This is my blog post number 1960, which is my birth year. To celebrate, I am presenting a chapter -the first- from my autobiography.
I used to suck my
thumb. All children do. At least, when I was growing up, they did. And when I
grew up and had children, they also did. I played games like marbles, jhaad
bunder (monkey on a tree)- where you have to jump on a stick placed
strategically under a tree, from a branch above if you don’t want to get “out”-
and many of the usual ones like hide and seek (only sometimes it was called Ice
Pais, maybe named after ‘I spy’ played in some western countries).
I also vaguely
remember collecting tons of mangoes in buckets on stormy nights in a big yard
in a big house in a small town in A.P. There were four or five mango trees in
the yard. I also watered some plants- I mean with a hosepipe in our front yard.
I rode the bicycle very often, when I was old enough to do so. The club (run by
the company where my parents worked) was another place I frequented. Badminton,
Table Tennis were games that all the kids played, and so did I.
The small town
school that I went to was not unique in any way, but it must have been doing
something right. For, I did pretty well academically, and managed to grow up
without an accent. That may not sound like a big deal, but I was to find out
later in life that the early damage that an accent can inflict on you is tough
to erase- it’s inscribed on your tongue,
so to speak. I felt this most strongly about the ‘mallu’ accent, but many others
are equally strong, I guess.
Movies were a
strong influence. In a small town and minus television, any Hindi movie that
was released (usually months later than its Bombay release) was a must-see. My first
distinct memory is of a Rajesh Khanna blockbuster-Aradhana, with its superhit songs and a handsome R.K. in a double
role. Another a little later was Anand,
with its unique blend of philosophy of life and comedy. Many other movies of
the day – Mere Humdum Mere Dost, Shikaar (Dharmendra), Anjaana, Jhuk Gaya Asman
(Rajendra Kumar), Prince, Tumse Achcha Kaun Hai (Shammi Kapoor), Jigri Dost,
Aulad, Humjoli (Jeetendra), and Jewel Thief, Guide (Dev Anand) followed, along
with a lot of others in between.
This interest was
to remain with me lifelong. Hindi movie music, captured in its prime by Radio Ceylon
and Binaca Geet Mala, a weekly countdown show compered by the incomparable RJ
Ameen Sayani, really fired our imagination. His skill with words, his silken
voice, and the music…it was a heady combo- subhanallah!
Kishore Kumar with
his divine voice was another youth icon that I instantly fell in love with. His
songs, many of them tuned by the genius called R.D. Burman, became a rage. From
Aandhi and Amar Prem to Kati Patang was a virtual feast for music lovers, and I
soaked in every one of those masterpieces. Later, I came to appreciate the more
serious numbers, though at the time, growing up, the more exuberant and
romantic songs were my favourites- Tum Bin Jaoon Kahan, Nadiya Se Dariya, Yeh
Shaam Mastani, Yeh Jo Mohabbat hai, Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani, and so on. There
were some good songs from other music composers as well, but the R.D. Burman
tunes seemed a class apart. Some other popular Kishore Kumar songs were from the
movies Dushman, Blackmail, and Julie.
Bobby was a cult
movie of those days. I was as besotted with the lovely 18 year old Dimple
Kapadia as anyone else during that time. Many years later, as I was leaving for
the U.S.
to get a Ph.D., another Dimple movie, Saagar, was to be my last before my
departure. She was probably 30 then, but as sensuous as in the Bobby days.
Another interest
was cricket. I chose to play cricket in school (HPS, Ramanthapur) at Hyderabad. I was an
opening bat, and we played without helmets in those days. We played league
cricket matches every Sunday in season, and everybody in the cricket team was treated
like a hero whether we won or lost. We had a very enterprising fast bowler in
our team, Pritipal Singh Gandhi. His favourite trick was to get the runner out
when he started walking out to take a run, before the ball was bowled. This
technique was perfected by Vinoo Mankad, and some people referred to the runner
as being ‘Mankaded’ when he got out that way.
I fielded in the
slips, and one of the horrors of that position I remember was dropping Saad Bin
Jung (Tiger Pataudi’s nephew) who played against us in an inter-school match.
