The Churning of the Ocean of My Life - Third Part Foundation for Future and Count Down for Disasters

                                             

The Churning of Ocean of Life - Third Part Foundation for Future and  Count Down for Disasters

 

“SOME DAYS I FEEL I SHOULD GO BACK TO MY CHILDHOOD. NOT TO CHANGE ANYTHING BUT TO ENJOY A FEW THINGS TWICE”

 

 

The Churning of Ocean of Life - Third Part Foundation for Future and Count Down for Disasters

                                             

The Churning of Ocean of Life - Third Part Foundation for Future and  Count Down for Disasters

 

“SOME DAYS I FEEL I SHOULD GO BACK TO MY CHILDHOOD. NOT TO CHANGE ANYTHING BUT TO ENJOY A FEW THINGS TWICE”

 

How sweet are the days on two special festivals, mothers used to wake up their children at 4.00 am. After the early morning chores like brushing and washing face with cool water are finished, mothers used to mix the overnight rice in a big steel plate with the most delicious chutney made of tur dal with a special recipe that remained in our culture for ages, adding lots of ghee and a pinch of tamarind chutney with famous tangy taste and feed the six of us with her hand, followed by curd rice. Then, children from all places used to gather near the large ShivaTemple and play in groups. Mad ball game, kabaddi, running after one another with girls and boys having fun and frolic till around 8.00 am. All of us used to go back to get ready to attend school. The aura of the happy mornings twice a year used to surround us for at least a week. As usual, my third brother used to pick a quarrel with one or the other, thus ending the fun and frolic in a state of melancholy. But a child is always a child, as Reader’s Digest used to have a page specially for children. What shall I not give away for a return to my childhood, including my life and be reborn?

 

Villages are places where most people used to rest with meagre work after the harvest season, and groups of villagers used to gather and chat near the Shiva Temple or in the cool shelter in the middle of the village. Lots of loose talk used to sprout in there and spread like wildfire, some enjoying the sadistic pleasure and some suffering the ignominy of being victims of slander. Women were confined to their kitchens, tending to children and sending their spouses to the fields or gatherings. Farm workers used to start work by 8 am, eating the night rice mixed with pickles and carrying boxes filled with rice made afresh and a chutney or pickle. How many of these could afford a vegetable, an egg or a chicken piece unless donated by a landlady? Poverty was not a curse for them. They were born in poverty, raised in poverty, pulled out of school due to poverty, and used to start working in fields from age ten or even earlier. Wither economic equality and social justice?  I used to entertain thoughts about these poor people from a very young age, and this developed into a kind of melancholy that never left me. Sharing what I had started at a very tender age, and even today, I share the little I have, and I enjoy the pleasure on their faces when I give them items of food they would never have dreamed they would eat.

 

Palatial buildings of the very rich, owning at least twenty acres of irrigated, black soil built on acres of land, with strong wooden doors and very tall boundary walls, so that no one walking on the road can have even a glimpse of the inside,  herd of buffaloes and cows in thatched sheds a little away from these buildings, number of workers both male and female working in shifts twenty four hours a day, provided with tin sheds inside the sprawling compound, represented the richness of the village. I saw many houses from the inside, except one. There was a rumour in the village that the owner of the house owned about 400 acres of irrigated land and many other movable and immovable assets. At no point in time did I see the main door open.  It was said that a male and a female worker worked as full-time servants in these households. These workers were receiving annual wages, a place to stay, food three times a day, non-vegetarian food once a week and a pair of new clothes each year.  The men were very strong, like the bouncers in pubs and clubs nowadays.

 

There was a middle class, like ours, who were living in rented portions in these houses,, There were no toilets either for owners or tenants. Since childhood, I developed an unerasable affection for my mother as she went to the fields for morning chores along with other women. I did not develop sympathy for her until I grew up and I knew about her childhood. She was born and brought up in towns, in her ancestors’ own houses until she was married, with all facilities, including kitchens and toilets.  My affection for her grew when I learned about her resilience in adjusting to village life at a very young age. Her respect towards my father, his wisdom, his great stature and his honesty was boundless. Her mother, my grandmother, was talking to him, hiding behind a door. What was his grandeur when he was serving people, and what kind of words he had to hear from his eldest son during his retirement years? What a fall from grace! The first time I got exposed to the level at which people could degrade themselves when they think that what they were earning was theirs and not the sweat and blood of their parents? I used to spend sleepless nights, I dreamt about ghosts and burial grounds. I was so afraid of my father and his health that ( if I think now, I feel distressed) I used to wake up and sleep on his bed many times. It was not fear, but I felt his breath and made sure he was still there for us. I am crying now writing this. He always used to repeat “Chandra, Chandra”, his hope. But alas ! Chandra was a sinner. He could not feed him a morsel of food from his own earnings. The churning went on. It never stopped.

