The moth eaten Autograph Diary

As mentioned elsewhere, Sanskrit was our first language, English the Second and Hindi the third language in Tenth. One morning, just after we had filled up the Tenth Standard board examination forms (that was when I got two things – my date of birth and my signature, which have remained more or less intact to this day. It is strange to imagine that at that time we had the power to enter whatever reasonable date between 1st April 1964 and 31st March 1965 as our birthdates. I had, done fairly extensive research with a panchangam, an inland letter written by my maternal grandfather to my father in September 1964 and some deduction to arrive at the fact that 18th September 1964 as my birthdate.

Then one day Sr. Angelita dropped a bombshell. The Government of Karnataka had decreed that Kannada has to be a paper in Tenth. It was a gloomy day for us. The girls wept copiously and the boys sat glum. We didn’t know what to study. Fortunately the conundrum resolved itself soon and we finally wrote the Hindi paper.

And then began the ritual of collecting autographs. We begged our parents for a diary and circulated it around asking people to write. Over 120 kids from the high school and the teachers wrote words of humour and wisdom and signed the book. NRB wrote on my autograph diary, “He knows enough who knows how to learn”. How true!!! Sr. Angelita in her trademark green ink wrote “May God Bless you” and signed. Others wrote similar words. There was one master, an Anglo Indian who taught us the Guitar, a person with a very English name - Rodger Bronkhurst. He claimed to have arrived from Australia though he looked more like an Indian than even us Wadiites. Then there was Gangadhar, our librarian, who penned a verse in calligraphic Kannada script. In short, getting the Autograph Diary filled was our most important occupation during the months leading to the Board Exams. While on a recent impulsive trip to Coimbatore to see my aged parents, my brother there had decided to sell off old and moth eaten books, out of which I managed to salvage the autograph diary. Reading it gave a lot of satisfaction and solace. Rosy was there, so was Mohan, as was Anthony James. And they will remain with me till I have that book. Rosy had sketched a smiley face to embellish her words. Smile away guys, you have left all your pains behind for us to carry around. We will bear your crosses for the rest of our days, and tell the Lord to treat us with a little more humanity (or Godliness if you wish) while we are here.