CHAPTER-5 MY PARENTS AND EARLY SCHOOLING

 CHAPTER 5

MY PARENTS AND EARLY SCHOOLING

My mother had been given in marriage to my father at the age of 12 when my father was in his late twenties. Such early marriages were common those days. A girl had to be got married before she attained puberty. No horoscopes were matched  before my mother was married. In fact no horoscope had been made on her birth.  The straitened circumstances of my maternal grandfather did not allow such luxuries.  However, instead of matching horoscopes, the system of ‘ selecting flowers’ was followed.   It worked like this.  Some red flowers such as hibiscus and white flowers such as jasmine were gathered.  The red flowers were wrapped in a leaf such that it was not visible outside.  The white flowers were also wrapped in the same way.  Both were given to the priest in the village temple who kept both the bundles at the foot of the deity.  At the end of worship the priest picked up one of the bundles and gave it to  the person concerned.  If the bundle contained white flowers, it was the will of God that the marriage be solemnised.  If red flowers are in the bundle, the Lord did not approve of the marriage.  In my mother’s case the bundle given by the priest after the worship contained white flowers and thus the Lord had put His seal of approval on the  marriage proposal.

My paternal grand parents started worrying when my mother did not conceive even after five years. Their daughter-in-law was now 17 and it was high time that she gave them a grandson or granddaughter.  Mother was in a dilemma. She was approaching her twenties and some thing had to be done urgently.  She told her father about this problem.  Putting his knowledge of Ayurveda into use, my maternal grandfather prepared some herbal medicines according to the procedures laid down in Ayurvedic texts.  After taking the medicines for a couple months, mother conceived and  I was born on the 1^st of September 1931 when mother was twenty.  I was born in the eighth month of pregnancy but grandfather’s knowledge of Ayurveda ensured that premature birth did not affect my healthy growth. By convention, I had to be named after my paternal grandfather and therefore I was given his name.  Since it was not considered proper for the younger ones to take the name of the elders I was given a nick name by which every one called me. Grandfather himself used to call me ‘Swami’, I didn’t know why.  

Our family was not an affluent one.  It was not even middle class. We could just manage to  meet both ends.  My father and his brothers were running a hotel in a small place on the main road to Pollachi town in what is now the state of Tamilnadu. The elder brother of my father had become a widower early in his life and had not married since his wife’s death.   He had a son who was the eldest in the family and a daughter who had already been married quite early in life even before I was born.  This eldest uncle and his son also  helped run the hotel.  On week-ends my father or one of the junior uncles took turns  to visit us at Perinkulam.   They used to bring sweets, sack-full of groundnuts, potatoes and  small onions.  While groundnuts were roasted and eaten, the small onions were used to make  delicious sambar.  We children used to like potatoes boiled, peeled, mashed and made into mouth-watering curry.

After my grand mother’s death, my father left the place where the hotel was being run.  He delegated the job of running the hotel to his younger brothers and their  nephew ( my eldest uncle’s son).  He started doing odd jobs to earn a living.  We shifted from the ancestral house to a modest accommodation in the South Village of Perinkulam.  Grandfather also came to live with us. During this period father lent the money he had saved to a person in the village who had a piece of agricultural land tilled by a tenant.  The person, in return, mortgaged the land in favour of my mother.  Our share of paddy from this land was adequate for feeding our family.  For sundry expenses, father used to make some money doing odd jobs.

At about this time  I was entrusted to a teacher who taught a few students the three  R’s, reading, writing and arithmetic.  The boys assembled  in the veranda of the teacher’s house for their lessons.  For me it was not a happy experience. I struggled with my arithmetic.  I got my sums done by  one of my classmates and showed the results to the teacher.  In return,  I gave away my pencil, rubber,  chalk or some other thing to the classmate. At home I got spanking from my mother for losing my pencils.  Mother did not know that I had given them to my classmate for doing my sums. 

A few months after this I was admitted in class II of the aided elementary school in the village.  I remember myself only as an average student up to class  IV. In the lower classes we used to chant routinely the multiplication tables up to 16. Ultimately the tables became hard-wired into our system enabling us to compute columns of figures manually without the use of  calculators.  From class V we started learning English in addition to Malayalam which was the regional language.  At home we spoke the Palghat version of Tamil.  Our forefathers must have migrated to Malabar from one of  the Tamil- speaking districts.  Our Headmaster was good at teaching.    He used to narrate to us many stories from the Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata and from the Puranic literature.  He could hold the students’ interest without allowing their minds to wander away from the subject being taught. It was from Class V that I developed keen interest in my studies. 

Schooling those days was not the drudgery and burden it is today for children of tender age.  Up to class V  we had to carry only a slate,  a pencil with which to write on the slate, a note book and a lead pencil.   The children were allowed to play in the ground in between classes.  In the summer we used to assemble in the shade of a tree outside the classroom.  I never remember to have been assigned something to be done at home.  My parents never put pressure on me to perform as is happening now-a-days.  The fact that I was an above-average student as reported by my teachers was sufficient assurance for them.  I had plenty of time to pursue my own interests which were mostly in the area of language and literature during those days.