 

“Start doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

 

My father seems to practice this. Perhaps, I am the only son who inherited this quality from him, I can proudly say. I lost count of bright students, who studied and settled into their lives thanks to my help. My uncle used to tell this frequently about my father. To my mother’s family members, our father was like a father figure. My uncle completed his Matriculation in Hyderabad. My grandfather refused to send him to Indore, the only place where the entrance for the Intermediate course was being held. My grandfather wanted him to work in a Press at a monthly salary of Re.7/-. He joined the Press, but one Sunday, he slipped and reached my father’s village, Nambur in Guntur District. That night, he started crying, explaining his plight to my mother.  Our father overheard the conversation, it seems. The next morning, without speaking a word, he asked my uncle to accompany him. In my uncle’s words verbatim, he led him to one very rich Reddy landlord. And my uncle used to tell us, “Your father went there. He took a glass of water and offered one to me and said, ‘Reddy! Give me a hundred rupees. I will repay when I have money. And that Reddy, without enquiring why he needed so much money early in the morning, gave ten notes of very big te rupee notes. Your father gave me the money and asked me to go to Indore and complete the test.  And I  passed the test. I completed Intermediate and joined SBH. Later, I completed a BA. Later, I joined RBI and retired as Grade B officer. Your father never asked me to return the money. I did not think of returning it as the money saved our family. Finally, I returned the money to meet his funeral expenses. Saying this, he used to cry. How many times did I hear this, and how many times did I cry and blame myself for not being by his side when he left the mortal world, God alone knows.

 

Recalling my father’s memories, I wrote this Telugu poem. English translatiomn follows.

 

The father:

 

జనమ నిచ్చిన తండ్రి జగమెరిగిన తండ్రి

     త్యాగ నిరతుడాత  త్యాగి యోగి

 

జ్ఙానియె తండిరి జనయిత జనకుడు

     తనయు యున్నతి చూసి తనరు తండ్రి

 

కంటి రెప్పల వోలె కాచిన యా తండ్రి

     సుతుని సుతుల గాచు సమయు తనక

 

తనయుల ప్రేమకై తపియించు యాతండ్రి

     నింద బడగ యెంత నలత చెందొ

 

తరము మారె తండ్రి తలరాత మారెగ

కొడుకు మారి పెండ్లి కుమరు డాయె

తండ్రి మంచి యెల్ల తప్పుగ యగుపించె

వాణి పలుకు మాత నాదు నోట!  258

 

English:

 

Father is the one who gave birth to the son. He is the one who knows the ways of the world. He is the wise one, the father. He is the one who enjoys. He feels proud of the growth of his son. The father who looked after the son as his eyelids protect the eyes, protects the sons of the sons till his last breath. How much that father who starves to be fed by the love of his sons gets depressed, disheartened when he has to be maltreated by the same sons? 

 

Generations changed, genres changed, and the writing on foreheads of fathers changed. Son turned out to be a husband. Whatever good the fathers have done is now looking like a bummer. 

 

This has become my strength and my weakness.  Some people used to take advantage of my charity, and those around me were advising me against going beyond myself. But, I could not get rid of the habit. The habits that came with birth will not leave us till death, it is said. But, most of the people who benefited from my charity remained loyal for many years and some forever.

 

