THE CHURNING OF THE OCEAN OF MY LIFE – CHAPTER 2
LEMON AND HONEY , A LITTLE
SALT KEEP OUR GUT CLEAN
IT SPEAKS ABOUT MY LIFE
The jealous man, who is
detestable, who always feels depressed, who gets angry without rhyme or reason,
who always doubts everyone and everything, who lives on the hard work of others
is a victim of misery.
The misery comes from six
internal enemies. Kama or lust, Krodha or anger, Lobha or greed Mada or pride, Moha or delusion and Matsarya or envy.
Of all these, the first five
ruin the man who possesses them, while the sixth ruins himself and others too.
This Chapter is mostly about
the qualities of man as described by the Shastras and the internal enemies that
drove our family into misery, and they affected me most because of one depraved
family member. My own faults added to the misery, true to say.
"Blessed is he who has
learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not imitate, to praise but not
flatter, and to lead but not manipulate." — William Arthur Ward
“This beautiful sentiment is
all about transforming envy into encouragement. Instead of letting jealousy
steal your peace when you see someone else succeeding’
Prologue
Shakespeare said
So full of artless jealousy is
guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt."
Detailed Meaning:
- Artless Jealousy: "Artless"
means naive, unskillful, or obvious, while "jealousy" refers to
deep suspicion. Guilt is filled with a paranoid, obvious fear.
- Spills itself in fearing to be spilt: This
metaphor compares guilt to a full cup. In trying desperately to hide their
secrets (to not "spill"), the guilty person acts so nervously
and suspiciously that they give themselves away, thus "spilling"
the secret anyway.
In a
nutshell
To
hide their own sins, they resort to paranoid, suspicious, and guilty rhetoric.
AN
IDEAL FAMILY I DREAMED
IDEAL FAMILY BEFORE SELFISHNESS
TAKES
OVER DUTY
I have a habit of writing what
I think helps me to relax, rejuvenate and revive my dead spirits. One day, I
posted on Facebook, the gist of which reads like this. It is just fun. I wanted
to show the world how my mother loved me and how, during her last days of life, she expressed a
desire to live with me and to breathe her last in my hands. In fact, this has
been her deep-rooted desire since my youth, after I took upon my shoulders the
responsibility of looking after my family after the sudden demise of my father.
I posted a photo of a poem my
mother wrote in her diary, expressing her deep affection for my wife and me. I
do not feel I have done any sin in letting my friends know this one fact that
gave me utmost satisfaction. After all, Mother’s love is unparalleled and
uncontested in the whole life of a man. To my surprise, my third brother’s
response shocked me. Was it his guilt that he ran away from his duty and
responsibility, or was it his inherent hatred of my mother, whom he thought
harassed his wife? (This episode comes when the issue of his marriage and his
wife’s attitude are discussed). Or, was it his envy that I got a job one and a
half years before he got a job after graduation? ( This episode of my success
in getting a job soon after graduation, based on a written test during my final
year of graduation, will be narrated at the suitable juncture) .
Whatever his inner feelings,
this is how my third brother reacted on Facebook in an open post, after reading this part of the story. He
suffers from two maladies: anger and jealousy, man’s main internal enemies. Both
these maladies harm them. They cause immense harm to society. Of all the six
internal enemies, these two are the most dangerous. They, most unfortunately, seized my third
brother. My shock multiplied umpteen times when, at age 74, he reacted bizarrely
after one of my relations appreciated a poem I posted on a family WhatsApp
group. He said, “Some people learned a few Telugu words recently and call
themselves poets. Even I can write. “As age grows, most of our idiosyncrasies
vanish, as we learn from our mistakes. “
I need not have quoted this
here. It is not to show someone in a bad light or to show myself in a good
light. Nowadays, social media is being used/misused to settle personal scores by
spreading lies, concoctions, hearsay and abuses. When this becomes trolling,
there is every chance that people will believe the smear campaign.