The marriage of the only son of my eldest uncle was solemnised when I was about eight years. The girl was only  15 years old.  After the marriage my cousin could not take her immediately to his place since only bachelor accommodation was available there.  Until family accommodation with some privacy was arranged, my sister-in-law was forced to stay with us in our ancestral house.  She was senior to me in age by 7 or eight years and she had great affection for me and my siblings.  She used to join us and lead us in the evening prayers after the lamp was lit. She knew a lot of hymns in Sanskrit and Malayalam and she motivated us to learn them by heart  and recite them daily.  My cousin from Pollachi used to visit his wife on week-ends. They used the upstairs hall as their bedroom.  Though my cousin had not completed his school education he had gained a smattering of English by self-study.  From him I learned the English words for animals, birds, fruits, vegetables and  household articles of common use.

Soon after my father left the place near Pollachi, my two uncles had also returned to the village.  That was the end of the joint family.  The families of the three brothers (my father and his two younger brothers) had become separated, each living  in a separate house.  The youngest uncle and his family continued in the ancestral house. Now my cousin managed the hotel.  During the summer holidays I used to visit him.  I used to travel by train which those days was jam-packed with passengers.  There was no system of advance reservation.  I had to board the train from a place around 8 KM from my village which I reached by bus.  The train journey took about 2 hours and I  got down at  a wayside station a short distance from Pollachi.  From there I could walk the distance to my cousin’s hotel. 

My eldest uncle was staying with his son.  Early morning, he used to peel the boiled potatoes from which bondas were made for sale in the hotel.  Bonda was an item of snack  made of small balls of boiled and mashed potatoes dipped in a paste of gram flour with salt and chilly power and fried in vegetable oil.  I also used to lend a hand in the peeling.  I used to accompany my cousin to Pollachi when he went there to buy the groceries required for the hotel.  On days of the weekly shanty at Pollachi the hotel did roaring business.  People used to stop for snacks and coffee on their way to the shanty at Pollachi. 

Not far away from the hotel was a river in which I used to bathe in the mornings.  There was a railway bridge on the river and I used to be awe-struck when the train passed thundering over the bridge.  Many times I lingered in the river waiting for the train to pass over the bridge.  I also used to go to the railway station and wait there for the arrival of the train.  I used to wonder how the driver and the firemen in the cabin operated such a huge steam engine.  This fascination for trains and travel by train I carried for quite some time into my adult years.  

After a year or so of my sister-in-law’s stay with us,  my cousin had private quarters constructed for their living and his wife joined him soon after.  After that my sister-in-law used to cook for the family.  My cousin and my eldest uncle (my cousin’s father) had now homely food.  I too enjoyed the food cooked by my sister-in-law during the holidays when I visited them.  

There was a mosque in the place where, on Fridays, women irrespective of  their religion, used to bring their small children and offer prayers.  After the namaz the person in charge  used to touch the children with a bundle of peacock feathers tied together as a broom.  This was supposed to drive away evil spirits and cure minor ailments.  We used to get bananas and raw sugar after the Friday namaz at the mosque. 

On one of those visits to my cousin, I was laid down with  fever and it was diagnosed as Malaria.  Taking bitter quinine tablets was the only remedy those days. My sister-in-law took good care of me and I was touched by her affection.  After my recovery from the intensity of the fever, I returned to my village and continued to take quinine tablets for some more days.

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CHAPTER-6 LIFE IN THE VILLAGE

CHAPTER 6

LIFE IN THE VILLAGE

In the 1930s villages did not have electricity, We used kerosene-filled hurricane lanterns to  light up the house. At times  we filled a bottle with kerosene, made a hole in its cap and passed a wick made of cotton strands through the hole.  The wick was lighted to create a naked flame which  provided light for doing one’s work. It was also used by us children to read.  Often, I walked the narrow lanes of the surrounding villages,  in pitch darkness, holding the hand of my father and straining my eyes to find the path.  At times we used to buy dried twigs or sticks, mainly from palm trees, neatly tied into a long cylindrical bundle easy to hold in one’s  hand.  We used to light this bundle of twigs at one end and walk the dark lanes and roads.  As we walked, we had to keep the lighted bundle of  twigs  waving so that the flame is kept alive without being extinguished. For us children the dark nights were scary with imagined ghosts lurking in every dark corner.  The darkness, the silence,  the weird sounds of the night and stories we had heard about ghosts, all conspired to produce in us a fear of the unknown which took us quite some time to outgrow.

For cleaning our teeth we used rice husk roasted black in a pan and made into a smooth powder.  Some times powdered salt and pepper was added to this powder. Those days dental care was supposed to be a luxury.  However, our forefathers had better teeth than many of our young men.  Their food habits and their disciplined living made up for any deficiency in dental care.

