All the classes started for us in
the right earnest at the college. Our Principal was indeed a great
administrator. His stature was such that the batch of young and fresh postgraduate
lecturers was looking more like his students than our teachers! Anyways he kept
them under tight leash and enforced strict discipline among the students and
the lecturers as well. I had earlier seen experienced senior lecturers at Sahyadri College
The first lecturer who impressed
me most was the chemistry lecturer Raghunathan. As the post of physics lecturer
could not be filled up initially, he took the same also for us. Within a short
time he recognized me as a brilliant student and marked me for special
attention. It was the same case with Mathematics lecturer N R Bhat. He
identified me and Prakash Kamath as two students capable of scoring cent per
cent marks. I had my own reservations about the same. But he was sure and he
monitored our progress closely to ensure that we were successful.
After about two months, we got a
new lecturer for physics. His name was Krishnappaiah. He was already in the
services of the Academy at Manipal
Engineering College
Krishnappaiah came to the college
with a weightage of one year seniority at the Academy College
As far as the students of our
first batch were concerned certain students remain fresh in my memory. The
first of them was Ummarabba from a place called Kammardi. He was a very jovial
fellow and a very good speaker in Kannada. He was also good in singing Kannada
film songs. Later as a B.Sc student he developed certain eccentricities and
fell out of favour with the college management. It was quite unfortunate.
However, many years later when I was working outside Karnataka, I came to know
that he had entered politics. In fact he was elected as MLA from a constituency
in South Kanara district. He was reported to
be a very popular politician. But his drinking habits got better of him and he
died a premature death as a young and upcoming politician.
Another student who was very good
in delivering speeches in Kannada was Rama Sharma. He was also highly talented
and was appreciated for his antics. But soon his antics and eccentricities got
better of him! It reached a stage where he was unofficially declared as a man
with unsound mind. He had to discontinue his studies.
The student Padmanabha was very
stylish and was good in delivering speeches in both Kannada and English. He
used to dress well and wanted to impress the girl students always. His talents
helped him become the first President of the college students union.
On the Saturdays our classes used
to end early in the afternoon. I had made it a point to visit my home on every
weekend. There I used to help my father in the various activities at home. Most
part of my Sundays I used to spend in our arecanut garden. There was lot of curiosity
among the villagers about the new college at Sringeri. I had to spend some time
in answering their queries. On the Monday mornings I would start early and
reach Sringeri walking all the way for eight miles. I continued this for all
the four years I studied in the Sringeri
College
A letter from my elder brother
(AVL) created lot of tension to my parents. He had written that his cousin on
whose support he had left for Bangalore
for college studies had let him down badly. The cousin who was well-off had clearly
assured him that he would offer him full financial support for his college
education. In fact my parents had thought that as far as he was concerned they
had nothing to worry financially. My father was already finding it tough to
meet my mess charges of thirty rupees per month. As per my brother, the cousin
had sent him one hundred rupees. Thereafter he had just ignored all his
communications for further assistance for his maintenance.
I was staying in the front room
of this cousin’s house in Sringeri. He was staying in his village home near
Sringeri. However, he used to visit the Sringeri-house everyday. Off late I was
hearing that he had fallen into bad company. As his father had suddenly died,
he got control of a vast landed property at a young age. He was the only rich
man from our paternal side. We were in fact very proud of his financial
position. He was the only son and had started mismanaging the property. He had
raised huge loans for no apparent reasons. He remained a bachelor and never
settled down in life. The things reached such a stage that one fine morning he
simply disappeared. His whereabouts are not known till this day. The entire
property was taken over by creditors. His unmarried sister lives under a
thatched roof today in a pitiable condition.
Even though I did raise the issue with my
cousin regarding my brother’s maintenance at that time, he was not forthcoming
in his responses. He had delivered a bitter lesson to my brother. That was, not to depend on the relatives for their
support in spite of their own assurances! Ultimately the burden of my
brother’s education also fell on my parents. My brother had to struggle hard in
Bangalore for
his survival. He had to resort to vaaraanna
(a system wherein the students will be fed free by certain families on
different days of the week).
In the first terminal examination
I secured highest marks in all my subjects. I could also secure cent percent
marks in Mathematics. Suddenly a feeling started developing among my lecturers
that I was capable of securing a rank at the University level. They started
putting pressure on me to work in that direction. Unlike in my SSLC
examination, the teachers here were very much supportive and were capable of
giving directions to me to achieve this goal. I started developing lot of
confidence and it came out in my performances. The Principal also spoke to me
individually and hinted that the college was expecting me to keep its flags
high. In one of the college functions my benefactor Shankar Rao had
participated. He was thanked by the Principal and my lecturers for having
helped my admission to the college. He felt very proud and thanked me for
bringing him such honour!
One fine morning we got the news
that our English lecturer SriRam had left the college. It was a great shock to
us. What hurt us more was that he had left without speaking to his students. He
had joined a college in Mysore .
That was a sort of demoralization for us at that stage. His vacancy was filled
up only after a gap of two months. The new lecturer Subraya was an elderly
gentleman and was well experienced. He made us prepare well for our final
examination.
The next lecturer to leave us was
Raghunathan, our chemistry lecturer. As already mentioned by me, he was a very
good lecturer and was totally involved in our affairs. Unlike SriRam he spoke
to all of us before leaving and was in tears. The reasons for his sudden
departure never came to light. He joined the Medical College
TMA Pai used to visit our college
often. It was very interesting to hear him every time. He would explain to us
as to how he built up Manipal brick by brick. As an entrepreneur he had established
several educational institutions, Syndicate Bank, Manipal Hospital
As our final examination was
approaching, all of us started preparing ourselves. Suddenly there was an
announcement of a preparatory examination. I was very much against this
examination. I just wanted to write the final examination directly. I took a
firm decision and just stayed back at my house absenting myself from the
examination. As my father had some work at Sringeri I sent a message that I was
not keeping well.
He met some of my lecturers at
the mess and informed them accordingly. They all expressed great concern for me
and told him that they were sorry that I could not attend the examination.
Seeing their great concern, my father felt that I must have committed a
blunder. He was very much concerned and rushed back to tell me. But I remained
adamant and took it lightly. Ultimately that did not make much difference for
me at all.
Our examinations started in the
month of March. I could write all my papers to my full satisfaction. There was
one particular question in physics which was out of syllabus. In fact this
particular question had appeared two times in earlier years also. I had
observed it and had repeatedly requested Krishnappaiah to cover it in our classes.
He had assured me initially that he would do it. But at the last minute he told
me that there was very little possibility of it getting repeated third time. He
failed to cover it as assured.
When I finished writing the
physics paper and walked out of the examination hall, I saw Krishnappaiah
anxiously waiting for me outside. He was profusely sorry for failing to cover
the topic in spite of my special request. He thought I had lost nearly ten
marks as there was no choice for this question. But I told him not to worry as
I had answered the question without any difficulty!
It was my nature not to take any
risks in such matters. I had referred to a guide and had prepared myself well
for answering this question also. As a result I was the only student at least
in our college who had answered this out of syllabus question correctly!
Krishnappaiah could not simply believe me! He congratulated me for my
persistence and success in the matter.
------- (To be continued)
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