The Games we played..7

Have passed the 5th standard also included some upgradation in playing. I had understood to listen to Hindi commentery and understand many things better. Since most of my friends also went on trips to their native places – nearly for a month, I was left alone with the ball.

My cousin venkatesh who lived in NR colony came to my rescue. He said things like playing cricket with bigger teams which left me drooling. I pleaded mom to allow me to go and play at his house. Since it was en-route to her office, i was allowed to go and play there on one condition – I will be back when she is back en-route from office. This meant 6 hours of cricket play time.
Very normally we only hear and think about things that are possible immideatly and not worry of distant past much – a thought re-inforced in our investment ways – isnt it?

We got a old house with 22 yards length and about 14 guys to play around!! Wow that was cricket. We divided into teams and played till the ball was broken or disputes raged and had to stop the game. Any way the game resumed next day – past being buried and everybody still are friends.

Here, I made new friends like madhu, srinivas, prateek and many people who are called by nick names – these names have stood the times till date and we dont know their original names!

I was introduced to other games like tree climbing – Yes, it was initially the gauva tree which had tiny gauvas and was the bitterest of all. But, we had climbed the tree with great difficulty without elders seeing and definetly enjoyed our fruits of labour ( pun intended).

My mother decided that I was a grown up boy now and its good to learn cycling. Children follow and ape their parents in their early years it seems. My father worked for Bangalore Transport Service and hence used to allways travel by bus and never learnt cycling. I too tried to do the same but mother threatned and cajoled me into learning – saying it would be helpfull in future – now I know!

Mother secretly convinced my friend Nagendra who had already mastered the art of cycling to teach me and agreed since he was within 200 meters of my house. One fatal tuesday afternoon mother gave Nagendra money for hiring the small cycle ( my bargain that it should be small lest I fell or wanted to get off the flight early).

Balaji cycle mart loaned me the cycle. Even though I had fear and excitement written all over, it was fear inside and excitement outside. I sat on the seat like a king ( our politician style, never knowing when its going to be yanked under you) and started pedalling while Nagendra and his assistant pushed me on the road.

Luckily it was a dead-end road and no traffic at all. I managed to act the art of pedelling while Nagendra did the hard labour of pushing – cursing himself for having agreed to teach me. This episode was repeated a couple of days more much to the amusement of the elders in the neighbour hood who said ‘mohan was a kid, how big person he has become, learning cycling‘.

I too started enjoying the cycling outings and gained confidence. Even Nagendra had to push only little now-a-days as I got the hang of the pedlling stuff. The only problem was that I tended to look at the rotating wheels in front and not at oncoming traffic.

The saturday at 2.30 PM is still etched in my memory. I was wearing my favourite white knickers and blue shirt. Nagendra wanted to demo mother that I was the king of bycycling now. Mom and my friends were watching. I slowly mounted the pedestal like a F16 fighter pilot – smiles et all. The push was given and I started off yelling the ususal instruction ‘fast beda kano‘ etc.

Half way through my friends clapped and mother was also beaming. I asked Nagendra to help me slow down as it was going down a bit of inclination. Nagendra’s usual helping hand did not do the trick. I shouted and turned back at Nagendra who was behind me.

Lo and behold – Nagendra was not there. I was cycling all alone. No wonder everybody was clapping. Suddenly panic struck me and the fact I was not facing forward added to the confusion. Nagendra shouted from distance. Brake hideo!!

The next moment the KEB electric pole decided to hit me in full gust – I had allways told Nagendra that poles are bad in my road. Eventually the tyres skid into the road side gutter ( thank god it did not have slush – story otherwise would have been quite smelly) and fell down.

Collateral damage was accounted for. It was my pride which hurt more than the limp on the leg!

I was red in face and seething with anger like a boiler about to burst, I shouted at Nagendra ‘ yako kiye bittidu?‘. Now everybody rushed and pulled me out of the gutter. Some turmeric was pasted and Ii decided that was the end of my cycling days.

Nagendra was beaming like a brides mother who got her daughter wedded successfully to the unsuspecting groom spelling totally doom!! He had finished his assignment of teaching me cycling and that was the technical demonstrator!

Even though this experience ultimately helped me in cycling for the first time when I was in Junior collage. Till then it was Nataraja service as commonly referred to walking in our group.