Each village had its own temple with its own deity. Daily morning and evening worships were conducted in all the temples.  Many used to come for early morning darshan right after bathing in the nearby pond and with their wet clothes on. The main festivals in the temples were Navaratri and the chariot festival.  These Festivals in the temples were joyous occasions for us children.  Navaratri was the festival of dolls when the Goddess is worshipped in her aspect  as the Mother of the Universe. The celebrations lasted  for full nine days. We children used to line up for receiving the prasadam, a variety of eatables symbolically offered to the deity during worship and then distributed to those present in the temple. The boys who helped in organising all these were given extra helpings of the prasadam.  We children also went from house to house to collect prasadam from households celebrating the festival by showcasing beautiful dolls or exquisite images of gods, goddesses, animals, birds,  fruits and vegetables.

Each of the temples in our village had a chariot in which, every year,  the deity was taken around the village in a procession.   The chariot was a heavy wooden structure about 10 ft. high.  The two wooden wheels of the chariot had a diameter of  5 to 6 feet each.  The four sides had carvings of the images of gods, goddesses and celestial beings.   The top platform was flat and there was a pedestal in the centre on which the image of the deity, made from the alloy of five metals, was placed.  A superstructure was built on the top platform  to hang  ornamental garlands and other artistic hangings. Huge thick ropes of coconut fibre were used to pull the chariot.  Devotees, in two rows,  caught hold of the long rope and pulled the chariot with all their strength.  There used to be a trained elephant which used to give a push from behind by pressing its broad forehead against one of the wheels.  One person controlled the direction of movement of the chariot by using a wooden wedge of large size with a handle.

Every year, after Diwali, there used to be a celebration in the Siva temple on the banks of the Gayatri river where my paternal grandfather used to pray daily.  During the festival the Idol of the deity used to be taken in procession,  around the temple precincts, on an elephant covered on the front with a glittering piece of satin cloth with hemispheres of golden  hue  and other embellishments stitched to it.  On each side of the elephant in the centre there used to be two or there elephants similarly decorated making a line up of five or seven elephants. The deity was held by the priest on the back of the elephant at the centre. Behind him sat another person holding a colourful umbrella made in satin cloth with a long pole.  Another one behind him held aloft a pair of chamarams (made of long thick hairs of an animal of the deer family and held together in  metal handles) and waved them in step with the panchavadyam.   The fourth person behind held a pair of circular disks made of paper board with handles and having  peacock feathers stuck around. He stood up holding the disks aloft when the panchavadyam  ( symphony of instrumental music) was  played.    Boys of the village  competed to take on these tasks during the celebrations. A couple of times I too got to wave the chamaram and hold the umbrella.  The elephants used in these festivals used to be requisitioned from the households of a few wealthy Kerala Brahmin (Namboodiri) families who had lot of landed property those days.

In Kerala there are quite a few temples dedicated to the divine Mother known by the generic name of Bhagavati loosely translated as Goddess.  Each family owed allegiance to one of these temples. They were supposed to visit the temple and pray there at least once a year.  We owed allegiance to Parakkattu Bhagavati at Kavasseri, a village 7 KM from Perinkulam.  We used to leave our house early morning with ingredients to make payasam (pudding), namely, rice, jaggery, ghee and  a few pods of cardamom.  Reaching the temple, we used to bathe in the nearby river or  in the pond near the temple.  Handing over the material for payasam to the priest, we used to sit in a place and chant mantras or sing hymns.  The payasam used to be ready in about 2 hours.  After offering it symbolically to the Goddess the priest used to put it in a vessel we had taken for the purpose.  We used to given him a dakshina  for his services.  On the return joinery to the village we used to pass through a forest of teak trees.  The leaves of the tree  were broad and we plucked a few of them.  The  hot payasam from the vessel was served on these teak leaves to satisfy our hunger and to give us enough strength to walk the distance to our village.    

In each of the Bhagavati temples,  a pooram  festival used to be celebrated with an impressive line-up of decorated elephants on the back of which were seated young men holding aloft colourful umbrellas, alavattam and chamaram.  There used to be panchavadyam  to which the elephants rhythmically flapped their fan-like ears. The celebrations continued  to the wee hours of the morning with colourful fireworks. On one occasion I attended the festival with a couple of other boys from our village.  It was about 8 PM when we reached the place.  We were taking rest on the open veranda of one of the houses in the agraharam (a line of village houses exclusively inhabited by Brahmins).  The front door of the house opened and the occupant enquired whether we have had our dinner.  We replied in the negative.  He unhesitatingly invited us to dinner with his family.  Such hospitality was usual in the agraharams, especially on the occasion of the pooram festival.    

It was the year 1942 AD and I was 11.  I had completed my schooling at the aided elementary school.  It was summer holidays with temperature racing  to catch up  40° Celsius. That summer I learned swimming in the village pond.  The pond had steps to get down to the water and there were separate partitioned areas for men and women. Each village had its own pond where the villagers bathed and washed their clothes.  The boy next door was of my age and was in the same class as I. Together we used to go to the pond long before the evening hours.  We spent there two hours daily swimming, diving and bathing.  It was a welcome relief from the humid heat of the summer.

During the rainy season the pond got filled to its capacity,  We boys used to compete and see who could swim and reach the opposite bank first.  There used to be a pole at the centre of the pond.  One could hold on to it  if one felt out of breath and could not swim any further.  The water in the pond was exposed to air and the rays of the Sun and appeared to retain its quality for  people to bathe and wash their clothes.  Bathing involved immersing oneself from head to foot in the waters of the pond after applying soap or other such material  to clean the body. Looking back,  after a lapse of almost 6 decades,  I wonder if I could now persuade myself to take a dip in the village pond. 