Today, Rajanikant came out to
deny rumours about his political role. He said he felt a need to counter some
allegations because he believed people were confused by the smear campaign. If
such greats as Rajanikant feel the need to clarify his position, am I not right
to clarify the truth of the baseless allegations against me? As I proceed with
the story, I will expose and debunk his lies, not to prove him as a villain but
to prove my innocence.
His continuous haunting me with needed and
unneeded lies had a very disastrous effect on my life. He not only posted on
Social -Media but also went around the homes of our close relatives,
perpetuating these unsubstantiated allegations without evidence or first-hand
knowledge. He dissociated himself from the family, its culture and values long
back. It is difficult to fathom how these relatives took these allegations.
Many people speak sweetly in front of you, but say something else behind your
back. Though this kind of mudslinging did not affect my life, it impacted my
psyche, making me more radical.
In Telugu, he wrote. I am
presenting a translated version.
“How can you boast you are
highly intelligent? There is no proof that you are intelligent. And you lost
your job. But you do not write about it. Why are you mentioning that you worked
in the LIC of India? Why don’t you edit your profile to say that you worked in
Corporation Bank and lost your job? Mother did not write about you in her poem.
You are a thief. You stole her gold ornaments. Why don’t you mention it?”
A totally unrelated diabolic
rhetoric. No, if you think he does this to me, you are grossly mistaken. He did
this to his own son, his innocent brother-in-law, his father, his mother-in-law
and his own colleagues in his bank. It is his character. You can ask me why I took it personally. I do
not think he ever used the kind of abuse, such as thief, murderer in the case
of the others. When relation after relation started asking me about the theft
of gold ornaments, I was ashamed not of myself but of our father, who had built
a reputation of honesty.
All the points mentioned and
all the questions raised here have answers. They will be provided at the
appropriate time in the saga of my life.
I changed my profile as per
his wishes. I lost nothing more than a
job and informed him. But his envy is insatiable. Crookedness is in his blood.
He went on writing lie after lie full of venom. At one point, I had to respond.
My silence would have made his lies truthful, as Rajanikant now said. Finally, I blocked him.
‘As, I confess, it is my
nature's plague To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy Shapes faults that are
not.’
Shakespeare
Finding faults that never
existed is like a plague that killed Othello. Are we learning from the great
philosophical authors? Question yourselves, friends! Stop the repugnant habit
of suspecting your loved ones and spoiling their lives, in the process spoiling
yours too.
This proves one point: in the
case of Othello, there is no other reason but deep-rooted envy and hatred that
were inherent in his character for this outburst. I said I was intelligent. I
never said anyone in my family was less intelligent. I said my mother loved me.
I never said she did not love others more than me. But his reaction was ugly
and venomous.
Thus goes life. Beware of the
envious; enemies are less harmful than the envious.
The Churning of the Ocean of
Life- Part 2. My Sordid Story - An explosive truth about my character then.
The Churning of the Ocean of
Life- Part 2
My Sordid Story - An explosive
truth about my character then.
************************************************************
Life is a mix of the sweet and
the sour. It is a combination of the good and the bad in us. If we could only
identify our mistakes in the early parts of our lives and rectify our attitudes,
there is no other emancipation from life's bonds. Instead, we harp on the
stupid theory that if we succeed in life, it is our greatness, and if we fall
from grace, it is karma or the result of the sins committed by our parents (not
ours, there too), then we never get salvation. We can never wriggle out of the
"life cycle". This philosophy forms the basis of this part. Please
read, keep reading. There are many actors on the stage, behind the stage; many
are the parts they played in my life, with me always in the middle of the stage.
These two parts are played in the same period. This part can be construed as
the continuation of the earlier.
Life is like a photo negative.
How many copies we take out of the negative and refurbish or photo-shop them in
future parts of life, the original image will remain intact in the negative.
That will remain in memory till God decides to tear it apart and burn its body. But the soul remains.
Not only that, the result of
this negativity will impact our character at every stage of life and show a
different image, depending upon how we spruce it up. The story behind this
morphed image is not known to many. Many can't understand either. But our good
and bad, our character, etc., are assessed from the images they see today, and
they never go back to the negative; that is the heart of it. "The stories
of an earlier birth ", said a poet. These past life images are never taken
into account when they assess us. This part of the story is akin to this.
