Part 2 of my life in Wadi

Thursdays in Wadi were what were called bazaar days. There were relatively more vendors in the bazaar area and everyone invariably went to the bazaar on Thursdays to buy weekly rations of vegetables. Things were cheap. I remember we could buy upto a dozen good ripe mangoes for a rupee. We at home were in the habit of drinking water which was boiled with a spoonful of cumin seeds in it. Also coffee was regularly consumed. There was what was called a store in wadi. This was a sort of a grocery shop run by the ACC wadi and was also initially located in a TRT. I would every alternate day be asked to go to the store to get 100 grams of coffee powder(what was called Jayanthi coffee) and 50 grams of cumin seeds and occasionally 50 grams of coconut oil. The bill would come to something like 2.15 rupees. There was a man called muralidhar who had a limp and who wrote out the bills and collected money at the store. This muralidhar often wrote out a bill for jayanthi coffee, jeera and coconut oil whenever he saw me. This was for some time a cause for acute embarrassment to me because this Muralidhar wrote out the bill for me before even I could say anything since that was what I always bought.

We did not have refrigerators those days. As the temperatures soared during summers, we used to need ice cubes to be put into water or lime juice or the then new fangled synthetic flavoured powder called Rasna which had just come into the market. We young ones were sent the houses of those who were fortunate enough to have refrigerators to collect ice cubes. Those who gave us ice cubes, often behaved in a superior fashion, but tradition demanded that they give us ice cubes. So we young ones went with stainless steel containers to collect ice cubes. Mostly we returned with ice cubes, which were soon consumed.

The school which Mrs. Saldanha started, about which I had mentioned in an earlier post was taken over by Christian Missionaries of the Saint Anne soon. Wadi soon became a parish. There came one Father Antony, who was a Malayali from Moncombu in Kerala. With him as a patron a group of nuns arrived from Kerala and Tamil Nadu and took over the School in Irani Building from Mrs. Saldanha. It is not clear whether Mrs Saldanha was upset or relieved about this development but soon, the school came to be known as St. Ambrose Covent School. One Sr. Mary Jane was the first headmistress. A Roman Catholic Church also came up in Wadi, near the Irani Building. Father Antony, being a Malayali Christian was a middle aged kind man, who had equal affinities for malayalis as well as Christians. We being partly Malayalis, and my mothers maternal grandparents being from Moncombu, Father Antony soon became a family friend. Thangi was his spiritual equal and since Father Antony knew enough Hinduism and Thangi knew enough Christianity, there were no ego clashes. He was an occasional visitor to our house and loved the Adai and dosai that my mother used to make. His proximity to the family also made me a favoured student of the nuns at St. Ambrose Convent.

TO BE CONTINUED

What exactly is this Wadi?

Now some people have asked me where this Wadi is, about which I have written and about which I will be writing a lot. Wadi, like Malgudi will be defined as I go on, but for those who would like to know in brief, in advance, Wadi is a railway junction in the main Bombay Madras line from where a line diverts off to Hyderabad. It is in the midst of the Deccan Plateau, where the black cotton soil heats up (or atleast used to heat up) to a terrifying 52 degrees Celsius during summer. It is in the Northern part of the southern Indian state of Karanataka, in the Gulbarga district. It abounds in castes like the Lingayats, the followers of the Saint Sharanabasaweshwara and Banjaras, who are also called Lambadas, a gypsy like tribe. I have not visited the place for 20 years now, so I do not know what it is like these days, but I sincerely hope it is as it was when I was growing up there.

Wadi, where I became what I am

I BEGIN A SERIES HERE WHICH WILL COMPRISE MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO MAY CARE. IT IS INTERESTING, TRUST ME, THOUGH NOT AS AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY BUT AS A CHRONICLE OF THOSE TIMES

I had had a relatively problem free life for the first fifteen or sixteen years of my life I think. Wadi was a problem free place in itself. There was dust all over from the chimneys of the cement factory, which sometimes caused severe problems to some. But probably because I was for all practical purposes native to Wadi, I was not affected by it in the least. At least that is what I think. Dust was endemic to wadi. I was even proud of my ability to tolerate a lot of dust and pollution (which was just a fancy word that I had in my proud portfolio of vocabulary – along with floccinaucinihilipilification and antidisestablishmentarealistacally – but I didn’t experience at all till I was thirty one when I came to Delhi) until I realized that I was violently allergic to a lot of things as soon as I left wadi. Otherwise wadi was relatively tranquil and problem free. Not only problem free but free of a lot of blessings and evils too. I had not seen a car till I was fifteen. Nor a bus till I was 10 or 12, when ACC wadi bought its first bus.

Trains I had seen since wadi consisted of just the ACC colony and factory and the railway junction and its colony. These two colonies were separated by a railway bridge and somewhere in between, loosely scattered, was what we called the bajaar. Every Thursday there were a lot of men vending their wares ranging from vegetables to clothes in this place. On other days there were shops here which catered to the daily needs of the people of wadi, like a few tailor, cobbler, provision and butcher shops and much later a medical shop. People in the ACC colony were highbrow, those in the railway colony relatively lowbrow and those in the bajaar – which was the real wadi, positively menial. Atleast that is how they were classified. We spoke a Hindi, which was a curious admixture of hyderabadi an mumbaiya.