The Games we played..6

The highlight of 5th standard was the realization that we are grown up brats and were just 2 standards away from 7th made our hearts warm. We could now be grown ups shortly and this worked many misleading wonders in life.

We would play games called capes. It simply meant you should have a capital K written somewhere on your body. When ever the other party calls out your name and say capes, you need to show the K or you would be hit nicely on your legs. Elders often wondered why those ghastly looking K was adorning everybodies hands , legs just like cult symbols.

We were also majorly into collecting the following items – Cigarette boxes, Match boxes and stickers.

We used to build partnerships and exchange duplicates with others. There were some guys who went one step further and played with cigarette boxes with big stones. The game simply meant different cigarette packs had different values. For example a Scissors pack was 10, Wills 20, Kings 40. So both the partners would place equal denomination pack stacked on roads around which was a rectangle drawn in red brick or stolen chalk piece and hit it with flat stones called ‘bacchas’. Who ever got the packs outside the rectangle kept the packs and won that much. We had a full RBI type of valuation for every new cigarette pack found. The same applied for matches too.

Stickers were struck in our notebooks and this rage went on for a couple of years. We used to get stickers when chocolates were purchased in bulk. I used to stick phantom, Bruce Lee and assorted gods stickers on rough note book and show off.

Gayathri teacher was little unique and new to the SSM school culture. She was the first person who introduced us to the BhagavadGita and made us chant the slokas in the evenings just before the final bell rang. I till date thank her for those good deeds.

I remember this 5th standard for the great amounts of krishna janmasthtami sweets I devoured. Due to this I had to frequent the loo nick named london with regular punctuality – so much so that Gayathri teacher wrote in my dairy to stop feeding me those extras. But little did she know that it was my neighbour padma aunty who fed me while mother had signed the dairy and stopped my quota.

Middle term exams came with such speed, i just did not know what to study or write. The highlight of this year was the navarathri celebrations. I pulled my mom to commercial street and purchased quite a few dolls including animals and decided to do a small park. My mother who was amused at a boy asking for dolls – obliged with a smile.

The park meant – spawling some sand from nearby construction house, creating the perimeter fence using broom sticks, caves which contained lions,tigers, birds on tree including a Mr Mohan looking after the whole thing. To add a touch of greenary ragi was sprinkled with water. Lo and behold – it sprouted and my park turned green overnight. I was so overjoyed looking at it, unfortunately the same had to be taken and thrown out after 5 days!

After the navarathri holidays, report card was looking quite bleak and with threats that I will not cross to the next year – made my mom to look for a tution teacher. A couple of them came and went – with no change in my intelligence or inclination to study. But correspondingly my interests were high in working with coloured beeds with which my aunty would conjure up beautiful dolls etc.

Najundaswamy who lived one road away this time took up the challange to some how get me pass the maths test. I used to call him nashyada nanjundiah – a name that held on till he died due to the pungent smell of that nasal filling. LCM and HCF were real tormentors to me. It never registered in my bird brain. Finally in desperation najundiah sir told me – take 2 and keep dividing. Using this charm I somehow managed to pass the final exams with 37 marks in maths – an achievement as usual – celebrated with lots of fun and pomp.

By now, my addiction to cigeratte packs were so high, where ever we walked, I allways had an eye on the road and gutter to pick up the new or fresh ones. This irritated my father and grand father. I was admonished that if another report of me searching gutters came in, my stock would go up in flames – personally.

I moved my stock under partnership for cooling off effect to umesh’s house. When activity picked up the temper of his mother, the same was moved to sudhir’s house. Finally to evade that going up in smoke, we pasted them into old lekhak note books and passed it around with envy while elders smiled that finally they had made us see light!!!

Final exams came and went. Thank god as Gayathri teacher was quite benovalant, I passed out into 6th standard. The same sweets but with more threating sayings like – you are a grown up boy – did not do much wonders but we had discovered some more new things to play around now.

to be continued….

The Games we played..5

There was a host of board games with her. We could choose board games from SPY, chinese race, memory etc. The biggest hit was the Mine a Million. Here we purchased our own barges, boats, trucks and mined away the ore to a distant country for earning maximum money. This some how was a big hit with the gang – mostly because we knew the theme while the others were little tough to get through our bird brains.

There used to be mine-a-million session starting from morning 10AM ( we had brunch before starting off and this was good with grownups around the house) and ended somewhere round 4 or 5 pm when somebody won the game or there was a dispute of sorts. This non-stop nonsence used to puzzle the elders but kept thier grins hidden as it kept the entire gang out of trouble with neighbourhood.