Summers used to be pleasant days despite the intense heat in our area. Travelling was never a forte for us because of the costs involved. We were a family of eight, including parents, with the eldest already studying AMIE in Madras (Chennai now). That made us nine. We used to play most of the time in the sprawling house of Sarma, who remained my bosom friend for many decades. Unfortunately, he died of kidney failure.  Farm workers used to bring palm fruits, cut them in front of our house, and feed them to us. The delicious taste and the coolness the palm fruit provided a lot of relief and happiness to us. A Bangle vendor used to visit each village on a particular weekday. A Muslim vendor of scents never failed to sell scents for my mother and sisters. By evening, at five o’clock, ladies used to sit in their porches waiting for Soda Kotaiah. Tired of household work from morning till evening and unable to bear the summer heat, these ladies used to enjoy the gas-filled sodas, Kotaiah was bringing. He used to make them specially. All these people are shadows of my childhood days. Luckily, our village, being rich, full of educated landlords, has no ghosts of the past. Elections used to provide us with a festive atmosphere. The five-day festival near the Shiva Temple of the Chola Era, with its beautiful architecture, a large Nandi, and painted idols and figures on the Gopuram, remained as the sweetest of memories in my life. Our father was giving us an anna each for four days and twenty-five paisa on the last day when the Chariot Festival used to take place. Famous theatrical artists used to play mythological and socialdramas.  They used to start at 9 or 10 pm and continue till 4 am. We used to sleep on mud or sand, and our hospital attendant used to carry us home. Those were the days and nights I enjoyed most in my life, and the nostalgia remained with me forever.

“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.”

“Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

 

There is not much to speak about in the eighth class, except that I continued to score first mark consistently and I developed a total aversion to the Social Studies subject. One incident strikes me, though. Our Social Studies teacher was Mr. Venkata Rao. His daughter, too, was in our class, Leela Kumari. In one test, he awarded the first mark to her. I did not even notice. But he gave an explanation that, I wrote a Telugu word in two lines like Telu gu. As I divided the word, he cut down one mark. Now, I feel the explanation was unnecessary.  In Social Studies, grammar errors are not taken into account. Another example of human weakness is this. In the SSLC examination, she failed in two subjects, one of them was Social Studies. This is just a passing reference to how even teachers fall prey to jealousy.

 

In the ninth class, I got the best friend in my life, a friend that few ever get. Except for the past four or five years in life, we never parted from one another. (The past five years, we have also been away from each other due to my own grave errors of judgment. .). Our co-students used to mock him with many an invective like " Blind Fellow, Bondam (Obese) and stammerer etc. Most probably, I was the only one in his life who never mocked him (including teachers, his own kith and kin, except parents). He is a very intelligent guy. He competed with me for the first mark . It was a friendly fight. He is very tall, very fat and was unable to pronounce a few letters "ra". If he called me, it sounded like "chandla".(It is what we give or do not give to people. By mocking, we are only making children rebel. But for me, he would have become a recluse and a rebel. It is true. He never let go of my hand for my sake and his sake too. He used to wear thick glasses. He developed eyesight as a child, and it increased with age. He used to be so big (6.2 ft. and 110 kgs.) and me so small (5.2 ft and 40 kgs.) that when we once went to a Bata Shop in Hyderabad to purchase footwear, the Manager humorously remarked, "Bata has not grown as big as the Creator, Sirs! I bow to the Creator who made you both friends. We were looking exactly like Hardy and Laurel. He completed his CA on his first attempt in those days when it was the toughest to pass. But he was an abject failure in life as he, too, fought with a rotten system, come what may.  When I was a boy his mother once called me. She said, "Don't leave my son. Come to our house, and you can study jointly. We have electricity too." Throughout the arduous journey of my life, this entire family played a major positive role. It will come at the appropriate place.

 

These days, we discuss the caste system a lot. I was born to a mother who was a very orthodox Brahmin, so that she would not touch any food given by other caste landlords. They are Choudaries (basically, they are not averse to eating non-vegetarian, though my friend's mother did not eat). Most days I used to eat in their house. His mother used to cook food for me without garlic. Even now, I avoid garlic. I started my fight with the system by first opposing my family’s orthodox ways. This too had a great effect on the psyche of my kith and kin, as they believed in tokenism. I believed in firmness in thoughts. (good or bad)

 

One incident in the ninth class is worth mentioning. Our Social Studies teacher (and Class Teacher too)  asked a question that no one in the class could answer. He asked all students, including girls, to stand on the benches. He said, " I will give you all one more chance. If anyone can recollect the answer, he can raise his hand." My friend and I raised our hands. Here, he played a small trick. " If one of you or both can not answer, I will make you only stand and ask others to sit. " My friend immediately backtracked. I answered the question and sat down while others stood on benches at the end of the class. After coming out, my friend asked, " I also knew the answer exactly as you answered. But I had no courage. Teach me how I should develop the courage to face people," I told him. And the friendship was further cemented. 

