My Life Story Part 1

Prologue:
During the last few months, I had lost four dear friends. Three of them died of heart problem and the other of liver ailment. All of them were close to me and were two/three years elder or younger to me. I knew Pasupathy from 1955, Ragupathi from 1964, Kuppuswamy from 1966 and Marimuthu from 1975. Their deaths did not shatter me,but caused immense grief.. I kept on thinking about them and what I have learnt from them.. I have always rated Raghupathi as the best among the various human beings I have interacted with. Whenever, I was down, I used to talk to him, be it from Singapore or elsewhere..I consider his death as the biggest loss to me. I went to Mumbhai in April to attend the Board Meeting of Mafatlal Industries ltd..There, during the course of conversation, my friend Ghia used the following words " Bala, every day after 65 years of age is a bonus given to you by God. Relax and enjoy. Lead a life free from worries". I was already following this line of thinking. My son-in-law Bala told me while in London, that I should write my life story. That set me thinking that I should share my experiences with my children. Vidya was always urging me to write something in my blog..
At the end of my story, I have included a paragraph about my expectations from my children after me. I hope at least six of them will read this story. Here is my Life Story.
Early Years:
I do not remember much about my early years.All I know is that I spent larger part of my time with my maternal grandfather in Tiruchirapalli, a place where I was born.I was a sick child sufferring from dysentry twice every week.As I came from the womb of my mother in the seventh month ( so I was told), I was quite weak. I did not go to school till I had completed seven. I was educated at home by my mother. I vividly remember her hitting me with a hurricane-light lamp when my responses were very poor when she was teaching me. Even at that age, I realized that whatever she was doing was for my good.. The only difference was that I made no efforts to improve my standards.
The first school I went to was Aryan Secondary School in Pathaikadai sandhu in Tiruchirapalli. My uncle Balachandran, who was ten years older to me, took me to the school. When he said that he wanted to admit me into fourth standard, the Head Master asked for the age. My uncle gave the age as 19th March 1939, which was the required age for admission into fourth standard.. In those days, age certificates were not insisted upon by schools. Whatever was declared by the parents was the age on record. Besides, as I was born at home and as there was no practice of registering the birth with the Municipality, I had no age certificate. This was the case with most of the children at that time. Eventually when I was admitted, my age at school was 21 months more than my real age. My actual date of birth was 29th November 1940. I was staying with my maternal grand-parents at Tiruchy when I was studying in this school. As a boy of ten, I had once traveled alone
from Tiruchy to Ayyampet by train, though at the station in Ayyampet, my father received me.


My parents moved to Ayyampet when I was about to start VI th standard. I also moved from Tiruchy to this place.We were all admitted into Board Hiigh School, which was a State Government run School. There were atleast twelve children staying with us---children of my Periappa, maternal grand-uncles, children of father!s cousins. All of them were two or three years older or younger to me. My mother was the only lady at the household cooking for all of us. All the day, she was busy feeding us. It was a happy joint-family.At this time of my life, I had never seen my mother with more than three saris. I studied in Board High School, Ayyampet from standard 6th to standard 9th. It was a Tamil medium school. Here in the school, I acquired friendship with three good people which has lasted a long time. -Raju (Raju Real Estates), Markandeyan (a retired school teacher staying in Tanjore) and Sunderraman, who subsequently became co-brother to my
brother-in-law. All of us (me included) were average students, excepting Sunderraman.
My cousin Visu was very close to me. Though he was older to me by one year, he was studying in the same class.
My remembrances about this school were:
1) A strike was organized by Raju against the transfer of a Head Master during mid-term.
2) I acted as Cheran Senkuttuvan in a school play.
3)Actor Muthuraman, who was a young stage actor then, came to our school and performed. I disliked him instantly as he was chewing "pan" continuously.

The academics at this school was deplorably bad. Only five out of 80 students used to pass the S.S.L.C. examination. In those days, we had eleven years of school and four years of College for a Degree, as against 12 plu three now. The School Leaving Examination at the conclusion of eleventh standard was called S.S.L.C. (Secondary School Leaving Certificate). In view of the poor standards at the school, my parents decided to shift us from Ayyampet to Thiruvaiyaru.
I was admitted into Srinivasa Rao High School in Thiruvaiyaru for my tenth standard. This was considered a good school.
At examinations, I used to score very good marks in English and very poor marks in Mathematics (like 81 and 18)...My mother was very disappointed with me.On 2nd January 1955, she took me to Mahalingam Vathiar for tuition in Mathematics. Seeing my pathetic record, he refusted to take me as a pupil.While we were returning dejected, he called my mother and told her that as only three months were left before final examination, he woud teach me only algebra. He also said that as 65 percents marks in Mathematics paper were reserved for algebra, I could at best expect to score pass marks in this subject. The minimum required for a pass was 35 marks. As my marks in English were high, he recognized that my problem with regard to Mathematics,was one of concentration and attention.The fees agreed for the tuition was Rs 15 per month. I attended the class every morning without fail. The teacher had just then got married and many times, I used to wake him up
before 6
a.m.
I began to like the subject and the teacher.Around March that year, he was quite happy with me and blessed me.Before the final examination for Mathematics, I went to Mahalinga Vathiar and prostrated before him. When the results were out, I had secured 65 percent in Maths, the maximum marks reserved for Algebra.. I secured the first marks in English in the school. I had total aggregate marks of 330 out of 600.
I remember our stay in Thiruvaiyaru for the following reasons:

1)The School introduced me to Cricket. We used to play Street Cricket with Tennis Balls. There were matches every Sunday between the streets . We used to stay in Mettu theru first and then Vadakku Veedhi. There were quite a few matches between the two streets. As I was the proud owner of a cricket bat brought from Tiruchi, I was always included in the playing eleven. It did not me take me long to realise that it was the ownership of the bat that assured me a place and not my cricketing abilities. I never represented the School, but I was always taken along with the team to various places.. I remember one match between our School and Kalyanasundaram High School, Tanjore, held at Tanjore. Almost all of the players were at least one foot taller than me. (like Hari and Sabareesh now).

2)During eleventh, one Srinivasan joined our class. He stayed in the same street. He introduced me to books,starting with Kalki's "Ponniyin Selvan". I finished reading all the volumes within a week.Srinivasan!s mother had arranged for binding of this book, taking pages from the weekly issues.This novel had tremendous impact on me. I kept on thinking about the various characters for a long time. With interest in reading historical novel, I began reading Sir Walter Scott at the age of fourteen. I borrowed his works from the School Library.Within a week of my finishing "Ponniyin Selvan", the author "Kalki" died in Chennai. I shed tears on hearing the news. This was the first time I shed tears for anyone.

3)While studying in eleventh standard, I saw a film, where the leading lady was Kusala Kumari. She was a beautiful girl. My first interest in the opposite sex was aroused by Kusalakumari. I also began to realize the influence and need for women at this age. However my knowledge of sex was very poor, I had seen a film, "Manithan" where T.K.shanmugam was the hero. In this film, they showed a man and woman touching each other and running around trees. The next scene showed the heroine crying and pleading to the hero that she was pregnant. I was afraid that when even touching a girl can lead to pregnancy, I should avoid touching girls. For a long time, I avoided seeing girls -eye-to-eye- and was very shy when introduced to girls.This was the level of my knowledge in sex at the age of fourteen, We had co-education in our school and the girls would sit in a different corner.. I used to like one Padma, a tall girl. I used to glance at her whenver she was not
looking at me. I also observed that she was surreptitiously looking at me whenever I was pretending that I was not looking in that direction. We never exchanged words and I never saw her again after we left Thiruvaiyaru. My fascination for tall girls started with Padma.

4)During the year 1954, Meenakshi Ammal, my paternal grand-mother, had come to stay with us for two months. Normally, she was residing in Delhi. She was extremely kind to me. She would call me by her side and say that I should study well and take care of my parents, particularly when my father did not study well. She would bless me with the word " You will do it". This was the first time an elderly person ,other than my parents, had shown some love to me. In fond memory of her, I decided to name my first girl child as Meenakshi at a later date.. When I explained the reason, my wife did not object to it.

5)I gave an article in English with the title "Superstition" to be published in anuual school magazine. I gave my own personal example in that article. Once when I was about to go to school to write an examination, my mother stopped me from starting as a cat had crossed me on the way. I respected my mother and left home after the cat had left..My performance in the exam was very bad and did not support this superstitious belief. I mentioned sarcastically that if I had shown my disbelief in superstition, I would have done better. I concluded the article by exhorting the students not to believe in superstitions and instead have more self-belief, supported by hard work. Our Head-Master, Mr Soundrraja Iyengar called me and asked me whether I had written the article or my parents. I told him I had not shown the article to my parents. He was impressed and said he would publish the article without deleting anything.He asked for some clarification as my
hand-writing was not clear to him. He also exhorted that I should improve my hand-writing. I had kept a copy of the magazine for a long time, but in the melee of transfers in official career, it got lost somewhere. After the School Magazine was released, my mother had shown the same to all people in our locality. Later,the same article was published in the House Journal of UCO BANK with some modifications. In the year 1997, after the death of my mother, I gave Rs 10,000/- to the School and asked them to institute "Jayalakshmi Ammal Memorial Prize" and give the interest moeny to the student securing highest marks in English in Class 12 examination.

6)One day ,me and my cousisns decided to visit Ayyampet to see old friends like Raju- a distance of six miles. We did not want to inform our parents as they would not agree. We left for school as usual and after leaving the bags with a friend at his house, took two bicycles on hire and wnet to Ayyampet.On the way, unfortunately we noticed our Sastrigal also traveling on cycle towards Thiruvaiyaru from Ayyampet. My cousin Visu assured me that though we had seen him, the Sastrigal had not seen us. We returned home in the evening after seeing close friends in Ayyampet. We were stopped in front of the gate, which was quite unusual. My parents asked me whether there was any home- work to be done. When I said "yes", they asked us to do the home-work from outside and closed the door. We had to wait for three hours outside and it was only after some tongue-lashing and whip lashing ("azha,azha soolluvar thamar, sirikka, sirikka solluvar pirar"-my mother!s famous
words), we were allowed entry into the house. This was my first and last adventure without the knowledge of my parents. This happened when I was fourteen.
While in Thiruvaiyaru, I used to visit the magnificent temple almost every day. We moved to Tiruchi in 1955.