As a child, adult and youth, I
used to be very short, very lean, with an awkward hunchback. You can imagine
how I used to look when I tell you that I was weighing only 40 Kg when I became
Branch Manager of a bank at age 32, commanding over four officers and a total of
20 staff members. There had been many comic and amusing incidents during that
period about my personality and position. I used to tell my wife and children these
stories and laugh out. I will come to them later.
This hunchback was a result of
a congenital defect in my spinal cord in that part of the neck, where two
spinal bones fused into one, and the length of the neck was shortened. I came
to know of this fact at age 22, as I was getting headaches whenever I worked
for more than 12-15 hours or read continuously.
It happened so one day, a
senior clerk in LIC of India, started mocking me, I looked like Rajababu, a
famous comedian of those days. Rajababu too had the same issue: a hunchback.
Incidentally, his date of birth was the 20th of October, as mine.
He, too, was considered to be one of the most charitable actors, who never
refused help to those who asked. Coincidentally, he, too, suffered irreversible
losses during his fortieth year and expired at a very early age. I survived the
storm. See the magic of the Creator, whose existence is a matter of debate.
So, when this Dasaradha Raju,
a senior clerk, mocked me, I told him to look in the mirror and see if he was
handsome. He was shocked at my reply, as I was very young and new to the job.
He had no option but to apologise. He started enquiring about my suffering and
took me to a senior doctor known to him. I introduced myself to him and said I
worked for LIC of India. The Senior doctor joked’ Is it because you work in LIC
of India, you got this hunchback? Both
laughed. I was furious but helpless. After coming out, I told Raju to inform
the doctor that he was an idiot. He was defensive. I did not understand the
culture of the educated. I was brought up in a different culture. My parents
and teachers were giving their lives to see us grow up as good citizens. It was
frustration after frustration. The revolting nature magnified.
My loving brothers used to
mock me by the nickname "90-year-old man". This word spread in
the school too. But few used to mock me as teachers showered so much love on me,
and they were afraid, but not my brothers. As I was under the impression,
right or wrong, that I was one of the
most intelligent guys around me, the word "jealousy" never entered my
mind to date. That people feel jealous of each other was known to me after I
grew up enough to know the ways of the world but I was never willing to accept
the fact that people, and that too my own brothers, were feeling jealous of me.
I always felt like one of the most beautiful roses in a rose garden where all
other flowers were beautiful. That was the first flaw in my life, which by the
time I noticed it, I was partially ruined.
During the later part of life,
I observed that this incident dented my self-confidence. Whenever I was on
stage to speak, the mocking by my brothers that I was lean, short, with an
awkward hunchback, making me look like an old man of 90 years of age, haunted
me, and I miserably failed as a public speaker. But individually or in a
group, I used to talk so sweetly that they were waiting for the next
opportunity to talk to this funny-looking guy who could entertain his audience spellbound.
The fact that one of the most beautiful girls I ever knew married me, defying
elders, is proof of my attractive talking power and the storehouse of knowledge
called my brain.
That is why we should avoid praising,
mocking, or deriding children at a tender age. Images remain intact, though we do
not observe.
“Your children need your
presence more than your presents.” Always be available for them. Toys,
Bicycles, Scooters and Cars won't give them as much pleasure as a smile from a
parent’s face. In the material world that we are living in now, people are under
the wrong impression that children look for the property you will give them.
Never, friends! They look for comity in the family.
There was one more incident at
this stage of life. It affected my morale throughout and affecting me today. (I will include those
parts that happened after I published this part on FB in Telugu.)
But before we find flaws in
others, it is our duty to accept our own. This will at least give us psychological
satisfaction that we are not pointing fingers, hiding our own blunders under
the carpet. (I am not going into the personal lives of anyone, but am confining
myself to those incidents in which the involvement of others is there, to the
extent it affected my life and growth)
THE EXPLOSIVE TRUTH AT
AGE 19.