When Mrs MuthuLakshmi found that we were in no mood of even thinking of returning the boards, she put in a word with my padma aunty. These boards have come from Africa to be given as presents to one of the cousines in chennai. Would we be good enough to return those? Off course wasnt I the land lords son? People those days feared and respected the land lord while the land lord feared the rent control act.

I hurridely cancelled the game session and went into a hudle well away from the regular play room into the opens and behind the usual Govenment School grounds. We all had fallen in love with the board game and somebody removing that meant a big void. Only a child will know how precious the game is which is usually otherwise measured by cost by adults.

With tears, we wanted to go and hand back the games to Mrs Mutu lakshmi. I hit upon an idea. Why not replicate the game? After all it was a cardboard stuff with plastic entities. The idea was a instant hit!

We decided to pool our resources and decided to have a go at it. We never shared this secret to anybody lest they laugh at our idea. I promptly went with all the board games to Mrs lakshmi and requested for 2 more days to return the mine a million alone. She too laughed and said OK, keep it for a week if you want but surely I need to send it with my husband to Madras this week end.

We planned the project eloborately. We drafted the writing skills of Sudheera, the colouring ability of sumantha. Umesh was the scissors man – cutting lorries and barges. I was the site supervisor providng gum’s, sketch pens. I also took 4 old calanders and 2 of them put togather became our poor mans board.

After lots of painting and drying, the game written by hand looked like the crude cousin of the original. We copied all the hand bill details, the notes etc. We used the gulugangi – a red coloured small thing as replacement for ore in cardboard barges and trucks.

After ensuring everything was dry and usable, we purchased a big set of dice from Bhavani Bangal stores on DVG road and returned the mine a million with zillion thanks to the owner.

The dry run of the session was very good. Everybody got back to their original ways and the elders at home were amazed at our dupilcating skills.

One highlight of this entire excercise is – it was a team effort. We all pooled our resources and never bothered about ownership. Since the heavy calander was difficult to transport, we just rolled and pushed it under of grand fathers cot! A bata shoe box doubled up to hold all other things like currencies, play cards, dice and gulugangi. What I later learnt in corporate trainings in terms of teams was practiced by us to perfection in our childhood days!

Holidays are numbered again. Like all good things and bad things – these end too. When it was just 10 days left for 5th standard to re-open, I had to sit and write the copy writing for 2 months in kannada!!! We were expected to write one page per day.This was a pain – a literal pain in the hand. The elders curtailed our mine a million times until we finished the quota of atleast 18 pages per day – as calculated by padma aunty so that we break even on the school opening day!

A new year means many new things – Uniforms, Shoes, Socks, Ties, Belts and off course those brand new books which are difficult each year.

A new teacher Gayathri took over the 5th standard chaps. First day itself we found out she was inexperienced.

to be continued….

The Games we played..4

Dr HSV worked for St Josephs college in the kannada department as a reader initially and finally became the head of department. Since his sons were the closest friends of mine, quite a major chunk of my holidays were spent in their home and he treated me and my friend Umesh as part of his family itself – so much so we went to see SuperMan in Nanda talkies as one family!

We used to meet people like MN Vyasa rao , Nissar Ahmed , Lakshminarayana Bhatta, Subbanna while playing our customery games in his house. Never did we know that these are the doyens of the kannada culture!!

There was a big cement floor in front of the house tailor made for our cricket. Already the youngest sanjay had broken the glass pane of HSV’s room and the same was plastered with brown paper and prajava vani news papers.

We used to start of very early in the day. Initialy we started playing cricket using rubber balls. These were lost very quickly as we could hit hard at them and they travelled double the distance. Also they would land in gutter and taking out the ball was a big risk – if some adult watched us!. Finally the noise of the rubber ball threatned HSV’s peace and he declared that any more noisey cricket, the bat would be burnt for next days meal.

We all met at the backside of the Government School. We discussed ways and means of continuing our masala game. Like a buddi jeevi we sat and thought for a new ball which would be noiseless. Veda came speeding with his cycle tyre and said ‘sorry kanroe, halu tharabekithu – thengige jwara‘.

