Quite for some time the ‘romantic
story’ continued to be the ‘talk of the town’! I do not really remember as to
how the characters involved could face this situation. However the person who
enjoyed the lime light was none other than the ‘detective in chief’ and
‘reporter’ Manjappa. I am sure if only the present day TV channels were to be
present on those days, they would have simply grabbed our Manjappa. He could
have been a Campus recruit with a decent pay package! But this great rural
candidate for the post of reporter was never recognized. In fact he
discontinued his studies and joined his father in agricultural activities. So
much for the rural talent going waste!
Meanwhile I had to plan things
for ensuring that I secured the first rank in this school also. My class
teacher could make out within a short time that my capacity to grasp and retain
in memory the lessons taught were far superior as compared to other boys. He
started fully recognizing the same. But some how, the Hindi teacher Gopal would
not recognize. He used to praise Sridharamurthy in the class in the background
of his having passed the Madhyama examination. Here the fact that my brother
had already taught me the subject did not help. Further the examination for 6th
standard being oral, the scope for comparison was limited. As such I had to
wait till 7th standard to establish my superiority. Till then I had
to simply wait!
As per the system prevalent, the Head
Master had to conduct surprise visits to the classes. He had to test the
teaching standards of the teacher involved. He would also put questions to the
students to know their absorbing capacity. As already mentioned by me, the HM
Mr. Varadachar was held in very high esteem. One day he gave a surprise visit
to our class. He started asking spellings of certain simple English words. He
found most of the students answering wrongly. Finally my turn came. I had
absolutely no problems and answered all his questions correctly. He lastly
asked me the toughest question as per him. I had to spell the word ‘certainly’!
When I did that correctly he told me that I was ‘certainly’ a bright boy!
He asked me what was the
methodology followed by me for studies. Actually I did not have any; but could
not say so. I was in complete awe of him. Then he asked me how many hours I was
daily devoting for studies. I told him it was about half an hour. Then he told
the class that here was a student who could answer all the questions correctly
by just studying half an hour daily! He asked them to follow me in this
respect. That was really a great day for me! When I look back, it appears to be
one of the most satisfying moments of my life.
We had the first terminal
examination just before the Dasara holidays. I was awarded the highest marks in
all the subjects by the class teacher AG. There was a good gap between my total
marks and those secured by the second rank holder Jagadeesh. As expected I
could only secure second highest in Hindi. Sridharamurthy secured the highest. But
that didn’t affect my first rank. My brother was fully satisfied with my
performance. I became fully confident about my continuing my top position in
class.
There was a library in Basavani. Sridharamurthy’s
father was in charge. He introduced me to the library. I could take home a lot
of Kannada novels regularly. My sister also became a voracious reader. Most of
the books used to be detective novels. We developed a fascination for such
books. I could read all those novels without sacrificing my first rank in my
class. There was no electricity in my sister’s place in those days. We used to
read these novels in the night in kerosene lamp light. Some of these novels
dealt with ghosts and some supernatural elements. Reading such stories at night
used to create lot of fear in our minds.
One particular night my
brother-in–law had gone out of station. At night we finished our dinner early
and closed all the doors one by one. The house was huge and had so many doors. If
we had to go to bathroom at night we had to go on opening not less than six
doors. I always had this fear that we might have forgotten to close some door. Whenever
I woke up in the night I used to develop this fear. I used to get a feeling
that somebody had entered the house through one of the doors which had been
kept open. That used to make me feel jittery.
After closing all the doors we
were both reading two detective novels while sitting on our beds. I was reading
a novel called ‘Maatagara Mayanna’ written by N. Narasimhaiah who was famous
for such Kannada novels. This novel dealt with ghosts and a sorcerer called
Mayanna. My sister was reading another similar novel. Suddenly there was a
knocking of the front door of the house. Both of us were so afraid we didn’t
know what to do. Nobody was expected to come at that unearthly hour late in the
night by village standards. We just froze in our positions! We thought that the
knocking may stop. But the knocking continued to our horror! After some time we
heard somebody calling us by our names. We gathered some courage and came out
to the hall holding the kerosene lamp. It was pitch dark outside. We saw a tall
person outside the door calling us again and again. When we moved closer we
both were fully ashamed to find out that it was none other than our brother!
Needless to say we were fully relieved to see him instead of the ghost as per
our wild imagination!
We opened the door in a jiffy. We
were told by the brother that the bus had broken down on the way. It had
resulted in his reaching the place so late. He could not understand what made
us delay opening the door so late. We could not explain to him in any case. So
much for the effect of reading the ghost stories in those days!
Sridharamurthy became one of my
close friends. One day he took me to his home. He had a big family. Phaniyappa,
‘the business man’, I had referred to earlier, and another poor boy, Shankara
Narayana, my classmate, used to stay at his house as free guests. His father
was a freedom fighter and was the local branch manager of Malnad Areca Marketing
Society. His eldest son was Dattatri who had discontinued his studies after
SSLC. This man some how could not accept the fact that I had snatched away the
first rank position in the class! He was exhibiting this feeling in different
ways!
One day I had been to the library
to return the books I had borrowed. That day the usual person in charge was not
available and Dattatri himself was in his place. He just went through the books
I had borrowed. His eyes simply turned red! He made the necessary entries and
put them back. I wanted to borrow fresh books. He asked me why I was still
standing there. When I told him I wanted another set of books, he started
shouting at me. He was telling others present there that it was unhealthy and unbecoming of a 6th standard student to read so many
novels that too the detective ones! Sridharamurthy was with me and found it
very bad. But he was helpless. We left the library without collecting any
books. Another person who was present there asked me what made Dattatri shout
like that. He also asked me how was I in my studies. When told that I stood
first in class, he felt that it was far better to read such books and still
come first in class than scoring low marks without reading any such books.
For some time I had to stop
reading novels. But later I could start again thanks to Sridharamurthy. But
Dattatri was after me even afterwards. He had his revenge against me (at least
he thought he did) when I was in my 8th standard. I would come back
to it later.
I completed the final examination
for 6th standard in the month of March 1960. It was the last time I
attended an oral examination. The results were announced on a Saturday. We were
waiting anxiously outside the school office. Our class teacher came out with a
list of students with results. He pasted the same on the office window. To my
surprise it only mentioned whether the student has passed or failed. No rank
list was published. I was curious to know my ranking. I went inside the office
and in the presence of HM asked my class teacher what was my ranking. He
smilingly told the HM “see this boy who is so particular to know his ranking”.
Then he asked me to tell him sincerely whether I could imagine any other
student securing first rank. I was speechless. He then personally marked first
rank in red ink against my name. I felt a sense of fulfillment which was simply
beyond words!
----- (To be continued)……..
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