I should mention here that
till the fag end of graduation, incidents haven’t occurred for me to be ashamed
of. I cannot point out flaws in myself, as my character was like a polished gem
that everyone wanted to own. Companionship with me was an added asset for my co-students
or co-workers. If I ever went to their homes, their elders used to treat their
children with more love, "Oh! This babu is your friend!" and their
neighbours used to peep into their houses to see how I looked, pated me, kissed
me and gave me something to eat. These were nostalgic moments; I will narrate
one or two later.
For the present, let us
confine ourselves to the end part of my career. Here I committed a sacrilege; no
intelligent guy in this part of the world would dare to commit. Only a few
people knew this. My father, mother, and a few others knew. That was the
saddest part of my life.
But my kith and kin wanted to
paint me as one of the worst kinds in the family and banish me. But to the girl
I loved and married, I revealed the hard truth first. She believed me. Even
now, I never lie to her, whether good or bad. She knows that. That is why she
lived with me for so many years. without any differences in opinions, despite
efforts by our family members to divide us at various points in time. Her story
later.
There are six enemies in the
way of the development of our character. They are desire (to flirt), anger, miserliness,
ownership (this belongs to me, excessive attachment), arrogance in words and
deeds and jealousy. I can confidently say that the last four are afraid to come
near me even now. But, I developed unmitigated anger at age 20, and it haunted
me till age 50. I may be the primary reason, but my circumstances, the players
on and behind the stage who played a sinister part or the ladders and snakes might
have played their role meticulously.
I got a job in Hyderabad soon and left for
good.
. Changes in our family due
to my father's death in a month changed my whole life. I never met
her again, nor have I ever forgotten her.
My wife was also very clever.
She talks without mincing words. So, a few days after we decided to marry, she
asked me. We were sitting on a bench on Tank Bund, " Did you have
relations with any other girl before you met me?" Without hesitation, I told her this episode
and about more girls who wanted to marry me with no result.
Let me present a few facts
here that had a bearing on my future life. I have been, I was, and I am
truthful to the core till now. If any secret I am hiding affects the lives of
others, I immediately tell the truth about my fault, if any. Conversely, if any
of my friends, well-wishers, colleagues and close relations confide a secret in
their lives and ask me not to talk about it, I never broach the issue under
threat, by oversight or under pressure of circumstances. This particular
quality of mine has encouraged many of my friends, colleagues and kith and kin
to reveal secrets to me and seek advice. One life-changing secret of a girl 1980
is still to come out of my secret chest.
That was my character, a
truthful rebel. I was more than surprised that my wife told me many lies (that
affected my decisions in future), before and after my marriage. Being too young
but still mature enough to grasp the consequences, one true nature of my
character drove my decision to take her as my wife, and I am on my way of
reaching the Golden Jubilee of my marriage with her on 15th June
2026. One characteristic that stood out throughout my life is observing human
nature and judging their present based on the struggles and tribulations of
their early life.
The first hidden fact was that
she came to meet me on the occasion of my friend's birthday, not to meet me. It
was to negotiate an alliance for her sister, a year older. However, looking
back, the match would not have fructified as my mother was expecting at least a
moderate amount of dowry on the occasion of my marriage, which I opposed.
Secondly, there had been no chance of my loving her sister or vice versa. So,
this hidden lie would have been excused, given her wisdom and conversational
power, besides courage and confidence.
The second fact she hid from
me was that she was not a graduate. Of course, it is a common lie any girl of
marriageable age tells. But in my case, an unexpected problem arose. When I was
recruited in LIC of India, the minimum qualification was 11th class
or SSLC for recruitment as a clerk. After I married her and immediately got an
officer post, I had to move out with a stipend of Rs. 700/- pm and a promise
that was extracted from me by my mother and siblings that I would pay a sin tax
of Rs. 200/- pm for the grave sin of marrying her. At that time, I wanted to
train her for a written test for a bank job. As the title of my story suggests,
it has been a constant churning in my life. By the time the next call for
clerical jobs came, the minimum qualification was changed to a minimum of a
degree”. She had sufficient age. I requested my wife to complete a BA through
distance education from Karnataka University, but she flatly refused. Reason?