An idea hit sumanth who said, why dont we play with a rubber banded ball? It meant cutting those cycle tubes used in our playing tyres into small pieces. I produced my favourite kite making scissors while we forced veda to give up his tube inside the tyres for reinforcement.

We took a small pound of lekhak written paper from sanjays double line note book secretly where miss had written poor and wrapped around thick wads of cut tyre bands around them.

This new ball was tried. The problem was it was quite small and majorly madhu had to land up with a bruised eyes when the rubber band ball hit him at full force in front of the KEB pole while attempting the pitch catch!!

It became normal for us to get burised like this and we still found the ball wanting. We did not have money to purchase tennis balls which were the order of the day. At 60Ps, a rubber ball itself was costly.

My mother had a wollen knitting machine and had quite a few old wollen sweters and mufflers of odd size and colours. I just chanced and pleaded her for one of those for playing. Using my stitching skills, I took a pound of news paper and stitched upon it, the wollen muffler in thick wads. This was the new soft ball.

This soft ball invention of mine was a instance hit. It did not produce the sound, did not travel long when hit the hardest and also did not bruise anybody!!!!

I became an instant hero. Suddenly the boys became malcolm marshall and ran the bowling run up so much to get pace that they would be panting by the time they reached the bowling crease itself!

Cricket used to be played in everybodies house now because of the soft ball since it also did not break anything like glass on contact. My skills were in high demand and other kids tried to duplicate my efforts with disasterous efforts. Example were cotton socks missing for younger brothers, mysterious dissapearance of mufflers etc. The elders did not find out the reasons anyways and blamed the rats which were in quite good vote bank numbers then.

The middle 80’s was the era of board games. There was this ludo, snake and ladder which was only for girls. We sighted our first board game BUSINESS and got instantly hooked on to it. The banker post was a prominent post given to anybody good in maths.

The arrival of a new tenent for my house ( we had rented out a portion to pay the loans) from nigeria recently, opened a new vista in gaming for us – no Xbox stuff anyways!. The lady of the house Mrs Muttu Lakshmi became very friendly with me and one day showed me many board games. I got lost after counting eight different board games and requested can I play and return those please.

On hearing the YES, I jumped in joy and declared to my friends on the top of the well stone that we would be playing new board games next monday!

to be continued…

The Games we played..3

Holidays meant a very little bit elevation of the summer heat – but that was mostly an afterthought since we did not care much about those rudimentary things but concentrated only on the 3 letter word called fun.

I had been introduced to some good set of friends at new house – but mostly kids who were school drop outs, kids who mostly played on the streets and gutters. But how will a kid understand all these neuiesences of life? Irrespective of the middle class strata all the kids joined to gather – literally hand to hand and played games for fun.

Prakasha was the lead nuiecense maker. I remember his leadership ways aka Tata in stealing things for the annual holi celebrations. He would have 2 teams. The first team would knock on the doors and ask for alms. Meanwhile the second team would climb up using every possible way on top of their houses and look out from vantage points. If the first team got some dried wood, cloths or things that are easy to burn, no problem but in case the house owner got stubborn, a special whistle from prakasha would mean – steal everything in sight – including those paper mache made items kept on top of house to be dried to sun.

They would buy coloured powders and have a great blast. The evenings would ensure that all the collected firewood, cloths, paper is made into a crude effigy of kamanna – the lord of desires and burnt with dancing kids around. Each year the gang yearned for a bigger kamanna next year!

Kids gang up pretty easily. The biggest talker and action person is the leader. All of them listen to him with rapt attention and carry out the words with respect – like military training. There is not dual logic of why should I do it? Who is he? Self appointed leaders are questioned only when an other leader gets in way.

Each leader is also loved for some great help rendered to individuals in the team. One of the kids in the gang wanted to know if lakshmi pataki could be burst in air. Off went one of the guys to buy the 1Re big cracker – mind you, the amount of sulphur and pottassium nitrate in that is enough to have ringing noise in your ears.

Prakasha took the pataki in one hand, as having observed his uncle light up the wills cigerrate, he too cupped his hand and struck a match. With expertise he lit the fuse and all of us moved back 4 steps in awe.

Eeyye said one of them hearing the hissing noise of the fuse… prakasha waited and calculated the length of fuse and in one swoosh threw the cracker up. It was about 20 feet up in air very near to the KEB tubelight it burst – a loud bang which resonated – only to be matched by the jumping, joyfull kids around – showered with pieces of paper from the lakshmi pataki. This became a folk lore in our street when parents admonished kids to light up the small kudure pataki from distance.