There were water snakes in the pond. They were harmless and we had learned to co-exist with them and was not afraid of them. They often lurked between the stone slabs of the steps leading to the water.  They could be seen  swimming in the pond  with only their small head out of the water.  Once, while swimming, I felt a pricking sensation at the tip of my right hand middle finger.  Lifting the hand from out of the water I saw a water snake of moderate size clinging to my finger.  For a moment I was taken aback but I  vigorously shook my hand and the snake fell off and disappeared into the water.  Water snakes are not poisonous but I was advised to fast that night  as a precaution. 

Our lives were simple and uncomplicated.  Men wore a cotton dhoti  of two meters at the waist which came up to their ankles.  Some wore dhotis coming up to their knees only.  An upper garment of a meter of cloth put on the shoulders was optional.  Children up to 4 years went about in a strip of loin cloth only.  People walked on the roads without footwear.  During the rainy season walking on the slush on the roads led to ulceration between the toes unless one was careful to wash the feet  after coming home.  In fact one bucket of water with a mug used to be kept outside the front door to wash one’s feet before one entered the house.  For common ailments no one visited a doctor.  Household remedies based on herbs were used. Turmeric, ginger, pepper, garlic, gooseberry and readily available herbs were used to treat common ailments. Exercise for the body was provided by such day-to-day activities as walking,  drawing water from the well, working in the garden and watering the plants,  growing vegetables in the backyard,  grinding soaked rice and pulses for idlis, pounding paddy to remove the husk, sweeping and wiping the floors, breaking logs of wood for firewood  and a variety of household chores for which no mechanical aids were available those days.   

Morning coffee was prepared by putting the required quantity of coffee powder  in a dry vessel,  pouring hot water into it, stirring it and allowing the powder to settle down.  Then the decoction was poured out and milk and sugar were added.  Coffee was ready to drink.  Many used jaggery instead of sugar.  Jaggery was put in the water while it was being boiled before pouring it over the coffee powder. For  breakfast steamed idlis,  dosas  or other items like Upma  were prepared.  For lunch and dinner simple food was prepared with rice or other cereals and pulses.   Vegetables or greens grown in the backyard were used to prepare different dishes like sambar, rasam and curries.  It was common to have curd or  buttermilk with cooked rice during lunch.

Many days while returning from the pond or the river it used to rain.  I enjoyed getting drenched in the rain.  Living in the village and getting exposed to the sun and the rain had sort of made the body weather-proof.  I never used to get a cold by getting drenched in the rain.  

Onam was the harvest festival in Kerala. It was believed that Mahabali visited his country (Kerala) to see whether his subjects were happy.  It was therefore celebration every where for almost a week.  Those days the area in front of the house was swept clean and sprinkled with water mixed with cow dung.  Flowers of different colours were plucked and arranged in beautiful circular patterns on the space prepared as above.  We boys used to hunt for flowers and bring them from far away places.  There used to be healthy competition to see whose flower arrangement was the most beautiful.  Apart from that,  special items were prepared for lunch.  One item was chakka prathaman  a sort of pudding prepared from jack fruit.  The sweet,  eatable portion of the jack fruit was separated, cooked,  ground to a paste,  and mixed with jaggery and put on the oven or stove to boil.  One or two coconuts were grated and ground to a smooth pulp in a stone grinder.  The juice was squeezed out from this pulp and added to the above mix. This was chakka prathaman (jack fruit pudding).  Special bananas called nenthra pazham could also be used instead of jack fruit.  This was  nenthrapazha prathaman (banana pudding). 

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CHAPTER-7 MIDDLE SCHOOL AND AFTER(1942-45)

CHAPTER 7

MIDDLE SCHOOL AND AFTER

1942-1945

By the time I left the elementary school,  I had mastered reading and writing in Malayalam.  I also learned the Tamil alphabets at home.  My father and my uncles used to read Tamil weeklies  Ananda Vikatan and Kalki which were very popular Tamil magazines of those days.  My mother also used to read them though her reading speed was rather slow.  From her I learned the letters of the Tami alphabet and mastered them in a week.  Compared to Malayalam, Tamil had fewer letters in the alphabet,  only about 30 against  51 in Malayalam.  Unlike Malayalam Tamil alphabet was not phonetic. Malayalam was hundred percent phonetic in the sense that each letter of the alphabet represented a unique sound. The alphabets of most of the other regional languages in India, except Tamil, were phonetic.   But each had a different set of symbols to represent the different sounds.  In Tamil many letters of the alphabet represented more than one sound.  For example the first consonant,  which represents the sound ‘k’ in ‘kind’  also represents the sound ‘g’  in ‘good’. It is, however, easy to write compound consonants in Tamil.  Write the first consonant, put a dot on top of it and then write the second consonant by the side of the first one. That’s it;  you had successfully  written the compound consonant. In other Indian languages writing compound consonants was more complicated.