That she would lose her prestige in our family. I suggested a middle path. “We
can always tell them that you completed B.Sc., but would like to pursue English
and become a PG and, if possible, a research scholar. (She acquired two Post
Graduate Degrees in English and Sanskrit in the latter part of her life). She
refused. As I told you, this was not misfortune or karma payback. When she told
me she was not a graduate, I should have insisted that she complete her BA
before marriage. At that time, she would not have had the chance to refuse. It
was my fault that I did not try to move away from the snake that was about to
bite me. I was too arrogant.
"But man, proud
man, / Dressed in a little brief authority, / Most ignorant of what he's most
assured, / His glassy essence, like an angry ape, / Plays such fantastic tricks
before high heaven / As makes the angels weep." —
Measure for Measure
Shakespeare
That means “ humans gain
temporary power, they forget their own mortal frailties and act with a foolish,
animalistic pride that saddens heaven.
The third lie or secret she
did not reveal was that her father and mother were always quarrelling, he was
beating her regularly after getting drunk, and the three girls he had with her
also faced the same fate. The land under my feet crumbled. She took an oath
that if all the angels and demons stood in my way, I would not go back on my
oath to marry her. It was not a clever ruse but a young girl’s anxiety that she
would become a scapegoat if I refused to marry her, after all the evenings we
spent together, that too fifty years back, when society was a closed den with
no freedom for girls and boys to move together. I was in a catch-22 situation.
If I tell my mother the fact that her father divorced her mother and married
again when his children were not even seven or eight years old, the extremely
orthodox woman she was, she would have flatly refused to invite her as a
daughter-in-law, as the old and orthodox people of those days firmly believed
that children without the care of a father stray. The belief that one should
look into seven past generations when choosing a bride or groom was fixed in
their minds. These three were very beautiful girls. “Who knows?” would be their
first and constant nagging question. My sisters, who were enjoying my patronage
and unadulterated love, will not be hailing the fact that another girl will
share the same. There will be a revolt, a quake and a Tsunami in the family. On
the other hand, here was an innocent girl who suffered her entire childhood in
poverty, misery and lack of a father’s love, a migrant per se, who was hoping
that I would marry her. I was not a youth to go back on my word. A big snake bit me, and I fell a hundred
blocks down.
Another fact she hid from me
was that a month before she met me, her cousin ( her uncle’s son) was regularly
meeting her, and they were roaming around, as he had promised to marry her.
When his father, a rich man, refused the proposal, that timid guy backed out. (
After about seven years, the bad news came that he committed suicide with his
wife and three children. It was sad news, but my wife felt relieved he had
chosen the right, courageous boy, not the timid one. I knew of this fact about
this failed relationship after we registered our marriage and visited her
office. The employees there were asking questions. She brushed the issue as
immaterial. I felt bad and sad. I could bear lies, secrets of any kind, but
this was a bolt from the blue. Was I
trapped? No. It can not be. She is an angel. Again, the churning started. In the later parts of life, it turned out
that I remained ideal and she remained practical. A lie here, a lie there, is
needed to live happily, was her philosophy. Later, I observed that 99% of
people follow this dictum. I will suffer penury, but I will retain my ideals, has
been my approach. This gave rise to constant bickering. Even now, our attitudes
remain the same. But mutual, unremitting love and care for each other made us
an ideal couple not only in the eyes of the world, but in our view too. It goes to our credit that until now, she has
never lived away from me, even with her mother, for more than two months. Even for the first two deliveries, she went
to her mother’s place at the end of the ninth month and returned soon after the
baby was not even 1.5 months old. To that extent, there is nothing I could
complain about except that she continues to lie about minor issues without her
knowing it. (mostly). I read somewhere it is a psychic issue with children who
went through a difficult childhood. And no psychiatrist can diagnose her
because of her communication capability.
This is a case of pathological lying, either to escape responsibility,
prove superiority or hide an inferiority complex. This mostly stems from the childhood
abuse that my wife faced.
