Chennai Center for History and Culture

Glimpses of Yesteryears       

• School Years 67-73
• Four Great Teachers
• My friends
• The Library
• Leadership and conflicts
• Upheavals of Fate
• Success and unfulfillment
• Strange encounters
• Renunciation and Divine grace
• The Prophet.
• End of an Epoch.

I liked my school very much. You could be yourself and nobody bothered you much. That makes it a great place to be in. The T.Nagar High School is truly a great one. It was founded by C.D.Nayagam a great visionary of social reform. I am a beneficiary of his vision.

I wish to acknowledge the role of four of my teachers with reverence. I still have a deep sense of affection and gratitude for three of my classmates whose names I have changed in this write up. I have given a brief narrative about them delineating their exemplary character traits, and in some aspects of their emotional make up, to give a complete picture within the context of those times. I learnt from them and emulated their traits. Valli was the prime moving force behind me. The sphere of this narrative is confined to our school campus. I have largely withheld the personal emotions. The portrayal of events are biographical in that it encompasses the way I understood and bonded with them. They were as follows. Pursuit of knowledge and excellence. A clear sense of purpose. A strong sense of self-dignity. These were the shared ideals and values with my classmates Valli, Madhan and T.R.G. We never looked down on our classmates and never intruded or invaded each other’s space. They were the only friends I made in all my school years. I revered four of my teachers very much. They were always there to answer my questions and guide me through complex abstractions. I loved going to school. It was a place where I learnt from people and things every step of the way. I got the much needed recognition and nurturing from them.

It was a microcosm of the world outside. Some of my classmates indulged in wasting of time and resources, refused to confirm to the basic norms of society and indulged in violent threatening and arm-twisting of peers. They showed extreme sadism and kill-joy tendencies with the cruelty and insensitivity of a marauding army. They were the emergent pain merchants of the future who would not hesitate to scorch their victims alive both in body and mind. It was dangerous to pardon them good heartedly. (This clarity came later in life). Back in those days I and my three friends kept away from them. We signalled to them our moral firmness decisively. I saw their appalling academic performance and made a point to know their priorities. I found that knowledge was low in their priority. The other so-called studious people confined themselves to mere memorising of select passages of the texts with a view of probable questions in the exams. In a way they had the gamblers instinct. They scored high marks. It was a bland effort without exercising their individual tendencies or aptitudes. They were the vicious bureaucrats of the future. Mere bricks on the wall that is establishment. They were the ones who went to premier institutions that were more hype than reality and expected us to be in awe of them and wallowed in repetitive and noncomplex jobs insulated from reality. They were the hyper-organized core who breathed down the necks of lesser employees endlessly persecuting them. Moving away from reality; and making riches by corrupt practices dehumanised them. None of the disasters, natural or man-made ever affected them. Even at that age I decided never to be part of any bureaucracy. I would be on my own albeit on an adventurous path and create a world of my own.

There was one exception my classmate R.U.B. who never spoke much nor smiled. He cut classes and loitered about with all sorts of people. He was a heavy smoker. He wore sloppy dresses and was barefoot appearing like a vagrant but not really so. He often came and extended his hand in friendship with me and I accepted politely. I saw a deep sense of sadness and despair in his eyes. What had made him sad? I was curious to know. He expressed fascination at the way I read books and remembered the contents so vividly. I understood his appreciation as a wish he harboured in his subconscious mind, but was unable to take effort for the same. I was puzzled by this dichotomy. I purchased a Beatles 45 rpm singles record of Nowhere Man. The song went thus

He’s a real nowhere man

Knows not where he is going to…..

Nowhere man please listen

You don’t know what you’re missing….

PAUL McCARTNEY & JOHN LENNON, George Harrison, Ringo Starr.

That’s the philosophic side of the Beatles of Great Britain. It went to my heart.  That summed up R.U.B apparently though.

I enjoyed playing the street games of gilli, marbles, spinning the top and flying kites. I always receded back to my world of books and never associated with my playmates beyond the games. The rough and tumble of the street culture made me uncomfortable. I held my time as too precious to be whiled away.

 I played cricket and tennis with an infinite zeal. I was a member of a cricket team at the Somasundaram grounds. I was a tactical off and leg-breaks bowler and a solid middle order defensive batsman. To play wily tricks of varying length, line and pace on the batsman were joyous exercises. For their part the batsmen would try to read us and stayed deceptively calm and whack my loose delivery for a six over the boundary line. It was a battle of wits, a kind of reality testing. I was never bored of playing. Every match was approached with a renewed zeal. 

Cricket was a sphere of physics and team management for me. I imagined the spinning ball to be the earth hurtling through space. It taught me the team bonding and the spirit of constructive co-operation and conflict management. Most of all it taught me to understand individual improvisations of skills and tactical war of wills in a competitive sphere. Lessons that proved valuable when I joined the corporate world in 1997. That is how I came to choose small start-up organizations where there’d be zero or very little rat-race, which dehumanises one and turns them into vicious rats. “It is ever not proper for the human race to be in a rat-race” as sung by Bob Marley the reggae superstar. Truly the rat-race was such a disgrace to humanity. My skills and time were for hire. I never sold myself for hyper salaried jobs. I refused to relay the greed of the enterprise owners to slave-drive my subordinates. That was my clearly stated precondition to my employers. Such idealism was possible only in a small start-up organizations where contribution to the growth was visible.

 I heard a lot of Hindi and western music. I could sing well too, and sang to myself a lot. I isolated the lyrics, melodies and harmonies that touched my heart and soul and wrote to the request programmes of All India Radio. Pat Gates of Voice of America, Myra Mortensen and Peter McArthur of radio Australia were my favourite radio comperes. Ameen Saab of radio Ceylon was a great favourite too.  

The period approaching exams had a special significance. Fear and suspense gripped me and Valli too. We moved into the top gear mode.  The back benchers came to the exam hall with their grumpy looks. To think, judge and make choices were considered as unbearable torture by them. In the exam hall I was truly alone. So were my precious friends. We smiled and nodded to each other. There was nothing there for us but to face the question paper. It was the final reality of our world, kind of final lap in the Formula 1 event.  After the exam we discussed our answers and groaned at our mistakes. Losing a single mark was a matter of grave concern and worry.

Our academic rivalry was marked by a deep respect and admiration for each other. There was an Olympic slant to it. We were behind each other by one or two marks, sometimes it was a bare half a mark, a kind of a photo finish. The teachers never allowed a tie-up they re-assessed and combed the answer papers for the slightest of spelling mistakes and minus our marks. Thus sometimes the competition ended in a nail biting finish. It was quite thrilling. Those were moments of self-realisation when we revelled in the triumph of our work. We knew the joy of stretching ourselves to do the very best. Our moods rose and fell but not our spirits. I voiced it in a brief statement of triumph “We have done our very best. We should never give up or compromise and settle for less”.

“And thereafter?” she asked tilting her head to one side, with a frown and a quizzical smile which was her unique coquettish style. She threw back her head and laughed gently for once and said “I think I got you stalled. How’d you get around that? Saying which she clapped her hands gleefully”

I smiled “You did get me stalled Valli. Now let me see?” I paused thinking it over. After a few minutes I said “I think I got it. Thereafter we must go on to do better than our best”

“That sums it all so aptly, I like the final summing up though” Valli said and gave me one of her rare bewitching smile. “The words best and better are both adjectives you simply put them into a proper comparative syntax you are just brilliant”. Such was her grace and exemplary class.

“You too Valli you are more brilliant than me”

“I don’t agree with you. Time and again you heap such praise on me. I think we have a quarrel at hand” saying which she frowned at me. I smiled at her childlike innocence.

“I thought we had a quarrel at hand” she insisted frowning at me. I have never seen such a cute frown till date. 

“I surrender to you Valli, I can never win against you in any way” she looked into my eyes directly and said “How nice of you” with her bright smile. The honking of the bus horn interrupted us.

We were at the cross roads. “Ok bye” She said and ran across the street. She turned back and waved to me again.

I stood at the corner of the crowded crossroads and watched her melt into the crowd. Would it be the same way in our lives? Will there come a time when we would be parted and become lost in the rush of life? That was just a fractal microcosm of the shape of things to come in the future. It was a tragic and poignant thought. I walked with a bowed head to the Indian Coffee House, the hot coffee was soothing. The song ‘Palkon ke piche se kya tumne’ was playing on the H.M.V radio. The aroma of sizzling hot coffee ushered in the coffee sharing mood. I wished that Valli was there to share a cup. The pleasure of coffee was never complete sitting alone at a table. Tomorrow was full of promise. As of now. At least.

One afternoon I saw her in distress. As usual there was nobody in the class during the lunch time. “I hurt myself stumbling over a brick” she said with a half sob. Her toe was red I saw a thin trickle of blood had clotted. It shocked me. She was wincing in pain.

“My toe hurts very much” she said her lips drooped as if she was about to weep and that broke my heart. It was my first ever heartbreak.

Her eyes brimmed with tears and I did not want to see the tear drop fall lest it create a flood of sorrow for me. That’s how crazy I became.

