Khalvato Divaseshwarasya Kiranaih

The bus ride from Wadi to Shahabad took 45 minutes. It started at about 8 AM from near the ACC club. There were three drivers who were assigned duty from time to time. They were Muhammad Rasool, Sudhakar and Eashwarappa. Rasool was the most popular driver. He was mostly bald and had no respect for people. He drove the bus very fast, but had good control. His speed and brashness made him an apt hero for half baked kids like us. Sudhakar was the antithesis of Rasool. He was diminutive. He drove with caution. In fact one wonders how he managed to control the bus at all because he had to haul the gear handle with both hands to change gears and had to stand to operate the pedals. It was he I think (JC correct me if I am wrong) who once, while driving through Rawoor – enroute to Wadi from Shahabad one evening – hit a bull and broke its horn. The bus was held up by irate villagers for over three hours. Any incident, good or bad was exciting to us and so we enjoyed this incident too. The third driver Eashwarappa wasn’t a regular. He came when Rasool or Sudhakar weren’t available. He was dark, stout and phlegmatic and didn’t talk much. He was the least popular.

Girls sat on the right of the aisle and boys on the left. The first seat on the left, near the door was the right of the most powerful boys, normally of tenth standard. I and JC sat on this seat during the academic year 1979-80. Sometimes, it rained so heavily that the river Kagna was flooded. It flowed over the Bridge and it was dangerous to travel through it. So We had to take another route via Chitapur, which took us over two hours to reach Wadi from Shahabad.. This again was an adventure and we enjoyed it. One August, Lakshmi Pathy had come to Shahabad for some reason and returned with us by the bus. That day we had to take the Chitapur route. It was the evening of 14th August 1979. During the 2 hour + journey Lakshmi Pathy kept us entertained with a story, so that we didn’t know when we reached Wadi. It was 8 PM. The next day we had to start early, in white and white uniforms for the Independence day celebrations at MCC. The bus didn’t run that day so we had to go by rail. We got into a steam engine and were traveling on the tender (will tell you what a tender is, in another post) midway, the driver of the engine got annoyed with us, so he commanded us to get onto the coal heap. We reached MCC, with our carefully washed and ironed white dresses as well as our faces black with coal dust. Naturally, the Headmistress Sr. Angelita didn’t let us join the parade and we were made to stand out.

On a normal working day, we reached MCC by around 8:45 AM. The classes started at 9, before which we had the assembly. This ritual was similar to what we had at SACS, except that songs were played over the public address system and we lip synced. There were separate Christian hymns for every day of the week, most of them sung by Christopher Reeves and played back on LP records. One hymn I remember was “Jesus – in the morning, Jesus, in the evening” The headmistress spoke to us over the microphone everyday. Then we marched to the classes which began at 9. There was a tradition that the class teacher took the first period. In eighth standard our class teacher was Kumari Balakrishnan, in ninth, it was Nagendra Revanasiddappa Beloor and in tenth, it was Mysore S Devaraj. Since Mrs. Balakrishnan taught Sanskrit, it was always Sanskrit during the first period in eighth standard. We also got into the habit of referring to our teachers by their initials in MCC. So Mrs. Balakrishnan was KB, Nagendra Revanasiddappa Beloor was NRB and Mysore S Devaraj was MSD. Mr.Vinayak Hegde wasn’t a class teacher. Sadly, Mr. Hegde passed away of a kidney ailment in the 80’s.

NRB stayed in Shahabad Bazaar area and traveled to the school in a bicycle. MSD stayed in an STRT near the school and so did Hegde Master. KB’s husband was working for ABL, so she stayed in an STRT with her family. KB was pregnant during the time when we were in eighth standard. She taught Sanskrit with a Malayali accent. One Subhashitam I remember having been taught by her even now is,

Khalvato Diwaseshwarasya Kiranaih Santapito Mastake
Vanchan Deshamanaatapan Vidhivashaat Aalasya Moolam gatah
Tatrapyasya Mahaaphalena patatah, bhagnam sashabdam shirah
Prayo gachhati yatra Bhagyarahitastatraiva yantyapadah

Meaning in a nutshell, wherever an unfortunate paerson goes, misfortune follows him. And that is what is happening to me right now!!!

PS: Chatted with Janaki today and felt gr8. Went back 27 years in time