One day, she told me that a
UDC in her office sent her a love letter, hiding it in a file. It was not
exactly a love letter but a kind of solicitation for a night’s stand or a
relationship. He was 45 years old. She told me this very casually as if it were
nothing. When I asked her why she did not complain to her officer, who was from
the military ranks, she casually said, “He would have lost his job. His wife and children would have suffered because
of his fault. I, too, agreed to her magnanimity. A few days later, she told me
that her Superintendent had also written her a similar letter, and the result
was the same. I admonished her for keeping quiet, but later I, too, kept quiet.
One incident confirmed why this happened twice. One day, I went to her room to
pick her up and take her to the Registrar’s office. And out she comes with full
makeup, in a blouse with a large neck exposing the front of her chest. And her
saree was worn in such a way that, if someone moved a millimetre of her saree
down, she would have looked like an event dancer. Four or five youths were
standing at the bus stop, hungrily waiting for her arrival. I immediately grasped that this would be a
daily routine. There is nothing wrong with how a girl wears her dress until the
base instincts of the opposite sex rouse, and he might cause damage. As far as
she was concerned, she was only ascertaining her superiority in making so many youths
follow her, salivating. Soon after seeing me, she adjusted her saree. She
immediately denied that it was otherwise. This affected my psyche. A poison of
doubt was planted in my brain. I told her that her teasing dressing style only
prompted her seniors to write obnoxious letters. After some prompting, she regretted
and promised she would never cross the limit, and she never did. I was so
infatuated with her by then, I did not utter a word about this incident till
date.
The most damning secret she
kept from me was that her job was temporary. She only revealed this fact after an
oath of marriage from me. I never aspired my wife to be a working girl and I
never wanted her salary. From the beginning, I was against both parents living
in separate towns, earning money and making children think they were born with
a silver spoon. I was questioning many couples of this sort: “What is the
purpose of living apart if you cannot enjoy the love of togetherness and happy
children?” So, the job was not an issue. But I convinced my mother that the
zero dowry would be compensated. Her
salary would add to our income. My mother kept quiet. This news would again
create ripples in the family. It is yet another snakebite. There was no respite
from issue after issue. The only answer to this was my courage and temerity to
face any situation. A storm in my brain. How could I solve these issues after
issue and still marry her?
All through these experiences,
my only thought was about her childhood agony and resultant revolting attitude toward
society. Our mentalities converged perfectly.
A few days after the incident,
one day on Tank Bund, she caught my hand in a firm grip and with tears in her eyes,
asked me “ Will you leave me now that I told you horrible lies?” I said “
Never! I love her more than before as she came out with the truth, before it
was too late”
She said, " You are
truthful, you are intelligent and you have a beautiful heart. My desire too is
to have children as beautiful as me and as intelligent as you. Her words came
true. The three children are replicas of their mother, and each has three times
better brains than I. We propose that God disposes, though we do something in
the middle’
THE SHADOWS AND THE REALITY.
SHADOWS OF CHILDHOOD AGONY HIDING TRUTH OF TODAY.
I had to embark on such a lengthy
narrative as I thought it right to assess my faults first, before I found any
in others.
###########################
We travelled a long way from my childhood. I thought it appropriate to show
each character in my life drama in their true attire. True characters are not
made up with glitter and make-up.
KUCHIPUDI DAYS
So, let us go back to the life
in the Upper Primary School days. We are five brothers. (Later, there were two
sisters. The middle one, though he
is not strong, is very timid, anger personified. Every other day, with every
other boy, he used to pick up quarrels and getting injured, much to the
discomfiture of my parents. He was thinking he was only right. Even now, he
still has that feeling, as some recent Facebook
postings show, which I am including in this or future chapters.
He was anger personified; at
the same time, timidity was his weakness. Physical weakness was an added
liability. He proved that timidity and anger were dangerous, at least to his
hands and legs. I proved that excessive courage was dangerous to my position
and prestige. That was the basic difference.
But we should accept a fact. The
timidity and anger are still biting him, as his latest FB postings show.
Jealousy is abundant. It might not have harmed anyone, but it harmed me
immensely in my future life. My mother lovingly used to call him
"Duurvasudu" because of his anger.