I also learnt the Grantha script used in the hymn books of my paternal grandfather. This script was used in South India for writing Sanskrit  instead of the Devanagari script used in the North.  Since I knew vishnusahasranama by heart I took the book containing vishnusahasranama  in grantha script and identified each letter of the alphabet as I recited the hymn mentally.  In a couple of days I became familiar with the script and could read books in grantha script.  Basically the grantha script contained the letters of the Tamil alphabet.  It had adopted  letters from the Malayalam alphabet, as they were or with some modification,  to represent sounds for which there were no unique letters in Tamil.

In 1942 when I was 11 years old I was enrolled in class VI of the Middle School situated near the West Village of Perinkulam.  English was one of the languages taught along with Malayalam.  One of the teachers with a literary bent of mind used to recite to us  many interesting and beautiful poems from the great Malayalam poets   Tunjath Ezhuthachan,  Kunjan Nambiar, Vallathol Narayana Menon, Kumaran Asan, Ulloor Parmeswara Iyer and others.  I used to enjoy his classes.  Once he was narrating an incident  related to two poets who had knowledge of Sanskrit.  They had come for bathing in the pond. One was wearing an ear stud and the other was making tali, i.e. crushing the leaves of a herbal plant for applying on the head for removing oil.   They saw an aristocratic woman and her maid coming for bathing.   The following conversation took place between them.  They did not want the others bathing in the pond to know what they were talking about the two women who were coming for bathing.   

Q:   kaatilola ?        

R:    nallataali

The question  split into  kaa+ ati+lola   meant  in Sanskrit  ‘who is more beautiful?  The reply  split into nallatu +aali means  ‘the maid is good’.  Here ‘nallatu’ in Malayalam means ‘good’  and ‘aali’ in Sanskrit means maid.              

The other persons who were bathing and who had no knowledge of the Sanskrit language heard the question and split it into kaatil + ola     meaning ‘stud in the ear’ , since the one who put the question was wearing an ear-stud.   The reply was split into nalla + tali meaning ‘good taali’  since the one who replied was making thali to wash the oil from his head. They missed the intended meaning which was known only to the two poets.   This was what the poets wanted.  

The teacher  also told us about what is called samasyapurthi or Samasyaapooranam in Sanskrit.  Here the last line of a verse of four lines is given and the poet is asked to supply the first three lines of the verse such that the whole verse makes proper sense.  Here are a few examples:

The last line of the verse should end with  ‘ ka kha ga gha  nga’  that  is the first five consonants of the Sanskrit alphabet.  This is completed as follows:

Kaa thwam baale kaanchanamaala

Kasyaa putree kanakalataayaah

Haste kim te taalee patram

Kaava rekha kakhagaghanga

का त्वं बाले? कांचनमाला
कस्याः पुत्री? कनकलतायाः।
हस्ते किं ते? तालीपत्रं
का वा रेखा? कखगघङ ॥१॥ 

‘O little girl! Who are you?  I am Kanchanamala.  Whose daughter are you? I am the daughter of Kanakalata.  What is in you hands? A  palm leaf. What is written on it ?  Kakhagaghanga’

For the last line ‘gulugugguluguggulu’  the  completed verse is:

Jamboophalaani pakwani

Patanti vimale jale

Kapikampita shaakhaabhyaam

Gulugugguluguguulu

जम्बूफलानि पक्वानि
पतन्ति विमले जले।
कपि कंपितशाखाभ्यां
गुलुगुग्गुलुगुग्गुलु  ॥

“When a branch of the jambu tree is shaken by a monkey the ripe jambu fruits fall into the sparkling waters (of the pond or river)  making the sound ‘gulugugguluguggulu’ “

For the last line ‘tum tum tatam tum tatatum tatam tum’  ( ‘t’ sounds as in ‘teacher’)  the completed verse is

    Raajyaabhisheke madavihwayaayah

    Hastaat chyuto hemaghato yuvtyaah

    Sopaanamaargeshu karoti shabdam

    tum tum tatam tum tatatum tatam tum 


    राज्याभिषेके मदविह्वलायाः
    हस्तात् च्युतो हेमघटो युवत्याः।
    सोपानमार्गेषु करोति शब्दं
     टं टं टटं टं   टटटं टटं टटम्    ॥

It is the coronation ceremony of the king.  An young damsel carries holy water in a golden pot, up the stairs,  for the abhisheaka  of the king .  She is intoxicated by the honour conferred on her. The pot slips from her hand and tumbles down the stairs making the sound  ‘tum tum tatam tum tatatum tatam tum’

The teacher gave us a verse in Malayalam which gave diametrically opposite meanings when the same words were grouped  in different ways.  It was real fun playing with words in this manner. 

Our teacher also started teaching Hindi to us after school hours.  Students who wanted to learn Hindi could join these classes.   Hindi was not one of the languages for study in the syllabus.  But Gandhiji was advocating Hindi as the National Language which could link all the citizens of this country.  I attended these classes and soon started reading Hindi books.  Hindi had many words of Sanskrit or of Sanskrit origin.  Malayalam was also sailing in the same boat. Therefore I quickly built up a good vocabulary in Hindi. There was, in our village,  a Hindi Pracharak appointed by the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha.  The Pracharak maintained a library of Hindi books.  I read the collection of short stories by Munshi Premchand, one of the best known, loved and appreciated writer of short stories and novels in Hindi.  Though I could not understand every word of what was written, I could understand and appreciate most part of the narrative.