There were strict classifications in the ACC colony too. There were about six categories of quarters. LTRT, STRT, JSQ, SSQ, SSB and Manager’s Bungalow. The LTRTs were for the low level workers in the factory, labourers, C Grade clerks etc. The STRTs were for slightly higher level workers. But the ones who made the leap from what was called wage board to officer grade, were in the JSQ. The JSQs were occupied either by elderly people who had joined as workers and made THE transition or by those young ones who were graduates and officers to begin with. The difference between the two classes in the JSQ was also obvious. The ones occupied by the elderly ones were full of old furniture and household belongings accumulated over a lifetime, while the ones occupied by the young ones, were relatively empty. The JSQs were in pairs and single storied. The TRTs were three storied. The move from a STRT to a JSQ was every workers dream. I lived my life at wadi almost entirely in STRT 31/8. 31 was the building number. 1,2,3, and 4 were second floors, 5,6,7 and 8 were first floors and the other four ground floors. My father was a clerk. He joined as one and retired as one though there were a few promotions in between. Hence he never made the THE transition. It is probably this which subconsciously makes me a little contemptuous of the high and mighty, and their posh ways, though I personally have never been a worker and was always an officer ( a Class I gazetted at that). The SSQs were for the further higher ups, and the SSBs for deputy manager level people. The General Manager occupied the Managers Bungalow, whose interiors and occupants the TRT people seldom saw. To us they were royalty. You saw the Manager in whites on Republic and Independence days, hoisting the flag and inspecting the guard of honour given by the hundred or so watchmen. Not otherwise. And I , a clerks son became the friend of a General Manager and one or two deputy managers in later days – but more about that as we go on.

We had everything we needed in wadi. What we didn’t have we didn’t need. Initially there was a hospital in a TRT, a club, and a store. I remember a doctor called Sujaan – a bald headed fellow who gave me injections accompanied by sweet talk. It was all free. The company paid for it. Then there were other doctors. One called Surya Rao, was particularly remembered for reasons I will come to later.

There were hardly any old people in wadi. People came there in search of work at the prime of their youth and left around retirement to their native places. Everybody in wadi had a native place. Nobody belonged there – except the menials in the bajaar. Some stayed with their parents, though the parents themselves weren’t old. Our family had an old and respected member in my grandmother and so we were sought after socially. Since most people in Wadi were young they had to go somewhere to get their problems in spirituality, traditional medicine, recipes and general secular problems solved and they used to come to grandmother. The grandmother of the Iyers house was a known figure both in the ACC and the railway colony to whom even managers wives came for advice. Though grandmother didn’t like being called grandmother because she thought she was still young. Apart from astrology and the predictive sciences grandmother could dispense advice on almost anything. For astrology there was Seshadri Mama who himself was a devotee of grandmother. Grandmother was the head of the iyer community in wadi and seshadri mama of the iyengars, though mama subordinated iyengars to iyers in grandmother. For the records, I called grandmother Thangi, from her name, Thangam. Father was a respected figure too though not classy, and mother was a shadowy background figure to Thangi. Thangi solved all sorts of problems like adultery, love triangles, lack of firewood to cremate the dead, pediatric and gyeanacological problems, auspicious dates etc. I learnt a lot from her like the Nayagan’s son from the Nayagan of Kamalhaasan fame. Though she didn’t tell me stories particularly, I knew Ravana’s sword was called the chandrahasa and other trivia like that, which could fetch upto 50 lakhs in todays TV Quiz shows.

I went to my first school when I was over five. It was run by Christian missionaries, most of them from Kerala. The headmistress however was an enterprising anglo Indian lady – the wife of a railway engine driver called Mrs. Saldanha. She had a child called alice, who was a year younger to me and it seems to be with the express purpose of giving her an education that this lady actually started a school in wadi, a place which earlier did not have any schools. That was the beginning of education in wadi. She had taken a few rooms in a building called the Irani building, which was owned by one Irani, who was a local landlord who owned a lot of limestone mines in wadi. He had a place called Khani – or mines a little away from wadi and lived in a bungalow there. Most in wadi had heard of Irani but had not seen him. He was a mysterious figure about whom myths abounded. Anyway, this Irani had a double storied building in wadi and Mrs. Saldanha took a few rooms there to start a school. Initially the school seemed to have only one class. I was one of the first students. The school went by the name of St. Anne’s Convent, though it was yet to be taken over by Christian missionaries.

School admissions were generally done in April or May. I had what is called vidyarambham as is traditionally done on Vijayadashami day in the year of 1969. Thereafter, one auspicious day, Thangi, alongwith my father and mother took me to the school for admission. We also had a packet of toffees alongwith us. Toffees were freely distributed to all the students of the school because as Thangi said, my school education maybe a sweet experience. The fees was something insignificant though as I remember there was a lot of pomp and splendour surrounding my school admission. I must admit that my school education and all education thereafter was indeed sweet, and I developed a lifelong love for learning things. I developed into an academic sort. The walls of the school rooms were decorated with paintings depicting scenes from nursery rhymes and I was, by virtue of my age admitted to what is called the upper KG. I studied in upper KG for six months. The school was a little away – say a kilometer from my house at STRT 31/8 and my mother used to take me to school and bring me back for lunch daily. I don’t really remember what were the school timings but I learnt that timings were sacrosanct. There were a few girls in the same area as our house who also used to attend the school and when we saw them going to school from our first floor window, we knew it was time. One of these girls was called Latha, who was the daughter of a malayali Christian called Thankachan and she was supposed to be a good looking girl. She eventually grew up to be one of the dream girls of wadi.

TO BE CONTINUED

I am starting this blog today. I took some time naming this blog but then it came naturally because that is what describes my nature, my behaviour best. In Hindu mythology Lord Shiva is said to be a Kshipra prasadi or his nature is said to be kshanam chitham kshanam pitham meaning cynicism2euphoria.