This is the second part of the article Down The Memory Lane (in four parts) by Gopalan, my brother. This was published in April 2003 Newsletter- Parthasarathy (Editor)

After hastily sending my last article, “Agraharam Days” to my brother, Parthasarathy, I waited impatiently for reactions from my readers, like an expectant father waiting outside the labour room for the arrival of his first baby. When Parthasarathy informed me that my article received rave notices from far and wide across the globe, (viz., Prasad from U.S.A, Geetha Mohan and Mohan from Indonesia, Geetha Balaji from Singapore etc), my joy knew no bounds. I immediately remembered P.G. Wodehouse’s advice to his budding author friend, 'If one magazine returns your story, send it to many other magazines till some editor is foolish enough to publish your story. If however some editor publishes your story, send more and more stories to the same magazine.' Following this sterling advice from my most favourite author, I have decided to send a series of articles to my brother, Parthasarathy till he tells me some day, “Gopalan, enough is enough”. I have also given a new title to my article, as I felt that the title, ‘Down the memory Lane’ is wide enough to include anything which came to my memory. I have asked Parthasarathy to change the title in the earlier article as well. Readers who read it again will notice the difference.

When I studied in Dhadi School, I was unfortunate enough to study in the class of one teacher named Nataraja Ayyar. He was visiting the Agraharam daily evening to take tuition for some helpless boy in the colony. As I was a care-free boy in those days, who roamed about the Agraharam in a bare body, and half drawers, with a top or Gilli Dandu in hand, playing with other boys of my age during almost all the time except school time, Mr. Nataraja Ayyar had seen me during one of his visits. More importantly and fatefully for me, I had also seen him, and he had seen that I had seen him. From that day, he took an extreme and unreasonable dislike for me. As soon as he entered the classroom, and even before taking the attendance, he used to call me to his table, and then asked me to bend, showing my full back to him. He then banged my back at least ten times with folded hand. Since I knew that there was no use if I told my father, as being an excellent and kind teacher himself, he would have thought that I had only done some terrible mischief to incur such punishment, and might even have thanked Mr. Nataraja Ayyar for inculcating strict discipline in his son. I bore this entirely uncalled for punishment for two or three days. After that, when I saw that this routine of banging me in my back continued, and Mr. Nataraja Ayyar seemed to be looking forward with ghoulish pleasure test his strength on my back, probably this being his only pastime in a drab life of poverty and family problems. I started cutting his classes from the fourth day. However, unlike my cousin, Kannan, who could go to his aunt’s place for a hot tiffin of Bhajjis, when Mr.Devaraja Ayyar asked him to stand outside the classroom, I could not go anywhere eventhough my grand mother (Andal Patty) lived very near in Kutchery Road. This was because I was going to her house for lunch daily during the school lunch recess, and being a very sharp lady, she would have immediately known that I was cutting the class, if I went to her house before lunch time. Being a very conscientious person with the welfare of her grand son upper most in her heart, she would have reported the matter to my mother, leading to the same consequences I have described earlier. What I did, therefore, was to go to Kapali Temple nearby, and look at the carvings in the Gopuram, especially those carvings showing Gods and Goddesses in close embrace. This was how I started visiting temple. Now, after about sixty years, I am a regular visitor to the Lord Srinivasa Temple in Mylapore, daily morning and evening. But, the motive and purpose of visiting the temple now are entirely different from those of my visits to Kapali Temple sixty years back. My sights now are higher than the Gopuram, viz., the other world.

Another incident which struck in my mind during my Dhadi School days was the presence of some police constables in my grand mother’s house, one day when I went there for lunch. Being a boy with a guilty conscience, with the double crimes of cutting classes and looking at Gods and Goddesses with an irreverent mind, I was instantly alarmed as I was sure that the police had come to take me to jail for my crimes. I also thought that my stealing some Perichampazham under the guidance of my cousin, Kannan, two years earlier had somehow come to the knowledge of the police. As Kannan had shifted to Bangalore at that time, the option of turning approver by confessing the crime, but putting the entire blame on Kannan, like present day politicians was also closed to me. I, therefore, instantly decided to run away from Chennai. Just at that instant,my grand mother came out with the two constables. When she saw me, she was very much pleased and pointing out at me to the constables, she said, ‘This is my grand son, Gopalan, a very bright boy, always comes first in his class. He comes here for lunch, but always comes a little late, as he stays back some time after Mr.Nataraja Ayyar’s class to clear some doubts from him.’ Little did she know that the reason for my late coming to lunch was that I was looking at those carvings in the Gopuram of Kapali temple. When he heard such high praise of me from my grandmother, one of the constables opened his bag and gave me a laddu from a packet of sweets in his bag. He had got this packet of sweets as Mamool from the corner sweet shop, the owner of which had very cleverly packed some old and stale sweets, especially for the policeman’s Mamool. After eating this stale Laddu, I had diarrhea for two days. But as some one said, ‘There is always some good, even in bad things.’ The bad things for me as a result of eating the stale Mamool Laddu were:
1. I had to run to the toilet every five minutes.
2. I could not go for playing for two days.