 

Like that, I became a part of his life. Friend, philosopher, guide (teacher), doctor, and finally the visible God! After we fought the rotten system and suffered the same humiliation, we both suffered from the same psychological disorder, which is fatal in a few cases. He could not withstand. I recovered. This is an example of the role a wife plays in a man's life. His wife is by nature, a very good, honest lady. She was intelligent. She worked in a high position. But she could not grasp his real issue with life and his psychology. They lived together, but their lives got derailed. I crossed all speed breakers because my wife was extremely patient and understood me as a person with my own plus points and idiosyncrasies. God bless her!

 

In the tenth class, one incident that defined the path of my life happened. On the 15th August that year, as a student who scored the highest marks in the school, I was called to hoist the National Flag, which was the rarest honour those days, which was only conferred on leaders or Head Masters of schools. That day I bunked school most on fake pain. I lost a golden chance. The next day, our Head Master called me and bombarded me. He felt worse than I did that day, because one of his favourite students lost a chance that no one gets. The seed for losing out on the opportunities that came searching for me was sown in my life. That continued till 50-55 years of age.

 

In the tenth class , our lives got totally derailed. They did not come back on track till 55 years of age, at least for me. (Then and now, I keep track of each word spoken in the house when I was there. That is a habit that came naturally to me. Even things spoken secretly came to my notice. For this, I developed the art of making others speak out. I already wrote that there would be a kind of intoxication in what I talk about, that none can escape my sharp vision of life. I have to see what happens with my grandchildren, if love overtakes my judgment.) That year, my eldest brother got married. Like all other marriages in those days, it ended in utter chaos. It was the first marriage in the house. My father invited the whole village. He informed the -would-be father-in-law of my brother that there would be a huge crowd that would attend the marriage and advised him to make suitable arrangements. A miser to the core, the gentleman arranged the marriage in the small verandah of one of the twin houses he owned. People came in large numbers. Most stood on the streets, unable to view the function. Lunch was made for a few. Then, the foxy family, seeing that the food prepared was not enough, separated the children and the unimportant people and served them rice, chutney and curd. We were not served the marriage lunch. I still remember, as there was no place for the invites to sit inside, many of them climbed the parapet wall, the staircase, and the roof of the building. The chaos ended as most people went back without food. My father was very furious. But that gentleman, crooked and cunning, vanished. My mother, usually the woman who never compromises, started harassing my sister-in-law in all ways possible. Only words, no violence. This distanced the couple from the family almost permanently.

 

My mother, hearing the neighbour’s words, made a hell of a commotion during and after marriage. She had always been a powerful personality. None could stand opposite her and argue against her viewpoints. I inherited some of the traits. Most of the time during my childhood, I studied in the kitchen, helping her with work. That was one of the reasons she treated me specially, much to envy of others. My brothers used to enjoy calling me gay. But mother's love can not be judged by quantum. That is why, after my father's death, she stayed with me most of the days, though we were fighting each other verbally and still living under the same roof. Ultimately, she came back to me from a brother's house who bothered her beyond her capacity to withstand, came to Hyderabad to attend a marriage in my sister’s house, refused to go back, got return reservation cancelled, pleaded with me not to send her anywhere as she was not being fed properly, practically fell on the feet of my wife (I should not say this. If I am lying here, I will have no salvation for hundred births. But that was what happened between four walls), asked for her apology for all the bad things done by her to both of us, the sinister propaganda she encouraged on our couple and pleaded with her to convince me that she be allowed to die in my hands. My mother-in-law, too, breathed her last in my hands; my uncle was standing outside, unable to see his mother dying. She, too was always telling that she would die either in his hands or in my hands. I wept copiously that day. My wife consoled both of us. She stayed with us and died soon after. (My third brother called this openly on Facebook as murder by me. May God bless his children in future because the present does not determine our fate but the future will.

 

So, coming back, the effect of our mother's tantrums had an irreversible effect on our lives throughout. Even now, the stigma remains, whatever the masked faces say on the issue. Added to this, the "Raakshsa Chanakyam" (The devilish politics) played by one of our relations left an indelible mark on the already sinking ship of our family.

