LOOKING BACK WITH AMUSEMENT

The initial spark for writing this small autobiographical piece was provided by Usha Vaidyanathan in one of her Blog post. Having recorded this much earlier, I decided to go on air ( should I use the phrase?) now.

The earliest memory of my life was when I was a little over three years. Elders in the family used to say that children in our neighborhood were inconsolably afraid of me and would keep themselves away from me, should they sighted me, as I had the ill reputation of biting unprovoked, every child I encountered, though there were no warning signs on my back, unlike David Copperfield, alerting the children around me to be beware of my bite. I was also considered to be extremely active and would not hesitate walking for long distances when escorted by elders. The urge to walk long distances remains with me even today. Many of my letters and writings were drafted mentally, during my long, lonely walks.

As our Building was in the neighbourhood of our School, I was admitted to first standard in this neighbourhood school. In those days, there were no kinder garten schools and boys and girls were admitted to first standard on attaining six years. Many younger children, who had nuisance value at home, were also admitted in the school, on exaggerated age. My first teacher was Rao Sir – an old man who would come in dothi draped in the traditional way, cotton coat and a maroon Gandhi cap. I vividly remember how he demonstrated, with the help of a foot- rule, the way Rama broke the bow to win over Seetha. The Head master of the School stayed in our building and this helped me to tell, school-boyish lies to my classmates that the headmaster was my uncle. Ramanathan, a tiny timid boy, was mortally afraid of me because of this myth. Ironically, today it is my basic philosophy that nobody should be afraid of me.

In the building, Rajaram, the second son of Ramudu mama (a classmate of my father) was as close to me as Ramudu mama himself was to my father. Rajaram’s pyjamas would barely extend below his knees. His elder brother was years older to us and we would look at him with awe. His height, muscles and ready wit beckoned us to him. Even today, we cherish his way of looking at things and describing them. Ramu, another vagabond boy in the building was our hero. We would look at him with great enthusiasm as he would narrate the stories of movies he had seen (or pretended to have seen), featuring Chrlie Chaplin, Gope and Yakub, the leading comedians of the day. Ramu would say quite often that he was very good in wrestling and in the same breadth would add that my elder brother was equally good in boxing though I could hardly distinguish between the two modes of fight. Ravi, the only son of a Reserve Bank Officer, was a fine young boy, who later on went to IIT in its early batches. He is some-where at Chennai now. We had one or two other mischievous boys, whose prattles are proverbial in the neighbourhood.

In those days, for 5th standard to 8th standard, one had to go to a school a little away, as the main building of the school, could not accommodate all the students . The other school building was a long shed, consisting of a number of class rooms. If 5th and 6th standard were in one wing, 7th and 8th standard were in the other wing. I used to go to school along with Rajaram, who was two years senior to me. Joseph and Bhaskaran were the two leading sports boys of the school and both of them commanded fierce loyalty among students, as the East Bengal and Mohan Bagan foot ball teams do today. Bhaskaran being the social underdog, many of us extended our arms to Bhaskaran. Polly Umrigar, Hazare and Amarnath provided us inspiration.

When I was in my 5th standard, one day in the afternoon, my aunt’s son Padmanabhan ( we have too many Padmanabhans in our family) came to my class, spoke something to my class teacher and was immediately asked to go home along with me. On reaching home, my, aunt, who was crying, told me amidst her cry that my father had died ( ‘Onga appa chetthupoyachuda’) in Tamil. I was asked to take bath immediately, and I did not know what to do. As I was hardly 10 years old, and having been away from my parents for over six months, the impact of the news was not severe enough to shock me. Two days later, we four – myself, elder brother Padmanabhan, cousin Padmanabhan and my aunt proceeded to Trivandrum. I did’nt realize at that time that I would return back only seven and a half years later, after completing my school. I descended down at Dadar again, barefooted, with a folded dothi and half sleeved shirt seven and a half years later, to pick up the thread, I left behind.

I certainly 'look back with' amusement and not 'Anger'.