There was a war of words
between our brother and the grandson of a very respected political leader in
the village, a staunch Congress leader, freedom fighter who went to jail, and ex-District
Zilla Board President. It went up to one vowing to break the other into pieces,
and it was decided to hold the duel in the playground during lunchtime. So, the
boxing bout started, and the well-built grandson of the political leader broke one
of my brother's hands. Those of us who were clapping till then silently slipped
into the classrooms as the truth dawned on us. The matter reached my father
through sources. He came rushing to the school. The Head Master and other
teachers stood with folded hands in front of him. He was the most respected
gentleman in the village and the village doctor. (I have equal leftist
ideas as I have rightist. Even now, whenever I remember this scene, I feel bad
for the teachers, though at that time I might have felt proud of my father's
stature. My father, in a burst of anger, chided the Head Master and other
teachers in the most derisive invectives and asked them what they were doing
when two children were involved in a boxing bout. The teachers meekly said they
were having lunch.
In his anger, my father did
not hear their pleadings. Instead, he threatened to write to higher authorities
and left. He did not take further action, as my mother told him not to. She
told him, after all, the teachers too should eat and when our son was at
fault why should the teachers be blamed. My father used to respect her word
like a sermon. He went back to school, apologized to the teachers and gave a
thorough lecture to our brother. My mother was referring to my father’s anger
as "primary anger" in later days. It evaporates as fast as it bursts.
Most in our family suffer from this ailment.
For two to three days the
younger grandsons of the respected political leader drew lines on the road that
we go to school to and stood on the line threatening with breaking our legs if
we crossed the line. One was dumb and deaf. We went by by-lanes and wept in front of our
mother, who wept in front of my father, who did almost the same in front of the
respected political leader. He called his grandson and our brother, explained
what my father stood for in the village and took an oath from his grandson that
he would never leave the hand of my brother, come what may. Call it quirk of
fate or his respect to his grandfather he stood by his word and till date he is
the best ever friend or the only friend he had. He owes his position to him as
that boy helped him get a job in Syndicate Bank, as our brother was incapable
of getting one on his own. More on this in later chapters.
This incident and such other
incidents involving our brother had a direct or indirect effect on many lives
(mainly mine) in future. Hence, I had to mention this. He reacted to this
wildly when I published this in Telugu on FB and accused someone (mostly me)
(He had a penchant for imagining lies
and writing them on Social Media) of breaking the head of my mother and killing
her. I will reproduce that in this chapter.
###########################
A dilemma arises here. If I
continue the story with my High School studies it is all ladders and no snakes.
If I go further, it is all snakes that bit me
but I again climbed many a time. If I continued with the former, it
would be self praise. If I skip and continue, I will be doing injustice to
myself. Now I have go to the High School to join the first form, as they used
to call the sixth class those days.
For entering high school, I
faced a hurdle of being underage. I was
one year and four months younger than the prescribed age. High School
authorities advised showing my age more than my regular age but my father
objected as that would entail my retiring earlier. (The irony was I never
retired in life. I lost my job at age 40. This sad affair will come later.)
So, I was asked to continue in
sixth class in the old school and one year later, I was admitted to high school
by showing my age by four months more.
My first experience in high
school was my class teacher (teaching English), giving me 100/100 in English, in
the first monthly test for which the Head Master took objection, as in only
mathematics 100/100 marks were given those days. My class teacher told the
class that he fought with the HM but other teachers too supported the HM. He
was, by nature, a very angry young bachelor. So, he gave 100/100, struck it out
with the remark, "Reduced to 99/100" on the instructions of HM and
half won the battle. From that day on, many teachers used to talk among
themselves, "See! That tiny boy is Chandra". Some teachers used to
visit my class to see my books. "Your hand writing is very good "
they used to pat. (Only later I knew that the writing of the Creator on my
forehead was very bad).
The influence of this instant
fame was felt when I entered the seventh class. There were two sections in this
class. The class teachers of these two sections Sri Subbarao and Sri Narasimha
Rao were allocating the students passing out of sixth class each according to
his preference. (Seventh Class was the first milestone in school career).