That year was 1968. My father fell fatally sick. His abdominal ulcers relapsed severely. It was so severe that my mother decided that he would not survive. So, she called my elder brother from Madras for discussions. She told him that there were six more children to be fed and educated if he died suddenly and he unequivocally refused to take any responsibility. This led to heartburn in the natural course. In the meantime, the scheming relation, his father-in-law, sensing that her daughter would have to sacrifice, came to our village to enquire about the health of my father, heard about the issue and started inquiring in the village whether they knew anything about whether my eldest brother was my mother's own son or the son of my father's first wife, Smt. Rajyalalkshmi, who died very early after their marriage. (My father, looking extremely black and with spores of smallpox, married my mother, who was younger in age by 14 years. My mother was looking yellow like freshly made sweets those days). Some people nodded their heads in affirmation.  The age gap between my mother and her first son was only 15-16 years. They started suspecting. A seed was sown that grew into a banyan tree by the time my mother died. But her money in fixed deposits, her silver, her costly new silk sarees, her books, diaries etc. were all sweet.  The others in the village denied any such possibility. As the relation had the first answer only in his mind, he murmured in my brother's ears that she was not his mother and hence he had no responsibility towards the remaining morons. My brother, who wanted this, the miser he was, immediately and intentionally fell into the trap.He refused to take any responsibility for the family that did not belong to him and left. My mother, who made a lot of commotion during his marriage, had to reap an unreasonable revenge from him. All this happened when my father was still recovering from his severe illness. My father survived. Our sinking ship too survived. Later in his life, my elder brother used to throw dog biscuits to all, after they were well settled, like sarees, gifts etc.  These dogs remained faithful to him. I am not a dog. Let it be, I am not faithful to Moriarties in life. But when his wife died I was the first to reach out, along with my wife, there in a flight. The other dogs strayed onto the highway barking about politics and delayed the cremation by at least four hours. The issue of the parentage of my elder brother was a topic of discussion in the village.  Some here and there denting my family image. And the effect remains.

 

I could write on this so confidently, as this is still a topic of discussion in our circle. My mother’s relations hated his stand. Those who helped her give birth to the first child knew better than anybody. They are still alive. Today, one can not try to wash these sins saying that he performed a pooja.  He spent a huge amount of money (my mother's savings) or donated to Temples. If we sincerely accept our faults and donate to God, it will help. Or it will bounce back one day. I too, donated to Temples after repenting of my mistakes. I am not publicising. More than temples, I fed many people and am still doing it. It is not all about going to Heaven, but to bring at least a few out of living hell. Never allow your blunders rust. Clean them as far as possible. Do not repeat them. That is Dharma. Vemana in Telugu wrote, "Why do you pray to Lord Shiva when your mind is not pure?"

 

To the same eldest brother, when he pestered for continuing studies, my father sold the most valuable agricultural land of an acre for Rs.7,200/- and sent him to Madras. My father was against it, but my mother pestered him and sent him to Madras to study AMIE, hoping that higher education for the eldest son would benefit the other children as he would get a good job and a handsome salary. Will any God, who is really a God, if he exists, pardon his sin of calling such a mother not his own? Did he complete his studies? No. He formed a Union there with some other vagabonds, and one fine evening, my father got a telegram to present himself at the Principal’s office. After he went there, he handed over my brother’s Transfer Certificate. As my brother got a plum Central Government job , with a recommendation, he survived. We sank further. If earning crores of rupees is the measure of one's honesty, I will tell you an episode. One lady, who earned lakhs through the oldest profession in the world, bought a posh bungalow for Rs.30 lakhs during those days. She became a respectable lady in high society. One fine morning, what prompted her no one knows, she called the press and asked them if they knew her background. And then she told her story. This made a sensation in the public. Nobody asks how an ordinary clerk/officer earned crores. If some one gets punished for even a small error in the course of duty, he is dubbed as taboo, dishonest, untouchable, etc., Some people who enjoy the crores earned by their father even on dead bodies in cyclones, today teach me about honesty. Unfortunate but true! All this will come later. You are the judges. Who else is an example but my brother-in-law?

 

A few months later, my father extracted a promise from our Adharma Raju, that he would send Rs.50/- per month with no incremental value over time. He was sending some months and skipping a few others. My father reminded him with a postcard. I knew this as I was mailing this, given the love my father had for me. This is the reply verbatim, that he was getting. " I am married. I also got children.  My expenses are increasing. (Salaries too were increasing) . Who asked you to give birth to so many children? Would you have died if you had no girl children? (My parents were to have a girl child, so they went on to have children every other year). Moreover, what is my responsibility towards children not born of the same mother?" Seeing these letters, my father wept. By evening, he used to get totally depressed. He got accustomed to "Morphia" injections. After some months, he taught me how to inject the medicine. He went into total hopelessness and got depressed. Alas! What a fall from grace? After going to the town, post-retirement, he totally got into full scale depression.