“Oh no Valli please don’t cry. I can’t bear to see you cry. Please, please don’t cry”. I gave her my handkerchief. She dried her tears with it and stuffed it in her skirt pocket. I noticed it but did not ask her to return it. “Please wait” and I ran to the office got some cotton wool dabbed with tincture from the first aid box and from the store I brought a strip of band aid. She dabbed the tinctured cotton wool with a short groan

“Easy, easy, gently” I offered to stick the band aid and I knelt down “Please allow me” I coaxed her but she refused to let me.

“Oh no you must not touch my feet” and hurriedly smoothed her skirts below her knees. So I handed her the band aid. “Thank you so much, for your care and kindness” She said and looked at me with a smile and limped to her desk. It broke my heart to see her limp. In the evening it began to rain and gave us a hygge feeling. We watched the rain drops falling and she cupped her hand and collected the rain water and drank it. She was so innocent and cute at that time. I gave her two strips of band aid. “Thanks, you are so thoughtful, thanks for your care and help” she said.

“No, no, nothing at all.” I said.  

LIBRARY

 Access to library was a key factor and constituted my extended super curriculum by which I surged ahead of my peers. It really brought the world within my grasp or intellectual purview. I held the keys to the puzzles of the world, not a day passed without a piece of the jigsaw falling into place. I took full advantage of it. I did not merely read the books, I walked with the great masters and story tellers and synchronised on to their wave lengths. Of all the books Epic of Gilgamesh, Aristotle, Dante, Victor Hugo and Thomas Hardy stood out. With Gilgamesh I entered a hoary past dated 5000 BCE. I journeyed to many strange lands and crossed the hostile and endless oceans to reach the enigmatic Underworld, which was the land of the dead, to bring back his friend Enkidu. He struggled to become immortal, but never succeeded. Finally summing up his experiences the understanding of Life, Death, and Immortality dawned on him. With Dante I walked through the Inferno (hell) and Purgatory a Prison-Laundromat for sins and sinners and to Paradise the blissful resort of the virtuous. Mark Twain was an exceptional classic, because I became friends with Tom, Becky, Huckleberry Finn and Jim the slave. Peterswood village was my virtual home and I was fascinated by the Mississippi River, so I read the book again and again. Jim Hawkins was a friend too and I sailed with him on the Hispaniola to the Treasure Island. Every time I read the books I viewed the events from different perspectives so they were endless sources of adventure. Each book was a time machine in itself. Aristotle handed over the secrets of consciousness and the cosmos itself, in his book De Anima. His enunciation of the principle of Phronesis impressed me a lot.  Initially reading the great masters raised a complex string of queries. In my mind I kept book marks to the queries and plaited the facts logically as and when clarity dawned, to get the whole picture drawn by the masters. By age seventeen I had laid the basic foundations. In the years to come I read the critical editions too.

Such was the consequence of the magnanimous gesture shown by our revered Headmistress, Mrs. G. Nayagam for granting me special access to the library which was restricted to higher classes only. She got the list of books I had borrowed and called me to her office and spoke to me regarding those books. I took the opportunity and gave her my wish list consisting of exclusive encyclopaedias of Sumeria, Egypt, Leakey’s works in Olduvai Gorge, in east Africa, and the Arabian nights. She added them in the next purchase list. Such was her respect and encouragement for pursuit of knowledge. Once in every fortnight she called me to her office. On her table were the list of books that I had borrowed from the library and my report card too.   

 She was a true educator. How do you thank a teacher who has taken you from simple school texts to the heights of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Lao Tzu and classic English literature?

MY TEACHERS

Mrs. G Nayagam (late), HM.

Mrs. D. Victor HM

Mr. M. Murty (late) class teacher 8^thstd.

Mrs. S. Narasimhan (late) class teacher 10^th & 11^th standards.

Mr.M was our class teacher in 8^th standard (1969-1970) was a true educator. One day I approached him and expressed my desire to access the library although it was forbidden for 8^th class pupils. He asked me about my other interests. To my surprise the very next day he took me to the Headmistress Mrs G. Nayagam who asked me about the authors of my choice. I promptly recited a list of them. She listened with raised eyebrows and immediately called the librarian and asked him to include my name in the borrowers list. In a single stroke the whole world was suddenly within my reach. That is how I felt. It was the summer of 69 Aug. Being a voracious reader I made full use of the library and exhausted the English literature section and many of the volumes of Encyclopaedia in a years’ time.

Of course I shared the books with Valli. Adam Bede, Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Lorna Doone and The Black Tulip were some of the books she borrowed from me. We shared a special liking for Lorna Doone and The Black Tulip she thanked me for having suggested these books.                                                                                    

Mrs. S. Narasimhan our class teacher in 10^th & 11^th standard, was a dedicated teacher. She understood my struggle with complex Greek thought and guided me with the interpretations. She invited me to her house on holidays. She had a small library at home and I took advantage of it. I was interested in Max Mueller’s book on comparative philology. She gave me a brief explanations from that book spread across many sessions about the meaning and scope of linguistics and study of comparative philology, particularly the grammatical structures, syntax and phonetic evolution. I spent the whole day in her house. The greatest mystery was the way she read my mind (like Valli) and counselled me accordingly. Sometimes in matters of knowledge she treated me as an equal and that humbled me. She was more than a teacher. She was a foster mother to me. “You are ahead of others by a wide margin. Do not fear or get discouraged or provoked by the taunting words of others, you must be a boy of knowledge and peace. Never hold back if somebody needs knowledge give it to them unconditionally” these words not only lifted my spirits but also made me think. Sometimes in the evening she took me along to the market to purchase the weekly supplies. She brought me popcorn, pastry, cheese patties and ice cream at the Grand bakery, next to the Rajkumari cinema theatre. Inevitably unasked she would buy me the Cadbury’s Five Star. Most times I preferred strawberry cream wafers and a Coca Cola. She cautioned me not to be diverted from my quest for knowledge and extracted a promise from me regarding that. Time and again she cautioned me and showed anxiety in that regard.

She asked me to take up the leadership of the class. Being an academic, I was reluctant to take up a political role. First thing I had no contact with any of the boys or girls. Valli, Madhan and TRG were the only classmates I related to as friends. 

I must make a special mention of Chandra miss and Nirmala miss, they were new teachers. Miss Chandra looked like a student herself and she was very friendly to all the students. Nirmala miss was highly qualified and knowledgeable and a strict disciplinarian. I had special respect for both the teachers. 

MY FRIENDS

Valli: She was the sweetest thing I had ever seen. I had a strange stirring within me as if I had seen her before. Maybe from a past birth. First time I saw her she wore a sky blue pinafore with tiny white fishnet checks and matching light blue stockings, her shoes were beautiful white moccasins. She wore a dainty Camy wrist watch. The double plaits framed her face and made her look very cute in a dolly kind of way. She was so cute that I wanted to mollycoddle her. Her smile lit up her eyes and her voice was so sweet and magical. Yet she was a very reserved person.

Every small gesture of hers was sweet like the way she pushed a stray curl into her head band, and twisted her wrist to look at the time on her watch, the way she held her tongue between her lips while writing.

She was one of the top five students including me. Actually we were more English in culture. She was very reserved and elegant in every way. I felt that she had stepped out of a fairy-tale picture book. Not only that she had an equally beautiful and radiant mind and was of exemplary character of gold. Those qualities were the rarest of rare combinations. To sum it up she was the one without a second, a rare Koh-I-Noor. I was proud to have her friendship.    

She was my academic rival but a moral-cultural equal. She beat me to the top place in the class. She spoke English with an impeccable style. Her diction, vocabulary and phonetics were impressive, I admired her for that. She humbly refused to accept my praise saying “You are far superior to me” with a charming smile, of course I didn’t agree with her. Her exemplary character was marked by purposive actions, prudent thought i.e. being rational, and a solid sense of self-dignity. Her courage to stand by her convictions firmly impressed me most of all, because it was a shared value. I was brought up not only to speak English but also to admire and imbibe the English cultural values (minus their colonial attitude) by my illustrious father. So I did not mind her being ahead sometimes because as a gentleman I did not believe in scoring victory over girls in any way. That was a quality of the gallant knights in shining armour. As a school boy my imagination was very much fired and inspired by King Arthur and his knights. She expressed her aesthetics in her dressing. Two occasions stand out in my memory. On one occasion she wore a Scottish Kilt-skirt of bright red and dark blue checks with a crimson blouse. The bobbing pony tail and the fringe curls and matching footwear of moccasins and red stocking socks made her look like a highlander girl. On another occasion she wore a pink and white pinafore; she looked every inch an English rose. Sometimes she wore a salwar kameez and looked so ravishing. I liked her most when she wore the frilly royal blue miniskirts and a snow white sleeveless blouse. That was on the fourth day after she joined. Her hair was coiled at the back of her head in a long coiffure and she looked pert like an airhostess. I remember on that day I had worn deep emerald green satin corduroy cover-all knickers with light green polo neck shirt and Clark Sneaker shoes. Those were times when I was inspired by Enid Blyton, and Life magazine, Beatles, Cliff Richard, Mohammed Rafi and Shadows. In a way my core convictions were English based on my heroic admiration for Newton, Darwin, Faraday, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, and Shakespeare. Mark Twain was very special particularly Tom, Jim and Huckleberry Finn. I was happy to see that she subscribed to the same values. We preferred to speak in English. She too never mingled with the crowds. In a way we were aristocrats by our accomplishments and our universal cultural outlook. We did not look down on others. Yet contrary to facts that was the opinion held against us. But we were aware of the culture divide between us and them and left it at that.