One of the wish I had was to fly a kite very high in sky. I had learnt how to make kites from my father but too small a person to fly it. Most of my attempts decorated the electric poles and my signature deccan herald kites drew the attention of prakasha. One day he asked – can you make a big kite for me? In escatacy of knowing that he would launch it secreatly from the next door neighbours roof top – i agreed.

In the afternoon when mom had gone off to work, me and prakasha brought the choiciest of news paper and some rice for making the kite. Most of the kids ate ragi balls and was not good for kite making. We prepared the kite and kept it in the hot sun for 20 minutes. Prakasha climbed up the roof top and asked me to come too. Leaving the house unlocked, in glee, with his help and one another kid. I got on top of my asbestose sheet top – only to burn my feet and make a rock dance!

Eeeyo..ee kade baro – he gestured. There was the shade of the big coconut tree next doors. Now the question of finding the right breeze and launching was pending. The kite was handed over to some kids on road. They waited holding the kite high like a Zubin mehta in his composition. Once prakasha’s shirt coller twirled in air, he guestured and immideatly like Rohini series of rockets by ISRO, we launched our home made kite. Every body had that question wether the kite would survive as a commercial one.

The kite with initial hiccups soared into the blue sky. I remember clapping in joy and thanking him. It was a cool 1 hour we were on top and remembered that mom would get back home by 4pm and requested prakasha to get the kite down. Finally after loosing some thread which was tangled, we got the kite down and carried the treasure inside house.

Mom got wind of this kite business by my neighbour who had seen all. We were given a good admonishing not to bake in hot sun and drink gallons of water. We were asked to fly the kites only in early mornings or evenings when heat was bearable – but where did the grownups know that wind is highest when temperature is high?

One of the other games played was buguri or the latest bay blades as my son does. It was more simple in those days. A small top was selected based on money one had in pocket. A nail of equal length was given to me from my carpenters son next door. He stole his father big sutti or hammer. We got to a open field with a well – because it had solid stone slabs – perfect for nailing the top and cutting off the edge so that it would rotate – an art mastered by siddoji – carpenters son.

We used to play this indoors on red oxide cement floor and see how long it would rotate. My cousin venkatesh had a top we called sleepy. This small top would rotate nonstop for near 3 minutes for one twirl.

I was fortunate to have suhas, sudhir, sanjay and sumanth – all sons of Dr H.S.Venkatesh murthy the kannada lituerate as my friends. He incidentaly also is the song writer for the serial Muktha. He used to lock up in his room and write poems and chase all of us out as we created a near racket while playing games. We had invented a game called soft ball cricket. This was played next to the window of HSV.

to be continued….

The Games we played..2

Samaja Seva Mandali in Thygarajanagar become my new school. This is the school which had humble beginnings in a small shed where the enterprising Mrs Radha Doreswamy started a nursery in a thatched roof…has grown today to become one of the biggest education colgoromate with nursing, engineering colleges. Mr Doreswamy has grown from strength to strength.

The first cut problem I faced in the new school is adressing the teacher. In my old school we were taught to address them as MISS but here kids started laughing at me as I stood up to answer my attendence on 1st day and said “present miss“.

It seems its wrong to call the teacher miss, but should be called as teacher!. By this mistake, I was immideatly famous till 5th standard boys who came to see the new joinee . It took me 3 months to get adjusted to the miss teacher universe.

Prema miss err teacher was my class teacher of 4th standard. She taught us everything from ‘Barisu kannada dindimava’ padhyas to Moughals and British conquering India one piece at a time. The most toughest subject was indeed Hindi. The characters resembled the legs of cocks being reared around the school.

Since mother left for work at 10AM, i too would trudge along with her at 10AM for the 12 Noon class. I was the first to come to school and sit in the shades of the nearby roadside houses, even Saibaba temple which was looking forlone. I used to catch up with my homework in the serene atmosphere without disturbences and by time my first friend suresh or venkatesh came, it would be 11.30.

Then it would be full fun. The roads did not have the kind of traffic we are used to today.Somebody used to produce a ball and we used to pile all our bags on the road pavement and shoot out Lagore.

If we were lucky, somebody would produce a piece of wooden club – this doubled up as a bat!!. On days when we were bored with Lagore but interested in cricket and the wooden piece is mising – we invented the new leg cricket.