The two good things that came to me from the above bad things were:
a) I did not go to school for two days.
b) As Mr.Nataraja Ayyar did not see me playing for two continuous days, he thought that his corporal punishment had acted for me, and prevented me from playing all the time without studying. He stopped my punishment from the next day. I was very , very careful to avoid being seen by his during his tuition visits from that time.

Now, the reason for the visit of the police constables to my grand mother’s house. At that time, my uncles, Varadhachari Mama, Ranga mama, and my aunt Padma Chitthi were living with my grand mother in Kutchery Road. Varadachary mama was in the army while Ranga mama was studying in college for B.A.(Hons.) in Mathematics. Padma Chitti had just entered the matrimonial market. The strange thing about matrimonial markets for girls in those days was that the purchaser of the chattel (Girl ready for marriage) was also paid a very heavy price (Dowry) for taking away the chattel, I am sorry to use such words as Chattel for the girls of marriageable age, but this was the actual system prevailing in India in those days. Dowry system was so rampant in those days that there is even a Tamil proverb, ‘Anju Penn Petral Arasanum Aandiyavan’, meaning that even a king, if he is unfortunate enough to bear five daughters, will surely become a beggar. Girls’ lot has has shown remarkable improvement after independence in 1947 and ladies have occupied very high places in all fields in modern India. However, though the system of treating girls as chattels has largely disappeared in modern India except in some rural pockets, marriage market and dowry system for girls are still prevalent.

I have digressed from the main subject of the reason for the policeman’s visit to my grand mother’s house. As I told earlier, my uncle, Ranga mama was studying for B.A.(Hons.) in mathematics. They were staying in a rented house, and the rent included electricity charges also. My uncle was studying late in the night for his ensuing examinations. Suddenly, the landlord, named Nambiar had switched off the mains. My uncle requested him to switch on the main for some more time, which the landlord flatly refused. Hot words ensued, leading to physical fight. Mr.Nambiar beat Rangamama as he was comparatively stronger than Ranga mama. At that time, Varadachary mama, Rangamama’s elder brother, who was very strong physically entered the fight on behalf of Rangamama. Being an army man, well versed in wrestling, boxing etc. he very easily defeated Nambiar in hand to hand fight. But unfortunately, he had not bargained for hand to mouth fight. Mr.Nambiar, finding that he was no match for the strong and sturdy opponent, in a hand to hand fight, adopted an entirely new system of fighting, called hand to mouth fight. (This term was coined by me). In simple words, what Nambiar did was to take hold of Varadachary Mama’s non fighting left hand with both his hands, put it in his mouth and bit it very deeply leading to profuse bleeding for though Nambiar had weaker hands, he had very strong 32 teeth. Varadachary Mama’s army training had not prepared his for this entirely new type of combat, and he beat a hasty retreat with profusely bleeding fingers, and profusely profane abuses and threats in his mouth. Rangamama and Varadachary mama straightaway went to the Kutchery Road Police Station, which was very near. Since Varadachary Mama was still profusely bleeding, (He had not bandaged the fingers as he did not want to hide the tell-tale teeth marks in his fingers with bandage till the police authorities had seen these marks), the police came and arrested Nambiar. The two police constables had come to my grand mother’s house for some enquiries regarding the epic fight between man and man-beast using teeth as weapon, like Lord Narasimha, who tore Hiranyakasibu’s heart with his finger-nails, as he had a boon from Brahma to the effect that he could not be killed by any man-made weapons.

To be continued....

S.Rajagopalan
April 2003