In the tenth standard class I was asked to take the leadership of the class. When I expressed my reluctance in taking up the leadership, she gently persuaded me to take up the assignment “You can do it, because you are very knowledgeable and a versatile personality. Besides I think you are an idealist and a born reformer. Not only do you have the wisdom, but you have the practical sense of balance and bring it to viable action. Our class needs such a leader. There is no one but you who is fit for the task. Please accept it” she had said with earnestness. Her words of wisdom stunned me. How could I ever refuse her? That transpired in the days Oct 1 to 12, 1971. Thus she had made the decision for me. I just followed in her footsteps. So I accepted the leadership and executed my duties with care and caution thanks to the counsel of Valli. She was my staunchest admirer and ally. I came to the realization that she was the only person who had never hurt me in any way in my life. The other two allies being Madhan and TRG. Such was the advanced thought and maturity of our quartet.

In the later years, after I lost touch with Valli, I wondered if she would be engulfed by the twists and turns of fate and become a mundane housewife or employee somewhere, that’d be a colossal waste of her precious potential. She had the tremendous capacity to become an academic, a professor perhaps and with her brilliant mind and personality set many young minds afire.

Leadership: Mrs.SN went on leave for three weeks. I took over as leader then. One of the first thing I did was to impose strict discipline in my class and brought the ‘class cutting’ to zero. The back benchers tried to resist my authority every step of the way. I was persuasive in a direct way. I emphasised to them the self-destructive actions which would turn against them in the future and make life difficult. I told them that learning can be joyous too and warned them that they’d end up doing far less than their potential. “You cannot even be an entrepreneur because that requires capital management and communication skills and acumen. You will be seriously handicapped or slowed down by your poor academic record and lack of quality skills which will turn into loss of dignity in the society and you will end up in the lower echelons of any hierarchy. With a dismal mark sheet of low scores you will be given menial jobs. Industry demands knowledge and hands on skills, and etiquette. Most of all you’d end up losing your sense of happiness. It is the greatest tragedy of all, what else will remain after that?”

In my private conversations with them as a peer I emphasised the point that they were rebelling against themselves in a self-destruct mode. “Schooling is a tripartite social pact between you, society and your parents. It is a preparatory instrument of the social organization of which the family is a unit. Your kind of rebellion breaks these bonds and vitiates the social atmosphere, in a way you are destroying your substratum. Cocking-a-snook at the authority of the school proves nothing. You can always go to movies after school hours why cut classes? You made a pact to learn in school. Look into your conscience. You will find that you are trying to deceive yourself. An absolute impossibility. I am here only to give. I don’t want anything from you. There is nothing you can give me, save compliance in my effort to help you through your lessons”. This argument I believe was a winner because it disarmed them morally. It was impossible to see me as an enemy of theirs. After this lecture I split this content and sandwiched them in brief conversations and in between the history lesson of French revolution and struggle against the oppressive royalty for political-social justice. In effect I was able to blunt their antagonism and I succeeded in making them to take down the notes and write the tests too. I had learnt the lesson of morally disarming my opponents. It was a war of wills and I prevailed. They continued to show diffidence and ridiculed my moralising. I did not give up but made them see the fearful consequences if the hand of authority comes down on them. Unobtrusively I brought them to toe my line.

In the coming days I organized the lab sessions and gave safety precautions to be followed while handling the acid bottles and avoiding breakages of expensive equipment. During lab sessions I alternated between the class and the lab and kept a tight vigil. Of course Madhan was there too unobtrusively with the checklist of teams and activities. Valli stood by me and acted as a catalyst. She handled the girls’ team. She was watchful and knew my next step and unasked she was always at my side ready to give a hand. She had the sharp and observant mind of a CEO observing keenly if the logical sequence of events were moving towards its desired end.  Madhan was my co-pilot. There was an occasion when I had forgotten to bring my lunch pack. I was really tired after the load of work. She noticed it and shared her lunch with me. That was and still is the best lunch of my life. She reproached me gently as we walked from the lab to the classroom carrying the stack of record note books. “Take it easy, please don’t drive yourself beyond endurance. Your dedication and acumen are exemplary and is inspiring for me. Remember there is much work to do tomorrow too” her soft tone and concern was a soul nourishment. It was great to feel that I had someone who cared about me. After a pause she emphasised again “Have you got the point or are you simply nodding your head. Please listen won’t you?” she pleaded. I nodded and said

“What‘d I do without your support Valli? Thank you so much”.

“Please don’t mention it. I have done so little. Given a chance I’d do even more for you” she said with her radiant smile. I was touched by her statement.  

‘’That evening as I was starting for home she came and took the novel Venetian Rhapsody by Denise Robins from my bag. She never asked but just took it with a bright smile. I loved her gesture of intimacy. I also noticed that she respected me like a teacher and never called me by my name. It was so since the first time we met. Never once she uttered my name.

Not only did I dictate the notes I inadvertently played the role of a teacher and even cleared their doubts which strengthened my position as a leader. I conducted class tests as per the roster given to me, the history and geography teacher was on sick leave too, for a week, and I filled the void similarly. So I had an additional responsibility on me. I took up the challenge enthusiastically knowing well that Valli would approve. And she did. I established complete command over the class and when I got the chance I counselled them with short crisp and precise lectures on the importance of academic performances, I emphasised the prime fact that it would be of great help in discovering their forte.  I did not get the thanks that was due to me. I did not mind it. When I felt down and out Valli was always there with her bright smile and words of appreciation and wisdom urging me to keep going. The sensitivity and empathy shown by Valli served as an inspiration. Her kind words and her gentle tone were like a rare alchemist’s potion of soul nourishment. She was so perfect a girl.

In the final week of November 1971 I had to dictate the notes on E.Pakistan’s   Gangetic delta. The newspapers were full of ongoing Bangladesh war of liberation. I gave the class a summing up of the events that had led to the war. I told them of the brutality of the wars in history, the Nepoleonic wars in Europe as portrayed in the classic novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. The Crimean wars and the holocaust of world wars culminating in the atom bombs that had turned Hiroshima and Nagasaki to ashes and killed millions within minutes. The brutality of the ongoing Vietnam War was equally sad. “Nations must learn to settle disputes without resorting to armed conflicts” I said and paused, for a minute. I was suddenly seized with a sense of sadness. Valli detected my mood and came to me and whispered “Enough of this war brutality narratives. It is depressing. Ask Madhan to write the notes on the blackboard”

“Ok Valli” I said and handed over the notes to Madhan. I could never say no to her in any way so far.

“When will it all end?” What happened to the wisdom of great men? There was a frown on her face which expressed tragedy. Yet it made her look very sweet. There was a faraway look in her eyes. I led her into the empty corridor saying “You brought the pivotal issue into focus, I had never thought of it before. I think the answer lies in universal education. You and I have been fortunate that our parents laid adequate stress on morality and learning in that order. As individuals we have made choices and embraced western values of science and reason”. She nodded in agreement and the frown on her face had gone.

“What about the conflict within us? That seems to drive the choices we make isn’t it? She asked me.

“Yes Valli it is a conflict between the mundane and the ideal. What one considers as ideal differs from the perspectives taken.”

I was stunned at the turn our conversation had taken. That was her sterling calibre. I was proud that I had such an intelligent and adorable girl as my friend. She was straight and bright as sunrays.

“I am thirsty, I’ll drink some water and be back” I could not allow her to go unescorted so we walked slowly our shoulders brushing, across the empty campus grounds to the tap. The classes were in progress. I held the tap open for her and she had a long drink and I gave her my handkerchief to wipe her hands and mouth. Then it was her turn to hold the tap for me. After I had quenched my thirst she said “Wait” and took a handful of water and dabbed her face. I imitated her “That will freshen you up” and it did.

“Suddenly you fell silent?” she asked me with that lovely frown.

“You raised a vital question with your incisive mind Valli so that was like a sudden jolt.”

“I look to you for the final answer please don’t let me down” she said.

“Oh no Valli I’ll never let you down ever. It doesn’t look like there’s going to be a singular answer. Too many factors are involved and they have to be resolved into a cogent whole. But you cannot encapsulate it in a sentence, much less a short paragraph too. Understand?”

“Yes sir I do. It is you who taught me to understand the importance of right perspectives in the study of history” she said with a cute tilt of her head and a solemn look in her eyes.

That night I sat on the stoep. The Chaya Geet just started and I knew that Valli would be sitting by the radio too. The haunting song Wadiyan mera daman, sung by Lata Mangeshkar floated from the radio. This particular song was requested by persons from Akola, Naya Jalna, Kanpur, Jabalpur, Srinagar, Siliguri, Rajkot, Adilabad, Raipur, Pathankot, Jhargram, Aizwal and Faizabad and a host of other cities and towns. These people empathized with the finest soulful sentiments of love expressed in the song. It united them for the few minutes the song lasted. I understood it as a radio bond and the program lasted for half an hour. Such was the function of radio.

