Staying Back overnight at Shahabad Part II

Some days which were holidays we stayed back during the day too. The day was mostly spent in visiting friends, playing around with them, having lunch with them and reading. We had simple pursuits and the backyards of the SSQs were particularly interesting places. The guava trees in many houses like those in Ramarao’s house were ripe picking for us. Having stayed in TRTs all our lives, it was awesome visiting the interiors of the spacious SSQs and running around in their backyards.

We once were in Prasanna’s house. Prasanna’s dad Ramakrishnan was a lively person and very much into music. He sang with melody and enthusiasm. It was around this time that the Malayalam movie classic, Swathi Tirunal based of the poet-composer king was released. Prasanna’s dad sand for us some of the krithis of which “Kripaya Palaya Shourey” still lingers in memory. I learned to sing it and curiously fell into a superstition which persists to this day.

When there were power failures in Wadi those days – which was a rare event – I once happened to sing Kripaya Palaya and the lights came on. I did it once again and then several times and the lights came back on. Knowing fully well that it was silly, I decided that singing Kripaya Palaya is an antidote to power failures. Even today I do this when power fails. For quite some time it was a great wonder to me, when I landed up in Calcutta in 1991. Those were the days when 15 hour power failures - proudly baptized Load Shedding - , was the norm there. We used to stay at the hostel and I sang and sang – and lo and behold the power came on! It was only later that I realized that I had been singing for several hours. It was then that I realized the secret of Kripaya Palaya. Singing long enough brought back power not because you sang it, but because you sang till the power came back! In fact any action does this. This was a vivid way to realize the power of superstitions. You believe something happens when you do something, build a mindset around it and then make it happen by your actions.

Whatever that may be, Prasanna’s dad and his Swathi Tirunal kritis induced in me a lifelong love for carnatic classical music. The gentleman is no more but the seeds he sowed germinated and grew. It led me into more forays often erratic and in spurts, in the future and persists to this day.

Staying Back overnight at Shahabad Part I

There were days when we stayed over at Shahabad overnight. It happened when we were in Class Ten. There were special classes, combined study and all the things that go in with an impending board examination. In those days, Class Ten was the most important milestone. It made you a matriculate. Classes 11 and 12 were done in colleges. They were variously called Pre University course or Pre Degree course, depending on where you were. Another thing that was different then was things like accountancy, commerce etc., were not considered career options atleast in Shahabad. It was either Engineering or Medicine. So as we went about preparing for the Class Ten exams, also called SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate), we, as I said had sometimes to stay back in Shahabad overnight, partially out of necessity but mostly out of a desire for adventure or as a desire to emphasise our grownupness.

We had seen Shahabad from 9 AM to 5 PM but later it was something we didn’t know anything about. The staying behind was in groups and we stuck to our own types. Boys with boys, girls with girls, south Indians – Madrasis I mean -with south Indians and so on. There were sub groups based on close friendships too. Often people like me and Jayachandran and Santhanam stayed with Ramprasad. Not that Santhanam was too keen on studies but he was there.

I was rather enamoured of Sreeragam, a raga in the Carnatic tradition at that time. It still is a great favourite. Prasad’s mother was fairly well trained in Carnatic music. Though my mother was too, it was to the extent of singing a few songs in the Navaratri Kolu, but Rqamprasad’s mother seemed to have been traditionally trained. I got from her the swarasthanas and sahitya of Endaro mahanubhavulu by Tyagaraja and learnt to sing it. Also at that time the popular Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan carried a serial story called Palangal by Sivasankari, which was and remains to be a classic narration. It flitted across decades to portray the life of a typical traditional Iyer woman across three generations. It still is one of my favourites recording the lifestyles in those days. I tried writing a story for Woman’s era in these lines at a later date when many of my articles were published, but I couldn’t do justice to it so skipped it.

Iyers invariably subscribed to Kumudam or Kalki or Kalaimagal or Vikatan wherever they may happen to live. Another curious habit with many of them was tearing out pages of serial stories like these and binding them as a complete book. Prasad’s mother had a bound copy of Palangal. I begged and borrowed it from her to reread it and very unfortunately, misplaced it after reading. I don’t think Prasad’s mother forgave me for a long long time for this misdemanour.