 km away from the launch pad. Very few photographers attempted the shoot.

Armed with an FM transistor, which was capable of picking up the countdown commentary on a certain frequency, I left for Sulurpet, the nearest town from Sriharikota, the previous evening. There I met a senior photographer, who had covered the earlier launch. He offered to guide me and that put me at ease.

The next morning, we chose an open field outside the SHAR complex and began to scan the horizon. My friend, the senior photographer, was excited as he pointed out the tail of the rocket. I mounted my camera on a tripod after identifying the target — the rocket’s tail. I decided to follow the rocket once it took off. I then switched on the transistor and tuned to the FM frequency and drew a blank. I then requested a colleague who had accompanied me to position himself at the SHAR gate where the countdown would be audible. He was to race back to our spot in a taxi we had hired. We had positioned another person on the road between us and the SHAR gate to signal us once the taxi started.

Satisfied that we had covered all factors, we waited and even indulged in small talk to ease our tension. The only thing we were afraid of was that the rocket could get into sudden cloud cover.

I was shooting with a 400MM lens and, as it was positioned against the sky, I decided to shoot at one stop over the exposure metre reading to get some detail on the rocket.

There was the signal; the person on the road waved his white handkerchief to indicate that the countdown had started; we waited and nothing happened. There was a snag and the launch was put off by 30 minutes. The process was repeated after half an hour. This time it was a perfect take-off, and I began to shoot using a motor drive, but the object we had fixed our focus on did not take off.

It was the shaven head of a coconut or palmyra tree that looked like the tail of a rocket from a distance. As the camera was fixed on to the tripod, I could not shift it around in a hurry to track the rocket.

I came back, crestfallen and feeling sheepish, but with a story to tell.