After the radio program the world seemed to have gone to bed. I quietly repeated her words in an undertone ‘What about the conflict within us?’ I remembered the frown, because she never frowned at me. I recalled it and smiled looking at the quarter moon.

My mind reverted back to the question raised by her. The tutelage of the great Aristotle had no effect on Alexander who had become a megalomaniacal   conqueror and razed down cities and pillaged and terrorized and uprooted entire nations. A single man’s misplaced superiority complex turned into brutality that was carried out by thousands of soldiers mindlessly. I heard a low rumble.    

A huge jumbo jet appeared in the skies with its navigation lights blinking as if it was a UFO. It flew low and suddenly the silence was torn by the four jet engines. The brightly lit tail displayed the Kangaroo logo. It was the Quantas airline. Flying in all the way from Sydney downunder. In one and a half minute I could hear the jet roar suddenly increase as it touched down and the inertial brakes were applied. It was time to go to bed. Valli’s question remained unresolved. There was an answer of course, and answers don’t come to you. You had to weave the variables about and derive them. “Don’t let me down” she had said it not as a plea but uttered with a sense of entitlement. She had exercised a prerogative I had granted to her alone as a knowledge peer. It made me feel great to know that she needed me, but greater still was my need for recognition by her.   

Madhan: I was helped by my friend Madhan who wrote the notes on the board when I felt tired of dictating them for two continuous hours. He also helped me in correcting the test papers of six subjects of fifty students. That was three hundred papers in all. I, Valli and Madhan did the corrections. Valli tabulated the mistakes committed and prescribed the corrective measures. Thus out of this experience was born the idea of starting my own school in future.

Mrs. Victor continued to extend the patronage bestowed on me by former Head Mistress Mrs. G. Nayagam. She was the one who took cognizance of my leadership role and praised me sky high and decided to constitute a special best leader award. It was the first time that such an award was given to anybody in the school’s history.

The Award: The best class leader prize was given at the end of the academic year 1972 on our annual day celebrations on April first week. It was the day I gave a rock music performance on the stage. I sang Yellow River by Jeff Christie and Proud Mary by the CCR. The roaring cheers and claps made me euphoric. I looked for Valli in the front row she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I was disappointed at that. Next day she complimented me “It seems you sang very well”

“When I saw that you were not there I was disheartened, I missed your clapping when I received the best leader prize”

“I was seized with sudden excruciatingly painful cramps and had to be escorted home. I wanted to tell you but I could not find you” 

“I handed her the first prize pack of books. It belongs to you as much as to me for all the help and inspiration you gave, thank you Valli I can never thank you enough.”

“You praise me too much. I have done so little”, she said with a frown and a smile all rolled into one charming expression.   

The award for the best leader was a package of six books ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ was an expensive original Penguin classic. Jules Verne’s Twenty thousand leagues under the sea and Journey to the centre of the earth, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, Homer’s Jason and the Argonauts and Treasure Island of R.L. Stevenson. The book Huckleberry Finn gave me a deep fulfilment because I saw myself as a composite of the teenage characters of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Jim the black slave. Tom’s love for the heroine Becky Thatcher was most touching. I did feel disappointed with his Quixotic streak. Yet I admired his spontaneity and rationalisations. It was a sequel to Adventures of Tom Sawyer which I had read in Oct 1969, and which was the second book Valli borrowed from me and firmly refused to return it.

Acknowledgement and gratitude:  next day I spoke to Valli again and acknowledged her role in my receiving the award but she emphatically refused to share the credit. “I have done nothing it was all your genius” she had said. Her words of admiration put me on top of the world. But I still maintained that her contribution was invaluable. That was the only time I differed with her. A few days later Valli and Madhan spoke to me at length, Madhan praised me profusely saying “Your presentation about French revolution won the attention of the whole class, particularly your blending the story of The Tale of Two Cities into the historical context” I think you are right she agreed with Madhan.

“Reference to the novel ’93 by Victor Hugo was thoroughly gripping. You had the class under a spell by your narrative about the schism between parliament and monarchy and ending with the tragic beheading of King Charles1 referring to the novel Children of the New Forest. You vivid descriptions sure took me back down to that bygone age” Valli said. There was all round praise for the narrative.  

Valli added “I’d like to borrow your copy of ‘The Children of The New Forest’. Even then I’d like to listen to your live narrative. I was most impressed by your explanation of the spirit of enquiry and inquiry that characterised the Age of Renaissance. Your brief explanation with excerpts from Aristotle’s works and Dante’s Divine Comedy were amazing and thought provoking. On reaching home I was ruminating on the things you emphasised. I jotted down my doubts. I am interested in the Inferno and Aristotle’s logic of rational thought. There are many questions pending I will discuss them later when we are alone and I can have your full attention”.

“Anytime you please Valli I am all yours, you know I’ll do anything for you” I said with a smile. She gave me her bewitching smile which was her unique charm. One could not but adore her. She was so tender, so charming and so pure hearted. It was impossible to dislike, hate or hurt her in any way. Only the lowest and most depraved of men could hate her and hurt her. She borrowed the prize book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for reading. The story was set on the banks of the mighty Mississippi river. As a bonus I gave her the book The Noble One by Dennis Robins. It was a story set in England of a lone girl who fought against the poachers to save a lone stag with exceptionally long antlers. “The heroine, resembles you in every way Valli” I complimented her.

She smiled shyly “Oh no there you go again. You praise me too much” yet her face brightened with a smile that lit up her eyes. Next day we arrived an hour before the school bell rang. We sat down to work in the empty classroom sifting through the bundle of corrected test papers. She pointed out the glaring glitches in some papers and we laughed heartily. On the margins she had jotted down the exercises needed to correct those mistakes. She sorted out and tabulated the various types of mistakes and prescribed corrective measures. The emergent statistics were interesting. Such was her initiative and creative endeavour. I was right, she was the stuff of a CEO. Suddenly she said “You dress like an admiral but you sound like a professor much older and wiser than your age. All the boys and girls are afraid of you. Whatever their resistance and diffidence keep up the good work please don’t let it go”

“And why would I not keep it up Valli? I will never let it go as long as I have you beside me. Thank you so much for all the inspiration and support” I said with a smile.

“You are carrying out a most challenging task. Your reformation drive is a balancing act between what is best and its practical viability and it is working. To help you is my prerogative” she had said with a bright smile. Only she could make use of such precise, sophisticated and fine expressions. Her inspiration was immeasurable. That night I sat on the stoep and wondered if I could ever repay her in any manner. The songs played on. At present the song ‘tu jahan jahan chalega mera saya saath hoga’ a haunting melody of love sung by Lata Mangeshkar. The requests in the program came from Kohima, Darjeeling, Batinda, Meeerut, Ajmer, Nanded, Sholapur Bolangir etc.

End of Childhood: The world was not all rosy. There was a sudden upheaval in my life at that time when I was riding a wave of triumph. My father had a paralytic stroke in Jan72. I was asked to drop out of school immediately and go to work. The bottom fell out of my world. I faced attack on another front too. My Hindi master was suddenly up in arms against me. The sudden ‘u’ turn and causeless hatred and victimization hurt me very much. He expelled me from Visharad classes even though I had scored high marks in the previous exams. My academic record and my discipline stood by me. He did not cut ice against me with the school management. But my detractors joined forces with him in an unholy alliance. Suffice it to say that I was extremely shocked and dismayed to know the reason for his animosity. How could he dictate who I made friends with? As a student I was helpless against such Goliaths and their vicious assaults. Particularly when I was on the threshold of becoming a destitute. It was Jan ’72. To face destitution at age sixteen is the greatest heartbreak. Those were days of suspense. Day in and day out, I did not know what fate had in store for me. What work would I get? Where would I go? I did not tell my friends about my troubles. Yet I carried on my duties as a leader. Every morning when she entered the class Valli gave me her good morning sunflower smile. Although my heart was heavy with grief I smiled and wished her good morning. There was a question mark and sadness in the way she looked at me. She had sensed that something was not right with me. “Is everything all right?” She asked, I simply nodded. “You won’t tell me?” She persisted. She sensed my reluctance and kept quiet. Such was her sensitivity and concern as a good friend.

Inwardly I decided not to give up my vision to explore for prehistoric remains, study evolutionary genetics and go deeper into the process of photosynthesis. I’d somehow make it happen. It did not matter if I could not go to college all I needed was access to the Connemara and University Libraries. Even though I was in deep despair I never told my friends or showed it outwardly I was at a loss. What could I tell them? Universally the end of childhood is never a happy one. Sweet memories would turn bitter when viewed as a past. I did not mind the pain of hard labour because it would soften life into sweetness. I did not mind working as a menial and start at the bottom. I knew I could make it to the top, I was far ahead in knowledge and discipline. I had the full realization that economic independence was a precondition for psychological freedom. I intended to create a world of my own. Fortunately, my father recovered completely and went back to work. Yet I was on the back foot I felt that I ought not to wait for another twist of Fate and planned to discontinue school in the 11^th std i.e. in73 July. I tried to tell Valli about my situation but somehow, I refrained myself. Time passed by. I lost heart and a pall of gloom hung on my life. From then on, my world was split into two segments, Before 73 and After 73.