I also concentrated on English.   English Grammar was one of my favourite subjects. ‘Wren & Martin English Grammar and Composition’  was my constant companion.

By this time I had developed a passion for reading.  I read every thing I could lay  my hands on, whether it was in Malyalam, Tamil, English or Hindi.  I wanted to read our ancient texts in Sanskrit but, at this stage, I had to rely on translations to figure out the meaning of Sanskrit verses.  I was determined to improve my knowledge of Sanskrit so that I could enjoy reading, in the original Sanskrit,  the Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata (in which was embedded the Gita)  and also our classical poets Kalidasa, Bhasa, Bharavi, Bhavabhuti, Harsha and others.

In 1945 we again shifted our residence to the house next to our ancestral home.  Adjacent to this house was a pond which had long been neglected.  Hardly  any one in the village used it.   After we moved to the new place the village elders decided to clean the pond.  All the water was pumped out.  The fish in the pond found themselves out of water.  They were caught by persons from outside the village as our villagers were brahmins and were pure vegetarians.  When the rains came the pond got filled up and the water was crystal clear.  From then on my mother and my sister-in-law visited this pond for bathing and washing clothes.  My father and I used to walk to the river 5 kilometres away  for bathing in the early morning hours i.e. between 4.30 AM and 5 AM

After finishing middle school I had joined a typewriting Institute for learning  typing.    Letters had to be typed and, if any corrections were required, the entire letter had to be typed again.  It was therefore absolutely necessary to achieve 100%  accuracy in typing.  One had to be good in spelling and grammar  to produce a good copy.  With only a few months’ practice I acquired reasonable proficiency in typing.  The Institute was run by a person who was a typist-copyist at the Munsif Court at Alathur.  He used to bring home judgments,  depositions of witnesses and other documents.  These had to be typed carefully without errors. He gave those jobs to me and I completed the work to his satisfaction.  These assignments improved my typing skill and accuracy.  Though I was not paid any remuneration, I was provided with coffee or tea and snacks when I worked long hours.  The typing skills I developed during that period stood me in good stead during my service and professional life.  I could produce lengthy documents straight on the computer without looking at the key board.

The Typist-copyist was a devotee of Lord Rama.  During Rama Navami celebrations he used to arrange akhanda bhajan of 24 hours when there used to be unbroken  chanting of the following mantra:

                “hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

                  Hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare”

                 'हरे राम हरे राम राम राम हरे हरे।
                   हरे कृष्ण  हरे कृष्ण  कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे ॥ 

On some occasions it was the continuous chanting of

                 “Raghupati raghava rajaaraam Patitapaavana seetaaraam” 

                   ’रघुपति राघव राजाराम् पतितपावन सीताराम् ’

Devotees took turns in leading the chant while others followed them.  The tempo was kept up for full 24 hours from 6  AM to 6 AM.   During these celebrations I used to read from the Sundara Kanda of Valmiki Ramayana wherein Hanuman crosses the ocean in search of Sita and finds her in captivity in the Asoka vana of Ravana.   He destroys the Asoka vana and fights the demons and sets fire to Lanka.  He gives Sita Rama’s  ring with the name of Rama engraved on it to convince her that he is a messenger from Rama.  He assures her that Rama would  invade Lanka and release her from captivity after killing Ravana and the other demons. Sita is greatly relieved by the message of Hanuman.   She in turn gives Hanuman her chudamani  to be delivered to Rama to convince him that Hanuman had in fact conveyed Rama’s message to her.  Hanuman crosses the ocean again and informs Rama of the whereabouts of Sita and how she is grieved by her separation from Rama.  He also hands over to Rama the chudamani of Sita.   Rama is so pleased that he embraces Hanuman and says that that was all that he could give the latter.  Reading Sundara Kanda of Valmiki Ramayana is supposed to bestow success is one’s endeavours,  the same way Hanuman had succeeded in his endeavour of finding Sita. Reading about the exploits of Hanuman and his success fills our mind with positive thoughts of success  and thus psychologically prepares us for success in whatever we undertake.

In 1945 I completed Class VIII in the Middle School and appeared for the ESLC (Elementary School Leaving Certificate) examination.  English was not a subject for this examination in 1945.  Though I passed with creditable marks, I was offered admission only in III Form which was equivalent to VIII standard in the middle school.  The reason was that there was no  English  paper in the ESLC examination I had cleared.  When I consulted with my English teacher in the Middle School I found out that in 1946 English was being introduced as a paper in the ESLC Examination and I could write only the English Paper as a private candidate. I decided that instead of joining Form III in the High school I would write the English Paper and then apply for admission to Form IV in the High School.  I would save the fees in the High School and I would have spare time for extra-curricular reading.  Preparing for the English paper was an easy task as my grammar and vocabulary were good and I was confident of answering the questions in my own words.