But I had a few good catches to which I held on too. Harsha Bhogle who is now a
famous commentator was also in my rival team in school. Later, we both studied
at Osmania University engineering college, and went
on to do our MBAs from different IIMs- he to A, I to B.
One of my vivid
memories of the cricket outings is when we won the prestigious Pentangular Trophy
(this tournament was played between the Public Schools and the Kendriya
Vidyalayas). We got treated by the school to a lunch and a movie- Lawrence of
Arabia, at Sangeet cinema.
Our cricket coach in
school was Mr. Habib Khan- a tall, imposing, focused but friendly guy who
coached us all very sincerely, particularly in the basics. I sometimes wonder
looking at the Indian cricket team, if they had only learnt batting and bowling
from him…..
We had in our
hostel a geography teacher we used to call Dracula- I have even forgotten what
his actual name was. He was, unlike the name we had given him, very friendly,
and used to let us make tea in his room late nights when we were studying for
our exams. That was really helpful for some of us “maggus”.
I had been one of
the first to join the new branch of the Hyderabad Public School
at Ramanthapur when it started in 1972. Some of the friends made there kept
popping up in later life. Ram Seshu, who became an advertising whiz kid with
MAA Bozell, and Praveen Gottipalli, my friend and competitor for the first
rank, who went off to the U.S.
and now has a foot in India
and another there. Some others, I never saw again.
There was a guy in
the hostel, Mohiddin Khwaja, with whom I made good friends. His dad was in Air India posted in Saudi Arabia, and he seemed to get
a lot of exotic stuff like perfumes from abroad, which was a novelty in those
days. Another guy, Uttam Kumar, became an entrepreneur in Hyderabad with his granite company, but we
never met after school. I did meet Srinivas Rao, a roommate who became a
homeopathic doctor, and was the son of the owner of the best homeo store in Hyderabad called
Ramakrishna Homeo stores on Bank
Street. We also had the son of G. Pulla Reddy Sweets’
owner in my class, and the son of a cloth shop owner, Nadir Sadruddin, who
always stood out in his terricot uniform.
A lot of teachers
in school were very close, as we lived together in boarding school. The Physics
teacher, Mr. Chandrashekhar, was a really sweet guy. The English teacher, Mr.
Anjaneya Sastry, was at his eloquent best when he taught us Keats and Shelley’s
poetry. I can still remember him describing the “little birdie” while teaching
us Ode to a Nightingale. He was also famous for certain words that he
pronounced in a funny way- for instance, England for him was “Englaand” and
his Hindi was also anglicized! We had a very strict guy, Mr. Mathan, for P.T.,
and his gaze was enough to get everyone **** scared. Mr. Venkiah, the bio
teacher, was famous for his long winded sentences, which he expected us to
write down (copy) verbatim.
The school days
were mostly fun, though I also liked the vacations when one could relax and
play some other games at the club, or meet boys and girls (especially girls, as
I was in a boys’ school) from other families back home. We had two friends,
Manoj and Subodh, with whom we played a lot of Bridge (the card game) during
the holidays. My brother and I were the others in the foursome. We played for
hours, usually taking breaks only for lunch. It was an excellent way to pass
the holidays in a hot and dusty small town. I still miss those Bridge sessions.
My parents also
had a lot of Bridge-playing sessions with their friends at home, and I sat and
watched these. A lot of the families were good friends, like the Tilaks, the
Kenjales, the Kaushiks and the Talpallikars, and we, the next generation, also
met a lot of times later, in India
and abroad.
A lasting memory
of the 1975 summer was seeing Sholay in 70 mm. in the grand old theatre called
Ramakrishna (owned by the film star N.T. Rama Rao). The stereophonic sound
effects, and the movie itself, were really awesome, and the only comparisons
that came to mind were some grand Hollywood
movies like Mackenna’s Gold, or Where Eagles Dare, in terms of the impact they
had on me.
My childhood was
spent in the coal belt of Andhra, in towns like Kothagudem, Bellampalli and
Ramagundam. The distinguishing feature of these places was the heat, but there
were compensations like the club, good company of other kids, and some scenic
rivers- Godavari, in particular, which ran
close to most of these places. There was also a picnic spot on the river
Kinnersani close to Kothagudem, where the club arranged day-long picnics
regularly. I even remember a couple of moonlight picnics, which were a lot of
fun.