The Legacy

The confidence bestowed on me by Mrs. Victor, Mr Mohanamurty and Mrs. S N and Valli have sustained me all through. I remembered their words of wisdom, caution, and criticisms which served as training in pursuit of excellence. They gave me the strength and resilience to deal with the cataclysmic upheavals in my life ever since 1972 Jan. Their inspiration constituted the prime motive force in all my triumphs (Please see the section My Prehistoric Odyssey for details of my archaeological expeditions, the discoveries I made and research publications thereof.)

Valli presented me with a Perry Mason book titled The Case of the Footloose Doll on 2-12-1971, 2.15pm. It was raining steadily and it became cold, we sat back in the class all alone, chatting quietly in low tones. The pattering rhythm of the rain gave us a feeling of hygge.

“Why were you absent in the morning session?” She asked in a low tone and I had to lean forward to hear her.

“I had to accompany my dad to the clinic”

“What happened?” she asked with concern.

“Just a cold and fever Valli”

“How is he now?” She persisted

“He is advised bed rest for a day or two”. I looked at the book and said “Thank you l never read Perry Mason so far”

“I brought it for you three days ago”

“Not only is it a thriller but certainly not the pulp fiction kind. It will be food for thought. It will suit your incisive mind” she had said. Her words of praise always put wings to my heart. Her comments about the book turned out to be true. I added Perry Mason to my reading list. The book gave me an insight into the interplay of propositions and the logical derivation of final conclusions. It also gave me an insight into proceedings of constitutional justice systems in the courtrooms of Los Angeles and various types of jurisprudence down to the street level policing and involvement of forensic sciences in crime detection in the USA. It was as if I had visited LA. Further I got an insight into the dynamics of social values and the prevalence of organised crime and their greed, and covetousness, in a complex commercial-industrial consumer based western society. Thank you dear Valli wherever you are. Such is the value of good friendship which is characterized by mutual exchange of life’s lessons. Her inspiration endures to this day.

 Madhan: Thank you, Madhan, for the practical counsel and sharing my burdens, and most of all for introducing me to the world of Enid Blyton, and the cowboy fiction of ‘Sudden’ series by Oliver Strange. These cowboy stories led me through sprawling cattle ranches, and the geographies of the Arizona, Colorado and Texas. The vivid descriptions left me with an intimate feeling of being part of the land itself. He introduced me to the Easwari lending library. I discovered the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. They are some of the finest thought provoking works of modern sci-fi literature. The first book on Mars series was given to me by my junior Mehta in March 1971.

The scores of romantic novels I read by Denise Robins, Barbara Cartland etc gave me an insight into the love relationships among the youth in British and European cultures. It gave me an added glimpse of the private Jet aircrafts and luxury yachts, and chateaus set in the Riviera and Swiss Alps. I saw them in the larger context as the fruits of colonial exploitation by North Europeans.

Love happens, ever, with only one person and stays forever. First love is the only love worth. A woman, most often, doesn’t marry the man she loves but the man who is ready. That is the start or root of unhappiness in marriages.

True love is a phenomenon more often subject to twists and turns of destiny and the scorching cruelty of jealous hearts and archaic traditions that are like expired medicines unfit for use and have turned hazardous. In reality the fires of love cannot be doused by mere threats and jealousy, they endure eternally. Unfulfilled love is the greatest tragedy on earth. It dents a person’s heart permanently, it bleeds not blood but tears of sadness. Such tears when they fall on earth scorch it, figuratively speaking. Young people must be encouraged and trained to read great classics such as

Silapathikaram (Ancient Tamil epic) good marriage, Lust, Realization, inevitable tragic consequences of haste and anger.

Secrets of the heart by Kahlil Gibran, like an open heart surgery. Everything you need or want to know about the lover’s hearts.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. Standing up against the world outside, the individuation process of a person. Of salvation and liberation from the collective oppression. Of entelechy or moksha. It is my personal story too. JLS resembles me in every way.

 Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Love of life & Discovery of self

 Mr.Sampath by R.K.Narayan, Love and incomprehensible fate

Acts of anti-love are carried out particularly by those who have parents with bloated egos. Excessive egos paralyse your sense of love. Being egoless, on the other hand, leaves one bereft of self-identity. How can you love without your unique identity? True love will never die nor lie. It is a cosmic constant.

The novels of love and romance borrowed from Easwari lending library opened the floodgates to such matured thoughts. Contrary to common views that they were pulp fiction I applied thought and understood the dynamics of western life through them. Each book served as a microcosmic window to various aspects of western lifestyles. The locales included the great cities like Naples, Venice, Rome, Nice, Marseille, Lyon, Paris, Monte Carlo, Reykjavik, Madrid, London, Toronto, NY, LA, Lima and Rio de Janiero. The opulence was counterbalanced by the ugliness of organised crime in those cities.  

 Such was the consequence of my friendship with Madhan. Without him I would not have known about the Easwari Lending Library. I can say thanks a million but still that was inadequate considering the magnitude of his contribution to the development of my personality. How do you thank a friend who has contributed so much to my intellectual growth?    

 T.R.G: On the creative side I learnt the facts about cinema from him. His father being a movie director in Telugu. I mingled with superstar Krishna of Telugu field and a host of Cine artists. It was so in the days of production for the mega movie ‘Alluri Seetharamaraju’ who rebelled against the British in Andhra.    

I learnt about the story discussions and audience response, Casting, dialogue writing, scheduling the shootings and make-up techniques. The editing and rerecording, the mixing of the musical score were a revelation to me. Most of all their publicity exercise gave me an insight into how public sentiments are tapped and manipulated. I discovered that mass media was a terrible Goliath of calculated lying. It was stunning to see how a segment of the population could be held under a make-believe spell by some, for all of the time, until their millions were levied at the box office.

The dream merchants and their creation of distorted dream worlds and rabid titillating fantasies that is cinema. It reminded me of Aldous Huxley’s warning about ‘holiday from reality’. I took full advantage and learnt about the movie industry. Such was the contribution of TRG. I can’t thank him enough.

TRG was large hearted. When my father died the bottom of my world fell too. I had to discontinue college within a month of joining it. It was a multiple tragedy. My life had collapsed completely. I was orphaned, homeless and faced starvation too. All my hopes and plans for my future were dashed. I took the bold decision of carving out my own career path. I refused the job of flight purser. My father’s friend offered to send me to the USA for college studies in the hope that I’d marry his daughter. I rejected that offer without a second thought. I refused to tow the establishment line and seek employment in banks and other government establishments.

So, I started a tea shop in 1976 Dec 24 at 9 am. My first customer was Mr. Gurrisen from Maastricht. The business wasn’t as per my expectations so I relocated it twice before settling in The Govt. General Hospital campus on 3^rd Nov 1977. It turned out to be a mega money spinner. I did not merely earn large amounts. By 1979 I surged three decades ahead of others. That is the kind of fortune I made. People looked down on me when I told them that I ran a tea shop and in the same breath changed tunes when they saw my prosperity. That really saddened me. TRG stood by me and supported me every step of the way. Without him life would have been really rough. He was in touch with me till 1985 then I lost contact. Thank you TRG.

I was torn off from my past world. I was all alone without a friend. I lost heart yet I trudged on. I felt that my world had come to a grinding halt.

Life After 73 April. On 5^th Sept 75 I joined college in Annamalai University. Exactly a month later on 6^th Oct I was sitting in the hostel mess having tea when I received the telegram of my father’s death. He had died of heart attack on 11 AM 6 hours ago. He had died in the VHS hospital resting his head on the lap of my friend TRG. Now I stood alone with no one to turn to for support. The years 75 Oct to 77 Nov was one of chaos and extreme suffering. I was almost homeless and on the verge of starvation. I had enough money to last me till 76 Dec. Then my fortunes rose. On 3^rd Nov 77 I relocated my shop to the General Hospital. My calculated move was rewarded. It was a meteoric rise and it rained money in my world. I discovered that I had the Midas touch minus the greed. I made my money work for me. I purchased various books on philosophy. History books by Toynbee, Childe and Durant were my prized possessions. I alternated between the gross world of being a coffee-shop owner and the erudite heights of philosophy. I heard a lot of music. The Beatles song ‘Can’t buy me love’ defined my life. The road to survival and prosperity had taken its toll. I was tied to my shop all the time. There was nobody I could trust or love. I came to the realization that the days of childhood had gone yet they must be remembered with wisdom and foresight but never forgotten.

Paths of knowledge. I had self-learnt chemistry at age eleven. I read about Adi Shankara’s Maya theory and questioned it. The world could not be an illusion. The make believe world of luxurious cinema theatres was illusion. Dr.S.Radhakrishnan taught me to first understand the history of such arguments. So, I was cautious not to come to final conclusions. The passages pertaining to Viratpurush from the Rig Veda was of much interest to me, because I saw it as an attempt to express the entire cosmos in a cogent framework. The Silapadhigaram, a tragic Tamil epic made a deep impact on me. I continued to study English literature and Greek philosophy.