1945 was an important year in my life.  As I was not attending regular school I was free to devote to other activities.  That year my father performed my upanayanam and  my younger brother’s.  We were given the Gayatri mantra and were supposed to do  sandhyavandana, morning just before the sunrise, at noon when the Sun was at the zenith and evening just before the sunset.  The priest initiated both of us into these and helped us with the mantras for a few days.   We were supposed to chant the Gayatri minimum 108 times in the mornings, 32 times at noon and 64 times in the evening.  After the upanayanam, we were eligible to learn the Vedic mantras.  I learned the  purushasuktam, srisuktamm, durgasuktam, pavamanasuktam and a few other mantras from the priest of our village.  Srirudram I learned from my maternal grandfather who was with us those days.

It was the custom those days for the brahmacharis (those boys whose upnayanam had been performed) to grow their hair.  Only the hair a couple of inches above the forehead used to be  removed.  For quite some time I was having long hair touching my shoulders.  I felt uncomfortable with such long hair especially in the summer. I used to wonder how the women  managed  their hair.  Ultimately I had my long hair cut and  I returned to the normal hairstyle for boys.

In the outskirts of  our village there was a  wealthy gentleman who was interested in our epics Ramayana and Mahabharata.  He used to arrange discourses on these epics by learned persons with a sound knowledge of Sanskrit and an aptitude for story telling.  The discourses often consisted of reciting the slokas from the original text and expounding  their meaning with anecdotes and examples from real life.  At times the discourses would continue for forty days or more at a stretch.  I used to attend these discourses and found myself fully absorbed in the exposition.  In particular I was very much impressed by the discourses on Ramayana,  Mahabharata and Bhagavata by the late Brahmasri Anantarama Deekshitar.  

I now started in right earnest on a systematic study of Sanskrit.  I committed to memory sabdamanjari  which gives the different forms taken by nouns of masculine, feminine and neuter gender  when used  in (i) singular, (ii) dual or (iii) plural and  in cases like (i) subject, (ii)direct object, (iii) indirect object, (iv)instrumental, (v)possessive, (vi) locative etc.  I also committed to memory  portions of Dhaturoopavali giving different forms roots of verbs take when used in the present, past and future tenses, when used as commands or requests etc.  To  increase my Sanskrit vocabulary I committed to memory a portion of Amara Kosam by Amarasimha of the Court of Vikramaditya.  I read the ‘Madhava Nidanam’  and ‘sharngadhara Samhita’ both treatises on Ayurveda.

During these days my maternal grandfather had come  to stay with us.  Since I was not attending regular school,  I was able to take advantage of his presence to improve my Sanskrit.  As per the plan proposed by my grandfather we spent about 2 hours each day first on Bhagavatam Tenth Canto and then on Adhyatma Ramayanam. Bhagavatam Tenth Canto is the story of Krishnavatara.  Adhyatma Ramayana was the story of Lord Rama as told by Siva to Parvati.  I used to read out the verses in the text and explain the meaning to the best of my ability.  Where I got stuck, grand father helped me out.  This routine continued,  uninterrupted,  until I joined the IV Form in the high school.  I immensely gained by this exercise and, to  some extent,  I could follow the ancient texts  and also enjoy the classical works of some of the great Sanskrit poets.  But it was obvious that I had to go a long way before I could gain an in depth knowledge of Sanskrit.   But a few slokas from the Tenth Canto were indelibly imprinted in my memory.  One sloka pictured Krishna when he and his cowherd friends were having their midday meal in Vridavan forest. 

   bibhradvenum jatharapatayoh sringavetre cha kakshe

   vamepaanau masrunakavalam tatphalaanyanguleeshu

   tishthanmadhye swaparisuhrudo haasayan narmabhisswaih

   swargeloke mishathi bubhuje yagnabhuk baalakelih

    बिभ्रद्वेणुं जठरपटयोः शृङ्गवेत्रे  च कक्षे
       वामे पाणौ मसृणकवलं तत्फलान्यङ्गुलीषु।
    तिष्ठन्मध्ये स्वपरिसुहृदो ह्लादयन्नर्मभिः स्वैः
        स्वर्गे लोके मिषति बुभुजे यज्ञभुक् बालकेलिः ॥
 

“Krishna had stuck his flute between the stomach and the dress he was wearing at the waist.  The bugle and the cane were held under his arm. On his left palm was a ball of smooth and soft cooked cereal.  On his fingers were varieties of side dishes.  Standing at the centre of the circle of cowherd friends he was making them burst into laughter by his jokes. The denizens of Heaven were looking with wide-eyed wonder at this scene in which the Lord,  who partakes of the offerings made in sacrifices, is having  lunch with his cowherd friends with child-like playfulness” 

Another sloka is a beautiful description of Krishna entering Vrindavana:

      Barhaapeedam natavaravapuh karnayoh karnikaaram

      Bibhradvaasah kanakakapisham vaijanteem cha maalaam

      Randhraan venoh adharasudhayaa poorayan  gopavrindaih

      Vrindaranyam swapadaramanam praavishat geetakeertih

       बर्हापीडं नटवरवपुः कर्णयोः कर्णिकारं
          बिभ्रद्वासः कनककपिशं वैजयन्तिं च मालाम्।
       रन्ध्रान्वेणोरधरसुधया पूरयन् गोपवृन्दैः
          वृन्दारण्यं स्वपदरमणं प्राविशद्गीतकीर्तिः ॥


Wearing a turban with peacock feathers stuck in it,  with his  body adorned  in the manner of a lead actor, with karnikara flowers adorning his  ears,  wearing  a garment of golden hue and a garland  of wild flowers, filling the holes in his flute with the nectar of his lips (i.e. producing sweet music from his flute) and  accompanied by the cowherd boys singing his praise,  Krishna entered Vrindavan which was thrilled by the touch of his feet.

Another sloka is from the praise of Kirshna by Brahma who had kidnapped the cowherd boys and calves and kept them with him for a year.  Krishna himself became the cowherd boys and calves  and played with them as before.  Brahma realised his mistake and begs pardon from Krishna. He says: 

          Utkshepanam garbhagatasya paadayoh       

          Kim kalpate maturadhokshajaagase

          Kimasti naasti vyapadesha bhooshitam

          Tawaasti kinchit kiyadapyanantah


          उत्क्षेपणं गर्भगतस्य पादयोः
               किं कल्पते मातुरधोक्षजागसे।
           किमस्तिनास्तिव्यपदेशभूषितं 
                तवास्ति कुक्षौ कियदप्यनन्तः ॥

“My Lord!  If the child in the womb of the mother kicks his legs,  will the mother be angry ?  Is there anything in the whole of creation which is outside your body?  Definitely not. So just like the mother forgiving the baby in the womb you should also forgive me since I am also like a child inside your stomach."

{The context of another sloka is this: Krishna plays the flute.  The music forcefully draws the minds of the Gopis towards him.  One Gopi says:

  

              Ayi murali mukunda smera vaktraaravinda

              Shwasanamadhu rasajne thwaam pranamyaadya yaache

              Adharamanisameepam praaptavatyaam bhavatyaam’

              Kathaya rahasi karne maddasaam Nandasoonoh

               अयि मुरलि मुकुन्दस्मेरवक्त्रारविन्द-
                       श्वसनमधुरसज्ञे त्वां प्रणम्याद्य याचे।
                 अधरमणिसमीपं प्राप्तवत्यां भवत्यां
                        कथय रहसि कर्णे मत्कथां नन्दसूनोः ॥
   

“O Murali (Flute)! You know the sweetness of the breath emanating from the sweet-smiling face of Krishna which resembles a lotus in full bloom.  When you are in the proximity of his lips please speak into his ears secretly about the  miserable condition I am in  (without his company)”]

[Note: The above sloka is actually from Srikrishna Karnamritam of Bilwamangala Swamigal but I  included this in the context of Srimad Bhagavatam by mistake]

The scene is where Krishna enters the yagnasala of Kamsa where every one is assembled to see the dhanuryagna.  To each one Krishna presents himself in a different aspect according to his or her thinking.  To wrestlers of Kamsa he is the thunderbolt, to the ordinary people he is  the best of men, to the women he is the very embodiment of Kamadeva, to the cowherds he is one of their own, to the wicked kings he is the one who disciplines them, to the parents he is a  child, to Kamsa he is mrityu (Death), to the ignorant he is viraat,  to the yogis he is the  Ultimate Truth and to the Vrishnis he is the highest God.  Here is the sloka:

   Mallaanaamashanih nrunaam naravarah streenaam smaro moortimaan

   Gopaanaamswajanoasataam kshitibhujaam shaastaa swaputorh shishuh 

   Mrityurbhojapaterviraadavidushaam tatwam param yoginaam

   Vrushneenaam paradevateti vidito rangam gatah saagrajah

    मल्लानामशनिर्नृणां नरवरः स्त्रीणां स्मरो मूर्तिमान्
         गोपानां स्वजनोऽसतां  क्षितिभुजां शास्ता स्वपित्रोः शिशु:।
     मृत्युर्भोजपतेर्विराटविदुषां तत्त्वं परं योगिनां
          वृष्णीनां परदेवतेति विदितो रङ्गं गतः साग्रजः||

During those days I used to read out from the Devi Bhagavatam in Malayalam to a small group of elderly women  who used to assemble in the opposite house in the afternoons when they were free from their household chores.  This activity continued for quite some days until the whole text was completed. 

In the late evenings my maternal grandfather used to read from the Adhyatma Ramayana for a group of elderly men and expound the philosophical portions contained in this text.  

What with all these activities, I forgot that I had to submit an application for writing the English paper of the ESLC examination early 1946. The last date was already over and I did not know what to do.  I approached my English teacher from the Middle school who drafted an application to the District Educational Officer explaining the circumstances of the case.  I submitted the application along with a request for condoning the delay in submitting it.  Luckily, I was permitted to write the English paper that year.  I wrote the examination and passed with creditable marks.  Now I was eligible for admission to Form IV in the Nellikkal Edom High School at Alathur.

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