Leg cricket is simply using ones leg as a bat and rest rules are the same!! But no LBW now.

Girls used to draw the square houses and start off with their kunte bille. One of the enterprising boys would be fielding in long on, snatch on of the ‘billes‘ and run for the ball.This would be followed by the howling sowmya – ee kodu, ramesha teacherge helthine – nan bille kodo.

If you notice, we mostly spoke in kannada even though we studied in a english medium school. In usli pisli, the teachers used to speak strictly in english and fine anybody talking in kannada except for A,AA,e,EE class.

Slowly I forgot english and mastered kannada to extremes. I could realize the mistake of this only after passing preunivercity!! Your job demands written and spoken english. Otherwise you are fit to work only in African chemical factories where they only speak swahilli!.

Prema teacher was also my immideate neighbour. Having accidentally found this out, taking leaves was quite easy. I would just climb up the rock fence and shout – Prema teacher. She would frown and put her head outside and say – yeno? ( ninna golu was not spelt as my mother could also hear from kitchen). I would say ‘teacher – ivathu madhuvege hogabeku adake leave letter and put out my hand. She would frown futher thinking ‘you fool – you disturbed my cooking just for this?’ and say ‘OK. nale thagonba‘ and slam the door.

Finally before I knew, I had made 4 close friends and even visit them on saturdays for exchanging our cigerrate pack and match box collections. I slowly forgot my old school and started enjoying the new ways – so much but except for the day result had to be announced!!

Prema teacher called me and my waiting mother for the result card. I was trembling like a leaf and stood behind my mother – it was phull fun and very little work for the year!

Prema teacher said ‘ Yeno – 24th rank bandide – kushina?’. Hearing that I had passed the 4th standard was a big relief for mother and I couldnt even hear anything beyond as I started planning my summer holidays already!. We gave the mandatory sweets of 2 nutrin chocolates each to prema teacher and came out with the yellow marks card with ‘promoted‘ sign on top. Prema teacher called mother and said ‘ We can not fail anybody this year since 3rd standard is overflowing. Make sure mohan catches up on maths and english – he is quiet bad’.

Who cares – I promised mother to be a very good – fine boy and ran on the roads to tell all my friends – that am a 5th standard boy now!

to be continued…

The Games we played..1

There was this cousin of mine who was equally naughty at home. I had reached proportions of anxiety when mother had to literally take a leaf from Krishna’s Bhagavatham and tie me up to a small drum filled with playing things. So, my aunt Indira came up with a glourious idea to some how put us into school so that they can have some peace of mind.

We were both marched to school next summar and promptly the ages were declared as plus 1 – I was 4 years 6 months exactly when my date of birth was post-poned by one year so that I could be admitted to 1st standard – this till date is a reminder in my driving licence that am one year older than what I am according to reality.

Womans Peace Leauge in Basavanagudi was not pronouncable to most people including us and it was called the ‘usuli pisili school‘ and this tag struck on for many years to come.

Mani miss was the first teacher of my ABC learning age. She doubled up as mother to 40 brats who wailed nonstop – ‘Amma beku‘ and she would take one kid on left side, the other on right side and show them all sorts of pictures etc. The brats would see everything and keep quite. The minute miss put them down – ‘Amma beku‘.

We somehow used to stand in prayer and half mumble the same. National anthem was sung with full guesto as it was easy to chant – rhyming and we did not know the meanings.

Mother confessed that first day she too cried after leavng me off at school. Not knowing what to do alone at home. With me around she never knew how time passed.

Slowly we got adjusted to mani miss and passed out with colours – writing A,B,C. The highlight of this year was the colouring contest we participated and everybody got a prize as chocolate.

At school we could play the see-saw, slopes, parallel bars. One of our favourite pranks was to collect the big ‘Ane khai‘ – a type of hard cased, long fruit and put it stratergically in the centre of main road and watch as BTS buses went on it full speed and the noise of breaking that fruit many times made the driver to stop the vehicle and check if there was a puncture and we would clap and run away.

I forever think and thank Joshi miss who ensured I passed every single exam despite my frequent missing of school. This was due to tonsilites related ailments which used to occur on regular basis. She was kind enough to get seperate exams just for me so many times.

There was this C.D.Mohan who was a very natorious prankster. He used to pull the ribbons of girls hairs, scare them, drink away water from their bottles and even threatened them not to inform miss.