Word spread about my prosperity and I was approached by foxy people seeking my help with false reasons. I was only twenty one and was taken in by appeals for help on mercy grounds. Huge sums of money were never returned to me. Whichever way I turned I faced deception and betrayal and blatant lying. However, much wisdom one acquired there was no end to the artful dodgers. They were as slippery as water snakes.  My employees were the only trustworthy persons around me. The bureaucrats constantly found fault with the govt permission granted for my shop which they had drawn. This despite the fact that it was directly granted by PM Indira Gandhi’s self-employment program. Their stand was like an armed hold up on the highway ‘pay up the bribe or else’. It was a blatant act of robbery. It was a constant state of tug of war and till the end I never gave in. What had happened to their education and upbringing? I faced directly the moral-ethical failure of the education system which had churned out suave looking morons refusing to distinguish between the right and the wrong. To make judgements was horrifying to them. It was kind of pandemic pervading the urban-industrial economies of the world. The creed of the shameless was worst form of terrorism. They were leeches of urban jungles looking for others to create wealth which could be looted on some frivolous pretext. All the people around me asked me to take it easy and pay up the hush money. “Be practical” was their advice. I stood up to them and won. It was difficult but not impractical or impossible. Morally disarming people was nothing new to me. 

Renunciation

After three years of working for 10-12 hours a day I finally reached the burnout stage. I stood alone in the world. The monotonous routines of the shop and the money pouring in was not enough. I felt claustrophobic in the shop while life was going on outside. The answers to the central questions of my life could not be had if I sat in the shop. A sense of renunciation dawned in me. I handed over my shop to my employees and left Madras and visited various ashrams and finally arrived at Sravanabelagola.  The monks at the Jain ashram camp at the foot of the Sravanabelagola hill were busy. In ten days, the ceremony of mahamastaka abisheka was to be performed, this ceremony was performed once in twelve years. The Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the chief guest. Every day I climbed the hill along with some monks and prayed at the feet of Bahubali. The statue was truly of mega proportions standing up to 57 feet and was the tallest in the world. Nobody spoke to me so I voluntarily worked at small tasks in the ashram. I was in a forced ‘mouna vrat’ for six days. Fact is no one spoke to me, they ignored me. On the seventh day I helped a monk load the laundry onto a bullock cart. It was taken to a nearby lake I shared the task of washing the ashram clothes. After finishing the tasks, I had a dip in the cold water and sat with him facing west watching the sundown. Then a most amazing thing happened. He seemed to read my mind which shocked me. “Wandering will not help. You will not get the desired result”. The dam broke and I began to sob like a child. The racking sobs came in waves. He held my hand and consoled me. He spoke with kindness and compassion, which initially increased the sobbing. He waited for the sobs to subside and continued “You are too young, son, and tender hearted. The racking sobs tell me that you have lost something of greatest value for no fault of yours. Only the workings of cruel and merciless Fate breaks a person’s heart so. There is no one to complain about, nor turn your anger upon. Please, do not lose heart or let it go; let it be, instead. Just let it be, you are yet a child in a way. Your time for renunciation has not yet come. I can see the desperation in your eyes. Idealistic youth of your age, sometimes, suffer from such heartache of missing a soul mate because only a soul mate has such a profound effect on a person. It has made you cross many miles in search of an answer. Your racking sobs tell me that it is a tender youthful heart’s cry. I am sure you feel lost as if some irreversible event has taken place. It is not so. Let it be, awhile. Abide by the tide. Life is worth ever, and you must not despair over a single setback. You are in for a long, long wait. Love cannot be hared. True love will never lie or ever die. Until then you must carry on the tasks ordained by all-pervading Divinity in this Biosphere. I repeat perforce; that the waves of racking sobs are a soul-cry”, his voice cracked slightly and his lips quivered. He paused for ten seconds and then went on. “They tell me that Fate snatched away the only one you loved from your reach. Accept it. Do not protest. This wandering is your futile protest against the seemingly cruel fate, your footprints are but a mere scribble in time and space. Yet the earnestness of your heart has brought you to Bahubali who lived three millennia ago. The sculptors have chiselled or rather funnelled his spirit onto the stone. Your heart’s desperation and my tendency to help a distressed soul are ingredients of synchronicity.

Think of the people to whom you can make a difference. Can you hit back at fate? Some people try and, in a frenzy, take a holiday from reality through alcoholic or drug abuse and end up in brain damage. An attempt to enter into and stay afloat in illusory worlds, is a very, very tragic mistake. The world will go on no matter what. Renunciation must come as a conclusion after a long, fruitful and exhaustive life. When I say a long wait, I mean an interminably long period of time. I must warn you that you are used to the industrial-urban-consumerist time-scale which is characterized by the ‘instant’, ‘readymade’ or fast track cultures. It may be a decade or two or even three, too. You cannot spur or accelerate love. It is tapas. There were many goodbyes in the aeons past. But you reunited as soul-mates always do. Your reunion will be a harbinger of a springtime and hope. Your united labours will be a historic milestone, a gift to all humanity. The goodbyes you said or maybe unsaid are temporary. Not only will she come in your dreams you will see her face wherever you go. It will be tormenting but do not worry it is but her void projected externally by you. It is always so when a soul is decoupled from its better half. But when you meet your soul-mate you will be on an ecstasy cloud. Dante will tell you more about ecstasy.

As I said it will be a long, long wait. You know the best in nature comes last.  Like the fruit of a mango tree. The final outcome will be accompanied by fresh problems. The one whom you love, may be pushed and pulled around by existential compulsions. But love endures; both of you will be bereft of the negative traits of the youthful age by then. Time would have washed away the contradictions too. You will both see radiant love. But when your call comes you must show extreme courage and renounce everything for it. The good byes you said are temporary. Both of you will experience ineffable cosmic bliss. When love ripens and prevails it will outshine everything around, nothing compares to it. Nothing would matter because it is the homecoming of the soul-mates. It is the phenomenon of a fusion of two souls into a single whole and permeating two bodies, like the graceful movement of Bolshoi ballet dancers. It will be a veritable symphony of love that consists of the sparkle of sunrise the myriad colours and fragrance of the flowers, the vibrant calls of the wilderness, and the chorus of the angels will echo with the songs of your hearts and reverberate all around. All these are harmonized or rolled into a single whole by Mahler in his third concerto. The Sleeping Beauty of Tchaikovsky symbolizes the time of hibernation or suspended animation which is the present period when you both are separated. In the end you will know why Fate the Chessman separated you. Personally, I think you two should not have been separated. I disagree with Fate the Chessman on that score. One can protest but Fate never deigns to give an answer whatsoever. The waltz of flowers by Tchaikovsky is sheer joy it symbolizes your reunion. Finally, when you hold hands together you can get a glimpse of the eternal. That is the best way for both of you to grow old. So, hold on son, and don’t let it go but tarry awhile. Make your mark in the world, create your own unique milestone and dedicate it to your love of life or the love of your life. One last thing when you hold her hand again don’t let it go. Ever. Promise?”  He asked with a radiant smile of wisdom. The tears flowed from my eyes. I knelt down and held his hand to my forehead and said “Yes master I promise”. It was more of a stunning prophecy than a counsel. He took out a small tape recorder from his tote bag and played Anand Shankar’s instrumental Sagar followed by the mesmeric Mamta. “Let us ruminate for half an hour in a musical vision.” The far end of the Sagar was not visible in the approaching twilight. (Vast lakes were called sagar meaning ocean in north India. It was because they did not have a sea coast.) The sweet call of the birds resonated harmoniously. A patch of isolated cirrus clouds hung in the sky. The sudden gusts of wind shook the pipal leaves which sounded like rhythmic shingles. The preamble of sitar notes intermingled with the soughing of the symbols, which mimed the stirrings of gentle breeze. The notes of the flute enhanced the ambience of the endless waves of the Sagar or Lake-Ocean. The tiny waves lapped and foamed mingling with the treble notes of tabla. The sudden howl of the strong winds was recreated by deep bass notes of Paul Lewinson’s Moog Synthesizer. It highlighted the unfathomable depths of the sagar. The electronic synthesizer was capable of reproducing a host of myriad sounds. When the main theme started which, you can liken it to the third movement of the unfolding theme, the treble tabla joined in with a metallic twang. The percussion did not merely keep the taal or timing but played some of the main theme notes itself. It made one feel the expanse and unfathomable depths of not only the sagar but of the samsara sagara and of the deep space itself. It was the divine alchemy of philosophy and music. Next instrumental was the ‘Mamta’ “It is the message of universal love open your heart and let it in” Adinath said in a quiet tone and closed his eyes. It was so watching the sun sink. Such was my encounter with a personal prophet. Was this too, workings of Fate the Chessman albeit in consolation? I bowed my head in prayer to the eternal sun. When I lifted my head the after-glow of the sunset permeated the western horizon. I got up and followed the monk in silence. We walked. The bullocks would go back by themselves.

