Chapter 34: The Unveiling
May 1983 – Singh Technologies, Lucknow
The early summer winds of May whispered differently this year. There was still heat in the air, yes—but layered under it was excitement. Anticipation. After nearly a year of building, tweaking, testing, and reimagining, Singh Technologies was ready.
The prototypes were no longer concepts.
They were real. Working. Functional.
They glowed and clicked and rolled on rails. They recorded, edited, layered. They gave voice to India's oldest stories and filmed its youngest dreams.
A new brass plate was added beneath the original one at the Media R&D Wing:
> 🎬 "Now Operational: Field-Tested Tools for Cinema & Sound"
Innovation in service of imagination.
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The Final Breakthrough
The final breakthrough had come just two weeks ago—in the still, late hours of a humid May night.
A new build of the CineEdit 1.0 software had finally allowed users to cut and rearrange film clips on a computer interface. It wasn't fancy. It was blocky, slow, and sometimes it stuttered. But it worked.
It could cut.
It could reorder.
It could fade scenes.
It could overlay audio tracks.
It was, in every sense, a revolution.
The same week, their Swaranjali Music Console passed its final sound consistency tests. It could now record from three inputs, support basic reverb and tempo changes, and create clean cassette masters.
The whole team had stayed overnight in the lab, too excited to leave. Chai glasses piled up. A ceiling fan spun slow and loud overhead. Bharat had quietly smiled and whispered to himself:
> "This will change how India remembers its voice."
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From Workshop to World – Inviting the Industry
By the third week of May, letters were sent across the country:
To Bombay: directors, editors, producers.
To Calcutta and Chennai: music composers and classical vocalists.
To Doordarshan and AIR: sound engineers and government archivists.
To select drama troupes and folk artists: performance documenters.
And to schools and universities: young creators.
> "You are cordially invited to witness and test the next generation of Indian film and music tools, developed in-house at Singh Technologies, Lucknow. Field-tested. Simple. Affordable. Built for Bharat."
Some were curious.
Some were skeptical.
But most… said yes.
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The Seminar – May 25 to June 3, 1983
The event was held across ten days, between the last week of May and the first week of June, in Singh Technologies' courtyard and main auditorium.
Temporary shade tents were erected. Water coolers hummed. Mango trees on the edge of the property buzzed with bees and hot breeze. Lucknow, as always, wore its summer heat like a silk shawl.
The first morning began with a full house.
Wooden chairs lined the courtyard. Fans whirred loudly overhead. The guests included:
Rakesh Mehra, a rising director known for art-house realism
Jatin-Subir, twin composers from Calcutta who blended sitar with jazz
Meenakshi Rao, a famed radio announcer and playback vocal coach
Yusuf Ali, a Doordarshan technician who edited every week by hand
Young students from Lucknow University and FTII Pune
Ajay stepped forward first, holding the microphone with practiced calm. Behind him stood the team, and quietly, at the far side near the back, stood Bharat—observing everything.
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The Speech – From Dream to Demonstration
"Ladies and gentlemen," Ajay began, "Thank you for coming to what we believe may be the beginning of a movement. Not of spectacle. But of access."
He paused.
"A year ago, we had an idea. What if film-making tools didn't belong only in big studios? What if sound recording didn't demand thousands in rupees, but hundreds? What if a village could tell its own story, and edit it the same day?"
The crowd listened.
"We're not offering perfection," he continued. "We're offering possibility."
He stepped back, and Anant Verma took over.
One by one, the team introduced:
The CineEdit 1.0: a computer-based, timeline-style editing tool for film and audio.
The Light Dome Rig: modular white/amber lighting with a motor track.
The Camera Dolly Rail: built using bicycle wheels, designed for smooth village terrain.
The Swaranjali Console: a three-input music recorder with reverb and tempo control.
The Voice of India Library: recorded samples in 12 Indian languages with emotion-based voice overlays.
Each tool was introduced with a small demonstration. Technicians explained how it worked, what it needed to operate, and how even first-time users could master it in hours.
And then came the invitation.
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Test and Tell – The Field Trials
"Now," said Ajay, "you try. All of you."
"Use them. Test them. Play with them. Record a song. Cut a scene. Build something. We'll provide technicians, power, equipment—and chai."
The next several days became a festival of creation.
In one corner, a young editor from Bombay used CineEdit to recreate a scene from a short film he'd brought on tape. "This would've taken me three days," he muttered. "I did it in thirty minutes."
In the sound lab, Jatin-Subir plugged in their portable tanpura and created a live sample with layered sitar and harmonium. "This machine can sing," one of them whispered.
Meenakshi Rao tested the Swaranjali to record a short thumri. When the playback played, her eyes shimmered. "It captured my voice like water in glass."
Bharat stood beside her quietly.
"You," she said, "you're the little boy who made this?"
He shook his head. "No. I just remembered what it could be."
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Free for One Month – A Gift, Not a Product
On the final day, a printed notice was handed to every guest:
> All equipment demonstrated during this seminar will be made available, free of cost, for field trials for one full month.
Use it in your projects. Explore. Push it. Break it, if needed.
We'll learn together.
There was applause.
Even the skeptics, by then, were silent.
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Closing Moment – Ajay and Bharat
That evening, long after the crowd had dispersed and the fans had slowed to stillness, Ajay found Bharat sitting alone on the courtyard step, barefoot, legs folded.
"You okay?" Ajay asked.
Bharat nodded.
"You were quiet through all this."
"I didn't need to talk," Bharat said softly. "They understood."
Ajay smiled. "What now?"
Bharat looked up at the sky. "Now we wait. See what they create. Then… we build the next thing."
Ajay sat beside him. No words. Just the warmth of June twilight, and the scent of jasmine drifting across a courtyard that, just yesterday, held the future in its hands.
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