One such incident surfaced and promptly he was asked to bring his parents. He stopped coming to school. Incidentally he was my neighbour too. Miss asked one of the kids to go to mohans house and request his mother to come and see the madam urgently. We did not have the concept of dairy modern kids have.

So promptly when I was playing near the roadside gutter, shashi has gone and told mom that miss wanted to see her urgently. Mother came with me next day and asked why she was told to come. Miss got confused and asked shashi why he had told my mom so. Shashi blurted ‘neeve helidralla miss‘. Now both miss and mother understood it was C.D.Mohan and not me.

Many a times mom used to get complaints from school all related to C.D.Mohan. This made me do a couple of pranks in his name too.

Then came the summer of 3rd standard which was not a pleasent idea at all. I was operated for the tonsilities and father had purchased a own house in another location and we were moving out to our ‘own house‘.

This was trumatic for me – which could not even be explained. Loosing all my friends, school – teachers and starting afresh was unimaginable but I had no options too.

to be continued….

The Games we played..

The very first signs of oldage or wisdom as I would call it, is the joy one gets just comparing the current scenario to some years or decades back. Many elders had been doing this and the baton has been passed on to me now.

Nobody had heard about kindergaten or preschools in the 1970’s. A child would enjoy the comfort of its parents, aunts, uncles, neighbours till it was 5.5 years and the nearest school was chosen for its education.

The childhood memories of 1970’s are golden classics for me. As a child, I could remember all the neighbour hood ladies talking to me, pinching my chubby cheeks and in general was poured with lots of love and affection. The same is true for many kids who were with me.

We were made to practice walking, standing,sitting and each was celebrated with a small sweet prepared at home and enjoyed by the entire ‘vathara‘ or the collection of houses. Each house had an extension in another house where they would borrow things like kerosene, sugar etc and accounts used to be settled by 1st of next month. We kids managed to graduate from walking to jumping, running and finally the nightmarish tree climbing.

I still remember those food starved Indira Gandhi days. Mother after standing in a long queue had got some sugar and 2 liters of kerosene. There was a cute small pump with a marble at bottom which was used to pump the kerosene to a brown bottle, which would find its way to the kerosene stove.

One day when mother was outside drying cloths, I just walked and thought let me pump the kerosene but was afraid my dress would get drenched and I would get caught. So, I just moved the open sugar ‘dabba’ and pumped the kerosene. After a minute of pumping with my small hands, the kerosene fell into sugar and disappeared. I kept watching the same until mother came and nearly fainted – having lost both sugar and kerosene. All neighbour hood ladies consoled mom saying that was kids do out of site!

The cluster of houses or the vatara comprised of many kids of different ages. The elder ones or the gurus decided which games to play. For girls it was mostly ‘mane atta‘ meaning playing with a small version of barbie doll as mother or kuntte bille – a game played with a small piece of stone drawn on ground.

Boys got all the joy of playing cricket – this meant lifting the heavy bat before the ball is bowled. You could see wickets drawn on walls using red brick pieces. Lagore – a wonder team game played with a small ball and 8 pieces of stone was a great one. Chinne dandu was banned as it had injured some bypassers and was only practised in fields.

Night times would mean playing ‘kalla police‘ or ‘Ice Piece‘. I just dont know the meanings but just still savour the games. The vatara had atleast 8 houses in a posh 700 x 300 plot with gardens in front and back. We would just get into anybodies house and hide under cots, big vessels, old trunks.

Shesha was the master of the art. He would hide as a boy and emerge out with his grandmothers blouse and saree and make the poor chap hunt again. All these in the moon lights until elders called us back for the evening prayers and study.

Slowly as we grew up, our pranks quotient too grew up. Sunil was one of the new young boy in the block who had a tricycle. So we made friends with him and started our own BTS bus service from the front of the gate to the last out house. One guy used to sit in front and his younger brother behind. The rest used to push the cycle. Sometimes the pushing and joshing around would end up with fights. All fights were settled by sunil when he asked ‘whos cycle is this?’

Since I was the only child of my parents, eating was little tough for me. I used to go and sit promptly in the neighbours house when food was being served. Understanding that I wanted company, mom used to put my food along with the neighbourhood house and I became part and parcel of their household! In fact one of the daughters of those house taught me economics in my Pre univercity and just couldnt believe she was teaching me – a kid who was hand held and fed by her!