Added to this, our second brother did not get a job immediately after graduation as he scored consistently poor scores and his general knowledge was very poor. He failed his PUC examination. He was forcibly admitted into M.Com. of course, without any scholarship. Additionally, our third brother did not get a job for 2 to 2.5 years after graduation. This added to the financial troubles. During this period, the scholarship amount of Rs.1200/- I was getting per annum. The return of around Rs.500/-p.a. on the three acres of almost non-irrigated land left after the best land was sold out (this too was irregular), the 100/- p.m. my father was getting as a partner in practice from a local doctor, father-in-law of my brother, saved us from total collapse. In addition, by mortgaging my scholarship amount and my own intelligence I shall get a job immediately after graduation) My father and I used to sign joint pro-notes and raise hand loans from our head master, the daughter-in-law of an ex-MLA, the mother of my close friend and the wife of Sri Venkataramaiah garu among others..

 

You can imagine. The amount of Rs.25/- my eldest brother was sending, Rs.100/- my father's practice fee, Rs.100/- my scholarship amount and Rs.45/- income from agriculture (app.) (the last two used to come at the end of the year) totaled to Rs.270/-. The last drawn salary of my father when he retired on 29th of June, 1969 was Rs.498-20. As we were living in a village and my father was the village doctor, we used to get grains, dals, ghee, milk, curd etc., freely many a time. Added, whenever there was a function in any house in the village we  used to get abundant quantity of sweets and other items. We used to get mangoes etc., free. In the town, we were paying Rs.45/- as rent and electricity charges too. We were having an open air lavatory that was stinking if it rained or the scavenger did not come a day to clean. (What a life they were leading? alas!) How could we have run the show without depending on borrowings? (It is easy to say my father led a very dignified life and never borrowed. But that is deceiving self like Brutus, saying that he killed Caesar for the honor of Rome. I can not be so. Nor am I Antony, that roused the rabble to instigate them to kill the conspirators, by speaking out of the box to get fame. I wanted to come out clean of my good and bad and naturally, other players enter the sordid drama.) If I re think those days, I have to cry daily. But life goes on for every one and for me too! Many a time, when I was hungry, I was going to my friend's house, ask his mother to feed me and eat. I was not knowing what others did. We spent four horrible years like that. Copies of the pro-notes that I jointly executed with my father are intact with me. I will publish them at the opportune time.

My father had an insurance policy of Rs.1,000/- by the time he retired. He got some amount on that and we lived almost six months on that. ( In his famous treatise “The Pickwick Papers” Charles Dickens writes that one debtor lived on his shoes for a month, meaning he sold the shoes for feeding self for a month). My father's pension and PF got a lot of time to get settled. (7 years).  For that I had to move earth and heaven at age 22. None of my elder brothers ever thought of helping out. My angst against the rotten system doubled then.

(I had to harp upon the irrelevant and boring details of our income and expenditure in the town, as my third brother started reacting wildly (I already told of his timid anger earlier) with irrelevant photos. I did not want to pollute my revelations with his blabber. My intention is to accept my own blunders in life and explaining in detail how the attitudes of others either helped me or ruined me in life. The purpose is not criticism. Each chapter tells a story, how I reached where I am now able to tell about myself. Only way to know is to wait till I complete this. From now on, I will only grow beyond the comprehension of others till I die, and there will be no fall. I do not wish any other person/persons that contributed to my life to fall. Sarvey Janaha Sukhino Bhavantu!

The eldest should have been Dharma Raju, but he turned out to be the exact opposite. The second one Savya Saaci (I already explained switch of roles) used to get help from both hands and drown the others with both. Bheemasena was a timidity personified, angry man with enough of jealousy to add fuel. I am like Nakula whose horse used to run very fast either in doing good or bad. I never winked to think if what I was doing was right or not. My fifth bother was Saha Devudu, truly, an angel devoted totally to his wife post marriage that he insulted me many a time in front of all after I suffered a jolt in life. But this is excusable. I am not so great as not to be insulted by a brother. If I say anything bad about him, I will lose everything in my body. He did so much to our family before marriage that it changed the course of my life during those days. Despite doing so much, he never heard a kind word from people who got help from him. He is like a water drop on a Lotus leaf. Nothing touches him. I developed, inimitable affection and attachment to the family that I became too sensitive to forget anything. It was a major flaw in life.