I was made to stand aside as the final choice. Sri Subbarao had a
daughter who joined the school that year only and who, he considered was not
bright in studies. His bargain was, if I were in his section he could take us
both to his house after school and train both further so that his daughter too
could benefit. The other teacher said he could do that even I was in his
section. The unresolved issue went to HM. The future HM, who was there
suggested a lottery to be picked by me. And I picked Sri Narasimha Rao. But Sri
Subbarao used to take me to his house where I was studying for some time with
his daughter as my student and he and his wife, who incidentally was my teacher
earlier, guiding me. She was giving mouthful of eatables daily (Chowdary
community are famous in making delicious snacks; they have shops in all
countries in the world today) and treating me like a son. Did you observe how
teachers used to be friends and philosophers, besides being guides those days?
Even now, teachers are like that. Attitudinal change came in the parents. Teaches of my children, too, were in the same
category as of mine.)
As it was going on like this,
an unforgettable, unerasable from memory incident that still brings tears of
joy and agony happened in this class.
Every week, our class teacher
used to conduct a test on English vocabulary. That week, for the first time in
my school career, I committed two mistakes. Those days, training was strict,
and
punishments were stricter. For
each mistake, we should take one hit with a sharp cane on the palm. I did not
know whether my teacher did not want to punish me. Or else he did not want to
set a bad precedent by leaving me, or he did not want the whole class to go
unpunished. He made a suggestion. "Chandra never commits mistakes. He is
too weak to take two cane blows. So, if any of you can take his blows, I
will excuse him." About ten students stood up. Out of this, one, named " Three-fingered-Sambaiah "( he
unfortunately had only three fingers on each leg) suggested that he wrote all
20 words wrong. Hence, taking 22 blows instead of 20 was not that painful. And
if any other student made 20 mistakes, they could share one each. There was no
other. So he took my two blows. As I was of tender age, I did not know the
implications of this supreme sacrifice and the cruelty of the system in
punishing others for our faults. ( In future I faced similar situation of
either involving ten officers in the charge sheet, of dishonesty and
throwing ten families on the street by involving CBI in the investigation or
submit myself before the authorities admitting my own small mistakes and my
complicity in the smallest misdemeaneur in banking parlance, among others ( I
was Branch in charge and in criminal terminology A1) , I opted for the latter.
I wrote to the management admitting the charges. I requested that the
management dismiss me at the earliest, if it was their intention, so that I would not have to face the ignominy
of flouting service rules by working elsewhere during suspension. So, the
disciplinary proceedings that dragged on for a decade or two in other cases were
over in three years in my case, and I was dismissed from service at age 40, penniless,
with a black mark haunting me.) This subject, I will write at the appropriate
juncture. Then, I remembered Sambaiah. I thought about how painful it would be
to take punishment on behalf of others. While writing the letter, I
thought that I had suffered so much under a biased management, what would
happen if I suffered this blow, like my friend.)
In fact, after I was well
settled in life, I met this friend in our village. He became an above-average
farmer. He told me philosophically, " Why do we need education, Chandra? I
stopped studying after seventh class and joined a mill where my father was
toiling as a coolie. Observing my working capacity and my plight as handicapped,
the mill owner gave some land on lease, and some initial investment and it
yielded good results. Slowly, I purchased some land and continued farming mill
land, also on lease. And mill owners gave me a minor share too. " He took
me to the mill. The Almighty carries those who sacrifice for others on His
shoulders. He and I are examples, though
I am far behind him.
Without committing even 10% of
the mistakes, my courage and self-confidence, as high as the Himalayas, might
be the one guided by the life philosophy of Sambaiah. And part of it may
be the sensitive mindset that does not allow me to eat a morsel of food
without thinking if our workers, watchmen etc. ate . Sharing food with them. That is why whenever our children
gave me money they knew I would part a part of it as charity but they would
give with a caution to be more careful while donating. May be, Sambaiah's
love is still blessing me!
Be happy, friend! I will never
forget you. Your sacrifice was the most supreme I have ever come across!
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