School Days-7

 School Days-7

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Perhaps the last of the series. 1952-54 in Chintayapalem.

With in an year of our stay in Pedapulivarru, we moved to Chintayapalem in Bapatla Taluk in 1952. My father was an imposing figure. His best days were probably in Gudavalli and his appearance reminded me of NT Ramarao in Shavukaru. By the Chintayapalem days, he weighed around 100 kilos, but was still agile and played volleyball regularly. Jo Marks tells me of walking with my father in Indian clothes in London and people impressed by his looks. He was also prone to short temper and cooling quickly and would beat up students for misdeeds. I remember a Christian student by name Somayajulu from Ganapavaram. It was alleged that he had an affair with a local. It was reported to my father and he was beaten up mercilessly in school.

Chintayapalem was a sandy place but mainly agricultural with rice, peanuts and other crops as well as mongo groves. It was a small village and we shared the house with a local landlord near the school. The landlord was married but was supposed to be having an affair with a lady in Bapatla. Her adopted daughter came to study in our school andvstsyed in the house. I duly fell in love with her though I was only about eleven. She later became a lawyer.

My father got in to public speaking and used to go away regularly for meetings. Soon, the reasons for leaving Pedapilivarru became clear. When he was going away to one of his meetings he told me that if K came to the house, I should try to kick him out. To my eternal regret I did it. There were later some tearful scenes in the house but the parties reconciled quickly.

My mother's involvement with school children decreased but her friendliness won over many in that village and other places. She had even a group of admirers whom she never met before. She used to say that every village should have a school and a temple (బడి గుడి).

There were some brothers dominant in the village affairs, one of them might have the name Subbarayudu. One of the brothers was impotent and apparently his wife had an affair. There was story going around that she was stripped and whipped all along the only street in the village by the other brothers. I used to see her often sitting in front of the house. She was friendly and used to give me sweets once in a while.

Unlike the other villages earlier, I do not remember harikatha in Chintayapslem. But we had some burrakatha events and also tolubommalu. The usual entertainment was playing games in school ( we had baseball) like chedugudu or Khokho and marbles in the streets. I do not remember seeing films in this period but must have seen some films like Devadasu in nearby towns. But I remember a Raj Kapoor film Premalekhalu. I liked the songs and practiced them assiduously. Once when my cousin Baburao came I sang to him. He said it was ok but I should not sing in public and thus killed a possible career in music.

My father probably had good reputation by this time. Apart from students from nearby villages, some came from places like Appikatla which had a school. Thummala Sitaramamurthy (chowdary) used to teach there and I think Kosarsju Raghavaiah was also was from there, but am not sure. For some reason, many added Chowdary to their names whereas earlier it was Naidu. My father's favourite was Gurram Jashua and I too acquired a liking for Jashua. Once there was a celebration of  Jashua ( and also Thummala) in Nidubrolu-Ponnur area. Jashua rode on an elephant and then there was kanakabhishekam for him. I attended the function with my father.

Heros  those days were sports persons like Buchiramaiah in volleyball and various chedugudu players like Avadhani and Meka Sitaramaiah.

Our family, probably like many other agricultural families were keen about education though some well to do people did not work after their degrees as they did not want to work under others. Since my father was a teacher various relatives studied in the schools he taught and there were lifelong relationships with many of them. Cousin Bsburao stayed with us for six years or so in Gudavalli. In Chintayapalem Radha Babai sent his son to stay with us and study. But he was a strong kid of my brother's age and used to beat up my brother. After an year or two my mother put her foot down and said no more. I was not particularly good in school but my father was very ambitious about my studies and try to send me to schools beyond his means. Once he tried to send me to an expensive school in Dehradun and luckily it did not materialise. Another time he took to me Madrss and tried to join me in Adyar school. That did not materialise either but I remember staying in Avula Sambasiva Rso's house during that trip. He was probably a relative and friend of my father and later became the chief justice of Andhra high court and was also an influential rationslist. Indid not know about toilets and I remember sitting down in a chair with a hole which was supposed for toilet purposes and the children laughing at me. Manjukata told me later she was not there but was with her grandoarents. The memorable part of the trip for me was watching some wrestling matches participated by King Kong and others. Anyway, we got back to Chintayspskem and my studies improved a bit and I ended up being first in class 11. Until that time we did not wear shoes or sandals. In 1954, before I joined Andhra Loyola College, we made a trip to Bapatla, got half a dozen pairs of clothes made and also got some shoes called belt boots. That was the end of my school days but not my contact with villages.

During 1956-1960 I was off and on in Loyola College, Madras. I developed an interest in mathematics after coming across some ideas of Cantor. I stopped attending classes and tried to study by myself and was rusticated twice. During this period, my father worked in Thullur, Vullipalem and later Kolakalur. I remember the first two villages vividly and reading books like 'The brothers Karamazov' in Thullur. Also some Eliot and Auden in my grandfather's farm in Pesarkanka. My father and mother were grief stricken and my mother became very protective. The most influential book for me was 'Asanadhuni Jeevayatra' by Tripuraneni Gopichand. A cherished moment is a glimpse of him Hyderabad standing outside a restaurant in Narayanguda. I finally realised that I did not have the talent to study mathematics in villages and went to Hyderabad to study B.Sc with the help of money lent to my mother by her friends. But that is another story.

P.S. More about my https://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2007/06/remembering-my-father.html?fbclid=IwAR3mW4uWXcfIgqcgNpZ_UMUjIeeFq10qt3s8ydccRbY4D5-J4N_WvD_Ug9o