We shifted our residence to 17 Vallabha Aghraharm, Triplicane Madras 600005. Here I would like to touch about our new address & its surroundings. The funniest thing- though the street is named as Aghrharam that too in Madras city, there were only a few brahmin families! The houses in that road were occupied by Muslims,  Christian,Mudaliars , Chettiars, Telugu speaking Naidus & several North Indians- Gujarathi & Marwaris. But there were no caste difference issues; but daily street fights due to corporation water taps occupancy as well as big queue. Coming to our house in particular, it was a store type-  8 ground level houses adjoining each other inside a compound. Here also, in the beginning, they were tiled roofing only and no electric power. So monsoon rain wrath was very much there. so the occupants used only power lamps  with kerosene. But we were fortunate to have a one hundred year old neem tree just in front of our house. That served us as the best air conditioner to overcome Madras summer.

In the beginning, the whole store was owned by a muslim & he used to visit once in a month only for collecting the rent dues from all tenants. Even that store also had cosmopolitan tenants. In beginning our neighbors were:

M/S   Prakash rao & Rajam mami    Telugu Christians

          Mahalinga Iyer & Rajalakshmi

         Srinivasa Iyer  & Kamalam

         Astrologer Ramanathan       Telugu bachelor

         Pudu Veetukaramma  & P' ORR& Sons Mudaliar

         Kuppamma& Kurup                 Malayali with Tamil mix

 In that DPP rao did not have any child & Astrolger was a bachelor. The rest had  children- some were  grown up and the majority were of my age group.

Durai & Dilli  were of working age. Kuppu & Vijayan- children of Kuppamma/Kurup had also helped the society in washing household utensils  for all the houses & earned. Mr Mahalinga iyer & Srinivasa  iyer children listing - Mani, Pattu, Vara, Savithri, Kumar, Nagarajan, Kalyanam & Vasanthi. In my house in 1951 only me & my elder sister Viji; my younger brother Ramani was born in Oct. 1955 only. As this was a small store type layout, there was no space for small children to play around. But luckily, Mr Mahalinga iyer's mother, very old lady ( patti) used to take all the children  to a nearby temple-Thiruvatteeswaran temple , 3 streets away in the evening around 5.30PM  and engage all children with telling stories about Hindu culture & spiritual aspects of life. That is how I grew up as a child until the age of 7 years. Additionally I used to stand in the queue in early mornings at Gopal milk depot  to collect the freshly  milked cow or buffalo milk for our home. In those days there was no pocket milk system in the country.

As the space and lighting at home was the issue, Mrs Prakash rao encouraged me to carry out my studies and home work at their house.  The daily compulsory routine used to be 7 to 9 PM. As a discipline, when the  clock chimes at  9 o' clock, my duty was to pick some cereal from the jar and feed the sparrows in the cage  and return to my home. After that only I shall be served dinner by my mother. This routine & discipline system only has molded my nature. This continued until my younger brother Ramani  was born; later he became their pet child and their relationship went to the extent of he  carrying out their last rites as well as inheriting their property.

My early schooling. In the early 1950s, there was no Montessori or kindergarten schooling system prevailed. It so happened  that our area corporator Mr PM Dowlatram  sponsored  a school  for primary education and named it as Hindustan Hiteishi Mandal; to start with, it had only first standard in the first year. My parents admitted me in that school. My headmistress  was Ms Saraswathi and my teacher was Ms Vijayalakshmi. There were about 25 children both boys& girls in the class. As the years passed subsequent standards were opened and students promoted on merits. Like that they could open upto 3rd standard only; financial & space constraints were the cause for the limitation. As I was the brightest student among all students I was given double promotion- promoted from 3rd standard to 5th standard directly ! So in life I have never attended 4th standard! They called my parents and advised them to seek admission for 5th standard in Hindu Bala Patasala, which school had only upto 5th standard. So I got shifted to that school only for my 5th standard. Here I would like to mention that the famous ghatam vidwan Sh Vinayakaram was my classmate in 5th standard.