My encounter with Divinity On the 21-2-1981 evening 4 pm, after the ceremony of Mahamastaka Abisheka all the monks left. There was an air of kenopsia around the vast grounds. I stayed back with five monks and helped to pack up the camp. Next day at five in the morning I climbed the hill with Adinath in the shivering cold, and offered prayers to Bahubali. Think of your dream son. Let’s meditate and commune with the spirit of Bahubali. After fifteen minutes Adinath left. I stood alone at the summit. It was just me, Bahubali and my Farishta who had always been the better part of me. The sobs and tears rose but soon descended. I rested my face on his massive feet and shed tears. I cried “Why me? What sin did I commit that I am punished so? Please answer me” I looked up at Bahubali against the sky. Just then the first rays of the sun fell on Bahubali’s face. The vision I beheld defies description. I saw reassurance and compassion on his face. “In the long run you will get an answer. For now, be patient and exercise prudence. Let it be but don’t let it go, remember each organism or plant or tree has its own growth pace before they come to fruition. Time goes on. Your love will come to fruition too. In Time, it has its own pace. Your love is, but in suspended animation. Go on with the other tasks of life. It’s a long road ahead. Do not despair, and don’t let it go. Seek wisdom from within. Sum up your experiences. The world has never been different to anybody. It is time to grow up” It was sublime message and it went beyond mere words. It was an inner voice, the heart’s call, a pansychic phenomenon transcending Space and Time. It was tantamount to a mother’s mollycoddling a just born. The voice of divinity never comes in gross words. The grace of Bahubali had transposed thoughts that were potential in my subconscious self and they surfaced as logical sentences in my conscious thoughts. I realised that Divine grace was all pervasive. Only the sublime universal truths could synchronize with Divinity. I knew that I had shed the last of the tears. The grace of Bahubali could not be replicated in a photo or imitative recasting of the idol. If you wanted his grace then you had to be in his presence. Hence the pilgrimage. There was something unfathomable about the sculptor’s vision. He had conceived the morphology of the divine countenance and chiselled it onto the stone. Millions flocked to Jerusalem, Mecca, Bodh Gaya, Amritsar, Sabarimala and Palani to avail of the divine grace. In that instant a rush of thoughts came into my mind I understood the import and magnitude of these pilgrimages. By 8 am morning we were back and loaded the bullock cart with the camp materials and climbed in. The bullock cart trundled along slowly. An air bus roared across in the skies. A thought crossed my mind; Adinath, myself and Airbus plus the cartman, his bullocks and cart were the six defining points of the present. The seventh being the spirit of Bahubali, the all-pervasive vitalistic principle or the sarva vyapti Iswara tatva present in all matter. It was a stunning insight. As the village came in sight the monk Adinath held my hands and once again reminded me “Think of those who are suffering like you, help them, give them respect and love, think of them as your brothers and sisters. Help the poor to educate themselves; give them scholarships. Nature doesn’t allow a void. The more love you empty out of your heart the more it will return to you. Love in your heart was meant to be given away. What if you did not receive the love you desired and deserved? That shouldn’t stop you from giving love. I will pray for you, wherever I go. I do not know if we will ever meet again. But I prophesy one thing, the world will look up at you some day, and tryst with the one you love will happen at that time. Don’t let it go son”. At Chenrayapatna village the bus to Mandya came. I climbed it and waved to him. I was all alone in the world again, as always. The tears had dried up but the sadness lingered minus the tears. Then the sadness was tempered by the wise words of Adinath and finally after some iterations, it turned into inner strength. I thought of Adinath and recalled the last glimpse of Bahubali against the azure sky and felt a sense of calm and reassurance pervade my mind. Adinath had spoken to me in perfect English. His erudition and poetic language were mesmeric. He had been, I am sure, a professor. He never asked a single question about me. His capability to read my mind and my life remained a mystery. He was a proverbial Godsend for me. A personal prophet, come down to foretell my future and protect me too. He was Mahaveer incarnate. Such was my encounter with Divinity.

At the next cross roads I sat alone in the bus shelter looking at the boulder strewn land for an hour. The February chill made me shiver despite the midday sun. The bus arrived and I got in. It stopped at every village the driver and conductor seemed to know everybody they even took in a couple of goats and some chickens in a huge basket too. Baskets of vegetables and huge milk cans were loaded onto the rooftop carrier and tied securely and two men sat on the rooftop. There was a lot of humorous banter among the passengers and the crew. “Is this the right road Basavaraj?” An old man asked with raucous laughter and everybody joined in the burst of laughter. The driver was a young man and had joined the job just a few months ago. He had actually taken the wrong roads a few times in the initial week and the detours had caused hours of delay. The passengers had believed that there was a diversion of the route due to road repairs.

“Don’t you sleep with your eyes open” quipped a school teacher with a large turban and whiskers.

“How come?”  Asked another vendor of homemade sweets with a knowing smile.

“Once is not enough at his age. One tends to become a bit depleted and sluggish” the teacher retorted with a wink.

Another old woman who sold mangoes placed a couple of unripe mangoes on the dashboard with a meaningful sly smile.

“Thank you ajji (meaning granny)” the driver said with a wide smile.  

Others caught the meaning. Everybody congratulated him and blessed him.

“That is quick work son” said the conductor

“Well, I am glad that I will have a grandson” said the mango seller old woman.

“How do you know that it will be a grandson Bhagyam” asked another vendor of homemade flutes.

“I am 92 I should know Shivanna. I had delivered Basavaraj’s mother. I was there when she delivered Basavaraj”. 

“True, true, very true amma” everybody agreed in chorus.

Looking at the driver she said “You tell Asha that Basu. Tell her that it will be my prerogative to give the baby boy a name”

“Please come home and bless her directly ajji, give her some counsel on diet and healthcare”

The seller of sweets distributed Mysore Paak to all. The old granny got up and thrust a piece into the driver’s mouth. She then began the narrative of Raghu’s birth. It was one rainy night, she along with two women were called upon to help the doctor when his mother got the final pains. It was quick delivery and I was the first person to hold him. The boy wailed in protest with such vigour that it could have been heard a mile across. Here is that boy now driving this bus and all of us to our work. Isn’t it true Shivanna that what we sow, we reap”

“Yes, Bhagyam it is the universal truth by the grace of Shiva”.

The banter and humour were their way of connecting to each other. The intimacy and humour among the people were very touching. They were all engaged in their chores of life and in the process had imbibed lessons from their experiences, lessons of love, soul and God. They were small traders and led a happy life. They were winners because they had no pretences. Life goes on was the reminder I got from the bus passengers. They got down at a village twenty kilometres ahead of Bangalore. There was a village fair and temple festival going on there. A sea of people was milling around in seeming utter chaos in every way noise, colours, smells etc.

The bus was empty and it reached Bangalore an hour later. It had taken five hours instead of the usual three hours. The landscapes were lessons in geography and geology. I had lost weight and looked emaciated with an over grown beard and hair. I know I looked unkempt. It had been nearly forty days since I left Madras. I bought a set of two dresses and a tote bag. I went to the barbers opposite the shopping arcade. After two days I flew into Madras and back to my shop. The sadness still lingered in my heart but I was in control. Adinath’s counsel rang in my ears and I decided to donate money to the Mother Teresa charities. I remembered Bahubali’s grace and felt a strange calm descend on me.

I think of Adinath often wondering where he was now. I did not know as to where he came from and where he was headed to. The next Deepavali I donated a huge sum of money to the Jain ashram at village Kund Kund near Vandavasi. It was the day Mahaveer had laid down his mortal coils and become a Kevalin, a soul detached of matter. He had become a Tirthankara. The light that had enlightened thousands of disciples had gone and to compensate for it the people had lit thousands of lamps everywhere. Deepavali was a commemorative festival of Mahaveer the thirthankara. The ashram and the village were lit up with clay lamps. I stood for a minute and thought of my Farishta and felt a deep sadness in my heart. But I let it pass. I personally donated and lit a hundred lamps. Thank you, Adhinath.

At the end of the day when I counted the money and wrote the accounts and checked on the stores required, I switched on the stereo and listened to ‘Mamta’ and the most haunting ‘Cyrus’ by Anand Shankar, I had brought the LP record four years ago in 1977. The melody and the harmony reached the depths of my heart. The orchestration consisted of a fusion of the instrument’s sitar, santoor, flute, guitars and the Moog synthesizer; it was a hitherto unheard of sweetness. The mix of east-west percussion embellished the composition. It was a musical vision of universal appeal. Cyrus was the poignant cry of my heart. It was as if Maestro Anand Shankar had heard my heart’s cry in faraway Calcutta and turned it into a sitar theme of pathos. Upheavals and storms did come in my life but they could not throw me out of gear anymore. Adinath’s counsel and Bahubali’s grace compounded into a formidable bulwark that could withstand the force of an emotional tsunami. I was aware that there were four children who looked to me for their school plus hostel fees and books. I gave capital to a paraplegic boy in the Beatitudes orphanage to start his own petty shop and backed it with a monthly allowance to tide through the start-up stage. I helped many street vendors with easy loans which I mostly wrote off. So, life went on.

Nostalgia

This song In My Life by John Lennon is a song of remembrances.

There are places I remember

All my life though some have changed

Some forever not for better

Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments

With friends I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life I loved them all

But of all these friends

There is no one compares with you

All these memories lose their meaning

When I think of love as something you

Though I’ll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I’ll often softly think about them

In my life I love you more.

