Sometime back as most of us recovered from the challenges of facing life with the Covid sword hanging above us, a bunch of my school/pre-university college friends decided to locate the teachers who had taught us in school - upto 10th Standards - and honour them. What started as a small event quickly morphed into something quite big and the event was held in a friend's house. We found that 3 of our teachers were still alive and it was a pleasure meeting them, literally after 47 years for me.
The friends made the event, held in May/June 2022, bigger and bigger in terms of its scope and decided to come up with a Souvenir, even if it was hardly 60 pages. The intent was for each to write about their memories and share. The friend who was involved in this insisted that I contribute (given your writing talents as he described it). I was extremely reluctant, as the piece I write will show why, but I finally mustered enough courage to write. I then dismissed the idea of sharing that as a blog. But something kept nagging me at the back of my mind, still don't know what, that told me to share as a blog also. Finally 9 months later I decided to take the plunge and share it as a blog - below. I have made some edits more for the wider audience, but nothing changed.
By the time I came to 8th std, I had studied in 9 schools and 4 states. Studying in Kerala in 8th I was given an ultimatum – either leave the school or fail the class. This had nothing to do with my conduct or academic performance. This was to do with the fact that me and my family were NOT Malayalis but from Karnataka and by moving to Kerala (albeit transferred in a central govt job that my father had) we had somehow deprived the locals/ affected them. Including my father, we were hounded out summarily with physical threats, with even the police telling us bluntly - what else can you expect as outsiders? Hence the decision to shift to a school in Bangalore and stay in a hostel. I had written about one of these experiences way back in 2015 in a blog related to my father, and can be read here.
As a 12 year old this was a major change. National High School was known as the school for the intelligent, rank holders, “kudumi’s - or Geek in today's parlance” as many were called and getting admission for 9th std was difficult. My academic standing did not merit even a walk on the road opposite such an august school. But the fact that Dr. Sampathgiri Rao, one of the founders of this institution, was the brother of my Paternal grandmother helped me get admission. One late evening as darkness descended, an uncle took me in an auto with a steel trunk and dropping me off on the main road opposite the main arch of National College, left. Managing to drag myself and the trunk into the National College hostel my new life began.
Breakfast in hostel consisted of one bun and a cup of watery milk and as one sat in class the only thought in mind was lunch. Surrounded by classmates who were smart and bright, but also had already formed their own friends’ circles, I had a hard time making friends and gaining acceptability. Nobody treated me badly or discriminated against me, but given my circumstances, filled with loneliness, hunger and confusion, I wasn’t easy to be friends either. I joined NCC (National Cadet Core) only because they gave you a coupon to eat a plate of Set Dosa after every session.
NHS gave students wings to fly and one could choose the wings. It could be sports, dramatics, or vocational skills like Typewriting, Tailoring. I tried my hand at Cricket as NHS reached the finals of the BT Ramaiah Shield that year, without success, due to poor physical health. However, I enjoyed the singing of a stranger in the National College fields as he sang his own version of a popular Hindi song that went – “ನಂಗೆ cricket ಆಟ ಆಡೀದ್ದಕೊ , ನಂಗೆ ಯಾರು chance ಕೊಡಲ್ಲಲಾಿ”. Sung to the tune of the song - Merey saamney waali kidki mein from Padosan, his song was how nobody gave him a chance to play cricket. It was a kind of sad song actually but given the tune and the way he sang it, he made even sadness sound happy. My only friends were books which transported me to fantasy lands and none of these were what I was supposed to study in school.
My fantasies made me repeatedly enjoy a film that was shown in school which had a person walking into the sea, continuing to walk on the seabed and finally coming out on a distant shore in a foreign land. My fantasies beckoned me to enroll in dramatics and with a drama teacher like BS Narayana (BSN) (photo with KRR and troupe - I am the guy standing 2nd from right), I gained self-confidence as I stood on stage. But for this I would never have been able to come out of my shell and face life. But I still compared myself to my classmates and felt vastly inferior and so never formed friendships. I did have one friend though but that was more because he also stayed in the hostel with me.
Then one day our social studies teacher B Narasanna (?) changed my life. He could write the entire world map effortlessly across the whole black board and asked some of us to put together a jigsaw puzzle of the Indian map he had drawn on a cardboard. We struggled. He then said that the puzzle was the picture of a human and quickly we could put it together. Turning it around, he showed us the Indian map on the rear and said something like – “Don’t try to develop the world, just develop yourself and the world will develop automatically”.
That profound comment made me stop comparing myself with others and my self-confidence grew tremendously. Since then till date I have never ever compared myself to anybody and this one trait has been my biggest strength.
When I see my classmates of those days I am just not surprised at their achievements and accomplishments. If one is a national table tennis champion, a few are top scientists who have served this country in high positions and made the nation proud, while one is a top doctor and yet another is a accomplished singer and the list goes on. Even today just like way back in 1975 I get tongue tied at their talent and knowledge. But there is a tremendous sense of pride that they are friends and yet humble and giving.
I passed 10th standard with a second-class doing injustice to a rank students’ school like NHS. While my memories of school are weak, those 2 years created in me, a self-confidence, built a foundation that had never existed hitherto. I did much better during PUC and subsequent years in studies, friendships & memories. I realise today that I would have probably ended up a wreck somewhere but for the teachers who created a foundation for each of us. Their ability to teach and inspire is such that 47 years later, one of the teachers HLR as I mentioned above gave me the courage to say and share this openly. All I can say is - THANK YOU.
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