Besides school

 Besides my schooling up to the Vth standard ( my age was only 8 years by then ), let us look into how I have been brought up in life. In general my mother was very social in nature and made friends around her circle.My parents used to give high importance to keep in touch with all our relatives- both paternal & maternal.

It was developed as a routine to go to our grandparents' home in Dharmapuri or Batlagundu in summer & winter holidays almost every year. Though I am 76 years old now,those memories of travelling by train  to these destinations are green in my memory.

For Dharmapuri, we used to board a passenger train at Madras central in the evening around 7pm, which will reach Morappur at around morning 5.30 am. Morappur station is beyond Jolarpet junction in Madras- Coimbatore line. At that time, Dharmapuri was a small town only  and there were no rail connectivity that existed then. At Morappur, we used to wait for Arur- Dharmapuri bus run by KRMS, a private party. In those days there were no government transport at all & KRMS was owned by one Sh Appavu Pillai, a Dharmapuri native. Invariably we used to reach our grandparent ( paternal) home around 9.30 am.. There all our cousins used to join together to enjoy our school holidays. My grand mother Mrs Lakshmi  ( famous owner of Lakshmi ammal chathram) used to entertain all her grandchildren by narrating stories & serve the food by hand to hand to each child ,all seated in semi circle. She used to dictate where each one has to sit on that day; her main motive was to ensure all cousins mix well and enjoy the holidays. Of course, in summer mango season we used to steal the mangoes from the stored gunny bags and relish them. Though she knew that she will not question anybody as if she has not noticed it.

Similarly when we go to Batlagundu ( my birth place & maternal grandfather home) we used to board the train at Madras Egmore which had only meter gauge line. We used to get down either at manapparai or Dindigul and catch the bus to Batlagundu. Batlagundu is at the downhill of Kodaikkanal hill station but I visited that place only after my marriage in 1975. The thrilling part of that journey used to be  the horse cart travel from the bus stand to home. The horse cart owner used to ask the passengers to move either front or shift back to ensure the load balance  for that 2 furlong distance  ( A furlong is 1/8th of a mile) It used to be thrilling for us. Once reaching home, only regular routine used to be there. So we children go to the temple at Koil street and spend most of the time. It was a Shiva temple.

While in Madras city, my mother used to be in close touch with three of her cousin brothers ( she had no brother at all) & their families.  In those days there were no telephone connectivity for a common man. So we used to call them at their homes periodically. Especially Chinna Mani, my uncle was staying 3 streets away from Vallabha Aghraharam. his wife was Mrs Gomathi and their daughter is Rani ( Muthulakshmi). That mama used to take me to carnatic music cutcheries organised by Thiruvateeswar sabha. I had heard many famous vidwans - MS, M L Vasanthakumari,Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar,, Veenai Balachander, Madirai Mani Iyer, & others. I used to enjoy hearing them but my music knowledge is zero even on date.

Coming to my health factor, as a child  I suffered with periodic ailments like fever, indigestion, loose motion etc. My mother used to take me  to Dr Acharya in initial days. Later she shifted to Dr Kamalakar Rao, MBBS at Krishnaswamy road. More than that doctor I used to like his compounder Sh Gundu rao who used to give me liquid mixture in glass bottle  struck with cut paper measurement stickers. As that mixture used to be tasty  I used to relish it more. For information the tablet culture did not set in by then.

As we were falling under the lower middle class family group,my mother used to struggle to make some monthly savings out of my father's monthly income for the rainy day. As the banking institutions were not grown, people used to source gold jewelry as treasure. My mother used to acquire some from one achari by name Sh Panchnatham, who used to stay near my mama's home. I am happy to share here that I still possess one gold ring with R in-scripted which was sourced in that process. That is one of the golden memories of my youth.

I would like to share some memorable events at that age.  

1. Standing in the queue at Gopal milk depot to get the first milked product in the early morning at 5 am. In those days there were no pocketed milk system in vogue and everyone has to depend on these milk depots only.

2.When my mother gets her monthly period, I used to go to Murudi's cafe at the road end and source idlis for breakfast. That was an Udipi restaurant which used to serve  very tasty sambar with little onions. The funniest thing was- I used to get 4 idlis for 4 annas ( 1/4 th of a rupee) but ask for and get one full bucket of that sambar as side dish. People used to wonder  whether that sambar is a side dish or main menu by itself!   

 3. Once I was given a Rs 10 note to collect  the ironed clothes from Shanmukha laundry which was 2 street away from my house. I went to that shop & picked up the clothes after the payment and they returned Rs6/- in some notes and coins. While walking back home,  one person interjected me cautioning that with the load in hand I may spill the balance cash and took me to a home in Nagappa Iyer street ( in between lane). There, as if helping me for safe handling of the cash, he used a newspaper to pack it safe and handed it over to me.  Can anyone imagine that after coming home, when me & my mother opened that pocket, it had only stone pebbles and no money at all !     

  4. There was  Star cinema theater near my home which used to run English movies generally and Hindi movie  on Sunday morning show. One Mr Rishi, my father's friend & commercial tax officer, father of Ms Usha , a classmate of my sister Viji , used to take all kids for that Hindi cinema shows in  Star theater. We picked up some Hindi speaking only by seeing those movies.

I was so naive in youth that I used to believe everybody on their face.