A very moving song so apt in its meaning and simplicity. Nostalgia arises from a shared history punctuated by shared ideals and values. It is like a catapult when pulled back turns into a powerful positive force that propels you forward with a renewed vigour. It is good until you wish to bring back yesterday, an obvious impossibility.

In the final months of school I was in a continuous state of deep sadness. I was aware of every moment when my childhood was drawing to an end. Thinking back, now, I wonder how I survived so many tragedies simultaneously in every aspect of my life. I did not have control over the events that transpired around me.

After the spiritual sojourn the void persisted and was painful I was seized with a strong sense of yearning for my teachers and my friends. I had missed them a lot every single day all through the intervening years.

 The sense of loneliness continued to haunt me. It was because of the terrible void left behind by them. A void that fragmented my world and created a cosmic disconnect with my past. Torn from the organic roots of my soul I felt very much lost. Every single day I wondered about them. What were they doing at this moment? Pursuing their professions and busy with their commitments? I feared for them. I felt that Valli was very vulnerable. Was she being tortured mentally and physically by fiendish sadists? Was she caught up with some pain merchant and a moral cannibal? If such was the case, I wished I could defend her and punish her tormentor. My life was plagued by afore mentioned type of men and women. Such people seemed to invade positions of power and control the world with their stale moral platitudes and cheap bromides on the one hand and plain barbaric-maniacal brutality on the other. They were mostly over ambitious men who had bitten off more than they could chew. I missed my friends and felt lost and sad from the above mentioned perspectives.

Strange encounters and a Prophesy. On Nov 23 1975 I walked out of the airport after submitting my father’s death certificate to the Personnel officer. I ran into my friend’s mom who hated me with bitterness. Last time I met her in 73 Onam day she admonished me severely and extracted a promise from me. I did comply with her demand then.

I hadn’t eaten since morning and felt weak and did not have the heart to talk to her knowing well that she had intense hatred for me. But she called me and to my utter surprise she said “I heard about your father’s death. I am really sorry. What happened to him?”

“He died of a sudden heart attack” I said blankly.

“What will you do now?” she asked wiping my tears with her hanky.

“I really don’t know amma I am searching for a job to support myself”.

“I know that you are a brilliant boy everybody told me so, it is sad that you have to discontinue your education. Is there no one to support you?”

I just nodded my head to say no.

“You look very tired”. She gave me a hundred rupees. I did not want to take it but she thrust it into my hands. It was a large sum in those days. She blessed me with the following words “God will bless you with enormous riches Mahendran, work hard and you will become rich in just two years from now. I will pray for you”. Her prophesy came true. My fortunes rose suddenly like a meteor exactly on Nov 3 1977. I relocated my shop to Govt Gen Hospital. I did roaring business. It started to rain money for me. What people earned in a month I earned in a week. My friend’s mom had been right her prophesy had come true exact to the date. I knew that she had hated me but still, she showed a mother’s affection to me. I guessed that someone had poisoned her against me. Now it was as if she saw me in a new light. Thank you Amma.  

              I remember the birthdays of my friends falling in the months of February, September and November. In Nov I give charity in the form of educational scholarships to those who face dropping out of school. A profound tragedy I had suffered when I was forced to quit college abortively.  I wondered if my friends remembered me on my birthday. I flipped three coins with playful fancy. It was a head most times and that meant a yes. Sometimes one or even two of them were tails and that made me very sad, because I could not decide which of my three friends had not remembered me. In my heart of hearts, I was sure as to who’d remember me without fail. Never once had all three fell as tails. I became a school boy whenever I remembered my friends. Eventually I consoled myself because it was not right to let sadness linger for too long.

I came to the sad realization that I had taken their friendship for granted, I hadn’t taken the initiative to keep in touch. I hate to give excuses. But what could I do? Fate went against me and left me struggling up a sand dune. From 73-77 Nov was an epoch of intense action. I had to fight for my survival. It was as if I had lived an entire yuga which was zipped up in that period. After 77 it was akin to the roller-coaster twisting and turning at breakneck speeds. The twists and turns were characterised by social pressures in the form of frontal attacks, back stabbing, betrayals, violent threats and stealing of my money at every step of the way. The persons I fought off were not hyenas but suave looking silent leeches, who blood-sucked my money by subterfuge. They descended on me like locusts simultaneously. Although I was aware of them I had to narrow my focus to minimise my losses. The whole system favoured the looters. When they were prized off the wounds would continue to bleed, and they would slink away in search of another victim. The above incidents are part of the life matrix. They are present in everyman’s life. Give or take, as manipulated by Fate the Chessman. Each of us have to comprehend why Fate fulfils the desires of the undeserved and leaves the deserved high and dry. Idealistic undying love was the most elusive and tragic predicament of all. Neither was Fate the Chessman fair nor consistent or so it’d seem, in this regard. But I had my own doubts so I did attempt to comprehend the enigma by applying the stochastic process or Fourier analysis and Pauli-Jung conjecture to understand the randomness of events. I began to read books on astrology too. Somehow, I’d unravel the elusive twists and turn of events to understand Fate the Chessman.

Thus came the end of an epoch. My farishta was very much in my heart. I did not let it go albeit, I let it be, as advised by Adinath. Reassured by John Lennon’s song Let it be.

Love is a one way ticket. You fall in love and there is no way out. You can never fall out of love. It does not grow or diminish with time. It is a Cosmic Constant. It could be side lined by familial duties. Even the bird Albatross pair for life till death does them apart. A man might mate with any woman and find marital bliss nothing wrong there. It requires shared discipline and trust. Raising a family keeps your time fruitfully engaged, that is all. Most girls do not marry the man they love but they marry the one who is ready hence the beginning of unhappiness and tragedy in marriages. That does not compensate or equal the ineffable beauty of falling in love with your queen of hearts, a beautiful heroine, which is a one-time cosmic event. It is a great pleasure to be ordered about by her, to serve her and fulfil her every wish. To care for her and mollycoddle her. My first love was such. We never hurt each other, not even once. It was sweet surrender. That for me is the greatest happiness of life. There is so much to true love that I can go on and on.

Love ought not to be spurred by manipulation. Each man’s love has its own Timer. Each man’s love for a woman is unique and has its own Cosmic barcode, never to be duplicated or replicated, he can give only once and only to the one. I had fallen in love with an angel of a girl at a very tender age of thirteen. The first time I fell in love was also the last time too because I never fell out of that love. Neither did I learn to love another.

Despite all the upheavals and attacks I had made enormous gains in my knowledge in the fields of Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Praxeology, Particle physics, and Evolutionary Genetics. I read and re-read Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Victor Hugo, Ayn Rand and Mark Twain. I had a small library pertaining to my above interests. At the arrowhead of all this was the primary question of nature of consciousness in the context of teleology in the progression of the cosmos. I had made friends with some distinguished professors from W.C.C, M.C.C, Loyola College, Matscience Institute, M.M.C, and UCLA. My childhood vision was slowly taking shape. Through it all I remembered Adinath’s prophecy and the Divine grace of my great ancestor Bahubali. Sometimes I watched the sunset and imagined the cosmic power of fusion and in the same breath I imagined the state of matter at the zero degree Absolute when particles stood still on the threshold of quantum state? It was a stunning insight.   

By the end of 1991 I knew that the days of toddling had ended. I began my forays into the unknown and uncharted and primordial world of tribes, far from the madding crowd. The geography I read in the school unfolded exactly as it was in the books except the microsphere variations. The books never spoke of our primordial tribes and that was a serious lapse in our education. I found that the tribes were sensible black Africans and not wild people at all they were not pitted against each other. They lived in harmony with nature. It reminded me of Herodotus who said that people of India were Ethiopians. The Kadavars of Anamalai were all black Africans. They were strong of body and mind. In Nallamalla forests I met the Yanadis. They were closely knit people. They hunted only wild boar and monitor lizards. They were great cooks. They cultivated seasonal crops and vegetables on the hill slopes and picked the fruits. Their knowledge of the forests and the animals was exhaustive. They were oppressed by the local landlords to work for free, and fetch them the prized wild honey. Otherwise, they were like any human society with its internal tensions, push and pull factors. The younger generation were sent to the local schools and some of them excelled in maths and science. It was a revelation to me. This was the heart of India. It made me aware of the opulence of the five star culture with its elaborate trappings, its jet liners and luxury cruise ships. The fault-lines were clearly discernible to the observant eye. India was truly a land of many myriad splendours. The panorama was stunning. Amidst all this I made my first discoveries of prehistoric cave art and megaliths dating back from 5000 to 10000 BCE in the folds of mountains bordering Pernampattu. I climbed to the summit of mountains where no man had tread so far and then went over to the other side into the deep valleys and gorges in search of the roots of humanity. I finally made discoveries and felt proud that I had added fresh pages to history of India. Being a prehistoric explorer, I felt that my discoveries belonged to the world heritage. When I stood all alone, in triumph, on the summit of a mountain I thought of my father, my teachers, my three school friends, Adinath and Bahubali and said a silent thanks to them.