In those days there
was no system of conducting class tests in our School. There used to be a first terminal
examination in the month of October just before Dasara festival. The holidays
would follow. The annual examination used to be held in the month of March. The
summer holidays would start immediately thereafter. The absence of class tests
was the reason why I could not make out who were my competitors in the race for
the class rankings. I used to discuss this with my classmates Venkataramana and
Neelakanta who were close to me and appreciated my position. They were telling
me that I could secure first rank in spite of tough competition. I was quite
uncertain about this and my brother’s letter only added to my tension. However,
I kept my studies at an optimum level to ensure at least that I stood a chance
of securing that coveted first rank.
We had a teacher by name VS (V Srinivasachar). He was taking
Social Studies subject for us. We used to make lot of fun of him. The main
reason was that he used to teach the subject in Kannada even though we were
studying in English medium and the textbook was in English! Such was his English vocabulary and the
capacity to teach the English medium students! We were all getting an impression
that our HM was under some obligation to assign him English medium teaching! We
could never understand the logic behind this punishment meted out to us by our
HM who himself was known as a great English teacher.
VS had a pet student by name Gopinath. He would mention his name
repeatedly and make us believe that he was the best student in the class.
Actually Gopinath was a good debater. He participated in several competitions
on behalf of our School and brought Shields and awards. But we were not convinced
about his studying abilities. For me who was trying to identify the close
competitors, he appeared to be one. Somehow the impression one gathered in
those days was that the boys who occupied the front benches were superior to
others. This impression proved to be utterly wrong in the end!
Unlike VS, the other great
teachers like SSR, TSR and KKM showed no favouritism of any kind. But SSR had
one peculiar feature of his own. He would identify certain students for their
specialities and go after them! He appointed one boy by name Narayana as the
monitor of the class. He was the grandson of the famous advocate Srinivasa
Iyengar. He would come to the class with the thrinamas displayed
prominently on his forehead. He was quite an average boy as far as studies were
concerned. But he used to act tough and talk some nonsense with softies like
me. I used to totally dislike this boy.
By making him the class Monitor,
SSR used to make him responsible for all the happenings in the classroom. He
would award him some strange type of punishments for his failure to discharge
his duties. The monitor could punish the students who were engaged in petty
talk during the break between two periods or when the arrival of the teacher
was delayed. He could make the culprits to stand upon the bench by writing
their names on the board. But somehow, we were getting a feeling that the
monitor himself was getting more punishments than the culprits he had caught!
It seems SSR had his own reasons to justify this. In any case, we enjoyed the
strange ways of SSR and thought that Narayana deserved it and much more! On the
succeeding day of Gokulashtami every
year SSR would ask Narayana to bring the special vundes (ball shaped sweet items made up of groundnut etc.,)
prepared at his home for the occasion. He would then ask Narayana to fully
describe as to how the event was celebrated at his home. He would be asking
some searching questions which Narayana found it very difficult to answer. We
used to comment that while Gokulashtami
was celebrated as the birth day of Lord Krishna, the next day was celebrated as
thithi day of Narayana at School!
Indeed Narayana used to dread that day for that special SSR treatment!
We had one classmate by name
Ravindra. He was a well behaved average student in the class. He had three
close friends and all of them used to sit on the same bench. We had an occasion
to choose a class representative to represent our class in the School governing
council. There were three candidates in the race. One of Ravindra’s close
friends by name Siraj Ahmed (the only Muslim student in our class) persuaded
him to stand for the election. His other friends kept mum. Ravindra was very
reluctant initially. But somehow he consented to please his close friend.
The voting duly took place. The class teacher, being the returning
officer, started the counting process. To everybody’s amusement Ravindra had
secured a single vote in his favour! He
could not simply believe it. His close friend Siraj Ahmed who had proposed his
name immediately told him that he was the one who had cast that vote! Ravindra
told us that he had absolute faith in his friend. We had a simple question for Ravindra. In
whose favour he had cast his own vote?
Ravindra had no clue! He kept repeating that he had no reason to doubt
the genuineness of his friend. We also told him that we had no issues as far as
his friend’s faithfulness was concerned. But we only wanted him to clarify
about his own voting! Needless to say that the puzzle continues even to this
day! Ravindra ultimately could never find out in whose favour he had cast his
own vote! So much for the immense belief he had in the faithfulness of his
close friend!
I had a fascination for movies in
those days. I started seeing the films in the company of my friends. There were
two old theatres by name Krishna Talkies and Vijaya Lakshmi Talkies. The cost
of tickets used to be very low. I even remember having seen a Kannada movie Karuneye
Kutumbada Kannu while sitting on the floor in Krishna Talkies. It cost
only four annas. This Theatre was known as Doddi (Cowshed) in view of its vast
capacity and bad maintenance. The Vijaya
Lakshmi Theatre was also old; but a change in management saw this small theatre
releasing some famous Hindi films on the day of all India release itself.
The first of such films was Dosti
under the banner of Rajshri Productions. This was the most impressive
first Hindi film for me. The film focused
on the friendship between two boys, one blind and the other a cripple. The
music by the famous duo, Laxmikant Pyarelal, was a total hit. We purchased the
film songs book and by hearted all the songs. The best was the Film Fare award
winning song Chaahoonga main tujhe sanjh savere sung by the legendary Mohammed Rafi. One
hostel boy by name Ganeshmurthy used to sing this song beautifully. We also saw
the highly romantic film Mere Mehboob
directed by H S Rawail and enjoyed it thoroughly. Another romantic film we very
much enjoyed was Madhumathi directed
by the legendary Bimal Roy. It was released for the second time in Shimoga (it
was a 1958 film). I have no hesitation to say that we were totally smitten by
the two beauties Sadhana and Vyjayanthimala!
The Ganesha festival was
celebrated with all gaiety in our hostel. The brother of our Sanskrit teacher
Shringeswara Sastry from Sringeri delivered a Harikatha on the occasion. We
enjoyed the same immensely. The famous Kannada poet Gopala Krishna Adiga was
then the Principal of Sagara College. He and another famous Kannada writer V M
Inamdar (the then Principal of Purna Prajna College Udupi) were special
invitees on one of the days. The legendary Kannada poet D R Bendre was also
invited on another occasion. We were provided the great opportunity to see and
hear these famous poets and writers.
Our first terminal examination
started in the first week of October. As we used to have ample time for studies
daily at the hostel, not much of extra preparations were needed for the
examination. I thought I had done reasonably well. Our examination ended on a
Saturday. Next morning I stepped in to the 8
AM Udaya Motor bus in front of our hostel and proceeded to my
native place. I had a lot to tell my mother and other family members regarding
my experiences in the great Malnad City of Shimoga!
------ (To be continued) ------
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