I continued my ways and started going to school gate of one of my neighbour hood girls and noticing this, the teacher asked mom to get me admitted into that school. But I was still 4 years. She told – get krishna next summer and we will admit him to 1st standard. I smiled with joy and said OK.

to be continued….

High School Chronicles – Ane pataki

High school days provide the fun and thrill that is equivalent to only KG kids saga. Here in our case we had 2 sections in 8th standard – A for Kannada first Language and B for Sanskrit first language. The kannada gang were near adventure loving folks and we used to only be happy hearing all their adventures.

N.C.S as he was abbrivated – Shri Sathyajit Rao was the Physics meshtru in our school. He was the one who decided the distance between earth and all other plantes, its temperatures etc. NCS was very cool person from outside but famous for his short temper. Once seniors told us the legacy where in he used the duster from dias straight as a dart at the nose of a student who was talking while he was writing something on the board.

It was near February when NCS sir ran out of time and some equations were pending. We all knew if there was special class, that means those equations were found in the question paper. Both A & B sections were combined and NSS started off his 2 hour special class.

Ravi was the theete lead in A section. Having been pampered with a medical store business, he found it un-interesting to study at all. Very recently he had purchased some crackers ( pataki) for Naraka chaturdashi and decided to use the full class room for his ultimate pranks.

NCS was lecturing about the mass, acceleration etc and writing the equations on the black borad, near 90 students were squeezed in all forms and corners including the floor. There was feverish notes taking so that those answers could be mugged up, written in paper chits for exam. Very few could actually understand why or what acceleration, mass , velocity meant in day to day life as none aspired to be drivers of either BMTC buses or Farrari cars.

The moment of truth was greeted with a loud bang – some body had ignited a ‘ane pataki‘ under the last bench – guided by the able Ravi. The sound in the enclosed class room filled with pungent smell of sulphur added the necessary disco effect with only blinking lights missing.

Dear NCS sir complimented by blinking and his immideate responce was to shout “Yaro adu?” meaning who did it. As it is said that every dark cloud has a silver lining, the class fell deaf with the ringing noise of cracker still in ears. NCS walked with thumping heart beats which could be heard by everybody. Some of them closed their eyes expecting some blood spill to happen.

Nothing happened. NCS sir was so high in anger he was just trembling and rasping for breath. He asked “who did it?” – this time he shouted with the amplyfying method used by Ravi. Nobody dare open their mouths as Ravi would make life hell for those “opening up”.

NCS walked out saying “sayire…nimage yaru hodkothare“. Die all of you – i dont care whether you pass or fail. This exit brought the most feared dragon of the school. The princy himself – Mr Keshavan.

Keshavan was known for his corporal methods – mostly for his innovative punishments. He asked a couple of times then passed his predetermined judgement like tendulkars square cut – “All of you will kneel down in the halls till truth comes out”.

It was quite harsh to kneel down – 1st hour we wanted the tourture to end some how. Lakshmi miss – the drawing teacher laughed loudly who did not have the guts to torture or complain to princy. Like it was Draupadhis laughter which ignited Dhuryodhan to enact the saga of mahabaratha, most of the guys ploded saying – ravi helbido please.

We use to slacken and sit. When ever there was a period change, we used to stand on kneels this worked till afternoon when lunch was denied and princy came with a threataning ruler and said “I give one last chance – if you tell me now, i can pardon you”. We all knew what “pardon” meant with a ruler.

Lunch period passed and when many were about to fall sick due to heat and lack of food, by 3pm, princy came with NCS and said “kone chance kanro, Ravi yaru madiddu helo“.

Shuddering sudhindra and gang looked at Ravi and gave the game away. That was enough for the enraged princy to thrash ravi black and blue. He was suspended from class for 1 week. Finally Ravi came with his father who apologized and gave a letter.

Today Ravi runs the famous Ravi medical stores and earns good money and is still up to his old pranks. We studied and work like donkeys with all work and no fun.

Its upto the readers to come up with the moral of the story.

Chronicles – House Hunting

Having lived in our house for near 20 odd years, the marriage magic made me go in persuite of a new house. Initially I wanted to buy a bigger house so that we could live in it comfortably. Nobody foresaw the requirements for a Washing machine, Various killer applications like mixie, Grinder and off course our beloved car and bike!