 

Savya Saaci was always weak in studies. He passed out SSLC with ordinary marks. Once, my father asked him, " When Chandrudu is getting so many marks, why are you not getting?" He replied, " Because he is Doctor's son, he got better marks" My parents had a hearty laugh at his answer and my father shared this anecdote with the teachers, who told him that marks are given on performance and that both of us were Doctor's sons only.

 

He was sent to Hyderabad to my maternal uncle's home for pursuing PUC. He failed the examination and passed out in the supplementary. (The only failure in our family for three generations). But later he recouped all his energy and became the first post graduate in our family. (The second is me who got double Post Graduation recently). One reason he studied post graduation was he did not get good break in job search after graduation. The present job that he retired from was on the recommendation of my elder brother in Madras. But his envy and jealousy of me was never on the wane, even when I was eating rotten rice and dal at age 40. The most reprehensible behavior of the  eldest two, the timid courage of my third brother, added to my own woes who took over the responsibility of my whole family within a year of my father's death as the third one abdicated them.

All this is later part, but I thought I would incorporate it here.

                                                   ##########################

Let us go back to my High school days. In the eleventh class, my Head Master and Mathematics teacher gave special coaching after school hours and Sundays in their homes, so much so that I might have written each English grammar sentence and each maths problem.in hundreds of books. Final Examination. First paper was English. My Head Master asked me how much I could score. I said 80. He said, " Do not boast. No one got 80 marks in English after this school was established." I said I would get. Then he promised to start a new chapter in the school history that if I got 80%, he would start writing the names of the students who come School First on a board with golden letters. I got 81% and he kept up his promise.

 

It was time for Mathematics examination. Soon after the question paper was given, I observed my mathematics teacher running here and there in the corridor and the Head Master behind him trying to stop him. There was a question in the Geometry Section of the paper. It was drawing a Rhombus. It carried 20 marks. Our teacher did not teach that in our class as it was a very difficult problem. And that question never came in examinations in his career, he told later. I chose to answer the question first. It took a lot of time. I got severe head ache too. The rest of questions I answered fast but could not complete two questions due to paucity of time.

 

Soon after I came out, my mathematics teacher, Head Master and some other teachers came running anxiously. My mathematics teacher asked, "Did you attempt the Rhombus?" I answered, I completed it successfully. Our head master intervened and asked how I could do it even as my teacher was worried it was very difficult and he did not teach it. He gave a paper and asked to re draw it. I did. My mathematics teacher started crying like a child. Might be the pent-up emotion of three hours burst out. I was perplexed. He lifted me like his own son and hugged me tight. It took lot of effort for other teachers to console him.

 

You could do what I did not dare to, he said, Both congratulated me. Later I got only 95%. It is okay, they said.

 

The teacher-student relationships in those days, used to be on a different scale altogether. After I left the school, for many years, they have been quoting me whenever a chance came or in prayer meetings, the teachers told me, saying that a student should be like Chandra. I also used to tell to my college mates and later office mates for many years that teachers should be like both of them. During school days, I lost total belief in the caste system. My head master was a Choudary, my mathematics teacher was from some other caste, I, a Brahmin. They used to keep the hearts of the students, clear like the blue waters of a stable ocean.

With the courtesy of both teachers to date, I never looked back on English and Mathematics. Even now, I can add 100 numbers without a pen in hand and tell the total. If anyone tells me four-digit numbers, I can add and tell the total within seconds.  I never recorded phone numbers. In my bank, whenever anyone wanted a phone number, they were joking, "Go and ask the computer" 

My respected teachers! I grew so big because of you. I will certainly grow bigger. When I reach the Higher Lands, I will take your blessings!

I got first place in the school and 35th rank in the state. I got selected for the National Merit Scholarship. The second one got 23 less than me, the Rhombus effect. My close friend for life got third mark with 32 marks less than me, again the Rhombus effect. My scholarship contributed to almost 25% of our family expenses in later years. I did not have fees in my college days. With torn pants and shirts donated my elder brother and half-filled stomachs, my life of ladders and snakes after snakes started then.

That we wished all things did not happen, that we did not wish many things would not happen.

THE CHURNING OF OCEAN OF MY LIFE - PART 2

 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 20^th 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 15^th 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 11^th 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. 

 

 

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.

 

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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!