Riding down the memory lane, one really wonders if Mysore was such a great city! Indeed it was Royal not only because of the Royalty that had made it their headquarters, but also the natives who, influenced by the Royal family, were well beyond what anyone could expect out of good human beings, personification of sincerity, honesty and integrity. One such couple, Smt. Susheela Bai and Sri N. Nagesha Rao (who taught English to His Highness Sri Jayachamaraja Wodeyar in Maharaja’s College), driven by the Gandhian philosophy and with the idea of educating and uplifting women and children especially the needy, founded Vanitha Sadana which, over the years, blossomed into one of the respected schools in Karnataka.
We – Sundru, Jayyi (Jayatheertha), Kala, Radha and I in addition to a few others were from one of the first few batches. Suri, Parashiva murthy, Bharati, Subramanya et al joined us at the middle level. We were together till the (lower secondary) eighth year. In between many students came and left. Smt. Susheela Bharati was our class teacher and the headmistress of the school. Our classes were held at the old building and we moved into the new building when we were in the middle school.
At the younger level, we had staggered hours from 8:00 am to 10:30 and then 2:00 to 5:00 pm. Invariably I would go to my classmate and good friend H.L. Mohan’s house a couple of blocks from our house, where we played with his Meccano Set and also admire and form our own theories about the human skull and other bones that his uncle had in one of the cupboards! His uncle was a student at the Mysore Medical College.
As my good friends P.K. Vedanthan and Narayana Prasad have mentioned, we had about seven or eight tires to play with and one of them was a short and stubby tire that many of us were very fond of. We opened the side walls and one of us would squeeze into it and the others would roll the tire giving us a thrilling ride! Girls never bothered to join us in such games as they were happy with their Gajjuga or Kavade or Kunte Bille but for one daring girl and that if I remember correct was Radha.
As mentioned in one of the blogs, UNICEF donated milk powder to all the schools so the students can be given milk once or twice a day. For reasons that we never knew those days, it was more like milk powder rocks instead of in the powder form! Every evening some of the teachers and the maid servants powdered them for the next days supply. Some of us ran to them, picked up clumps of rock, tossed it into the mouth and ran to the play center in the adjacent field where we played every evening.. We were never admonished for that even though we were a naughty bunch.
Almost every year, the health center behind the school would come over to either inoculate or vaccinate us which was such a nightmare. Unfortunately we could not escape that as there was no way our mothers let us stay home. One nurse, Smt. Kamalamma, a very pleasant lady whom we referred to as Center Kamalamma was the one who subjected us for the torture! The mere thought of a spirit lamp and the tiny circular gadget that punctured the skin still makes me shudder!
Another favourite pastime of ours was to go to the forest wood yard a few blocks behind the school to see the famous pachyderm ‘Biligiriranga’ arranging those huge wooden logs on his massive tusks with his trunk locking it in place. This was the stately elephant that carried His Highness to Bannimantapa and back during the Dasara procession every year. The dangling bells around his neck alerted us whenever he came from aanekaroti, the elephant stables!
“Varadi Pustaka” (Report Book) was such an original thought and I/we would like to know whose bright idea it was. Perhaps it pioneered and was in existence only at Vanitha Sadana and in none of the other schools in Mysore or for that matter anywhere else in the State of Karnataka as far as we knew. It used to have all the details for the day and one glance was enough to let the student/parents know about what was done for the day and what was supposed to be done at home. We were graded out of 5 and then remarked by the teacher from “bad” to “excellent”. Anything below 4/5 would not be tolerated by our mothers and we could definitely expect some trouble especially when we had low scores or a bad remark. We volunteered to show them the book if we had a perfect score for the day or a good remark by the teacher. Call it the motherly intuition; they used to somehow know if we were not at our best that day. Maybe, the guilt was written all over our faces!
Lastly, I would like to mention the one incident that left an indelible impression on me and perhaps on many others. I have never tried to pull that stunt again till now! Smt. Parvathi was our neighbour, a family friend and my sister’s contemporary who had seen me since I was a year old. She excelled in sewing and embroidery under the tutelage of Smt. Lakshminarasamma and was our sewing teacher. I still remember some of the stitches that she taught us during those days including fixing buttons which have come in very handy even today. As I have mentioned, our classes used to be in that old single line building which had a huge hall with a room at either end. Almost all the classes used to be in the hall with imaginary walls dividing the rooms. Parvathi was teaching a class in the room behind the stage. For whatever reason, I barged into her class on my way back to my own class. When she asked me if it was a classroom or a fish market, I was blasé in my reply that it was a fish market! The next morning after the prayers, our headmistress announced that she wanted the student who was out of line the previous day to come forward and meet her on the stage. I stood there as if nothing happened. I was nonchalant the second time because it made me a little nervous. The third time she announced, as there weren’t too many options, I slowly started inching towards the stage where all the teachers were standing. Once I got there, all that Smt. Susheela Bharati asked me was to prostrate to the class teacher whose class I had violated! That was such a shame for me to prostrate in front of the entire school, I don’t think I ever recovered from it. It was such a simple punishment but was powerful enough to teach a lesson not only to me but for the entire school. Such were the ways they handled us and taught us life’s lessons that has made us what we are today. All of us have to tip our hats to them forever.
From our class, Sundru and I are in this country, Suri in Bangalore and Jayyi in Mysore. I wish I can find out the whereabouts of the rest of our class.
Yes, those were the days!
Wishing the function a grand success and wishing only the best to the school and her students,
Vasu
