Love's Reflection
As children we never enquired about our parents’ bachelor life, their romances, glittering youth, or their friends. Back then we were too engrossed in our own studies; or spending evening hours late into the night immersed in outdoor activities on the tiled front porch. With a bit of leisure mother would open up gently and talk about their parents’ (our grandparents’) affection. Once she coyly commented about father’s youthful handsome appearance prior to their marriage; those were the days before they got engaged. We belonged to a different era, before TV, modern color camera, iPhone, and online streaming. Most of our cohorts were naïve in many things. They either pursued endless studies for Civil and bank jobs, opted for local jobs in agriculture, or small businesses. Yet we too had our share of romances and non-traditional marriages. Life moved on slowly at the pace of an antique steam engine and we just waited for our own turn to plunge into love or companionship. Perhaps the larger life eventually evens out everything; nobody is a total loser and nobody is an outright winner in this complex mundane world. Some may gain on riches; some may find affection, friends, peace, or health. But nobody has a claim on everything totally (except a few yogis!). Neither the royalty nor the wandering mendicant in the public square.
Here, the NPR radio is archiving people’s lives and tender moments with oral recordings and interviews. The program “Story Corps” tries to bring the young and old together and bridge the generational gap. Much of the emotional trauma of the present day youth could be due to excessive insularity and lack of people-to-people interaction in sunny outside environs.
I was a transfer student in high school. Suddenly I got shifted from the well-run Zilla Parishad village school to municipal high school with some piled on new subjects. I lost all my former friends, carefully cultivated for over six years. But I had no time to pick new friends – the town was new and the course work was too heavy to concentrate on anything else. We had to sit for the board (School Final) exams in less than twenty months. Just one set of terminal exams to determine our fate. For the group subjects (math, science, and social studies) we had to cover all the topics spread over the final three years. I used to get up around 4:30 a.m. and sit for a recap of the previous day’s lessons. A preppy L. R. Eswari Telugu song would wake me up and alert my senses in the wee hours – the music would blare from the neighboring café. The hapless meagerly paid boarding servants had to start the boiler and wood fire for the morning coffee, idli, and dosa menus. After a quick shower and breakfast I had to walk three quarters of a mile to attend the Morning Prayer (and Pledge) in the school grounds at 9:00 a.m. sharp. The dhoti-clad head master gave strict instructions to the (bell-ringing) peon – lock the front gate after 9:10 a.m., promptly. No exceptions for anyone!
Despite my timidity and reserved character I quickly developed friendship with two friends with bicycles. With a short recess we had to go home for piping hot midday lunch, hurriedly pick up the books for the afternoon session, and run back to the school. Many times my friends offered help; they would ask me to sit on the back (the carrier/pillion) and carry me through the crowded main street, crossing the canal via a narrow old bridge next to the bullock cart, and drop me at our house. Some times I would sit in the front on the horizontal bar (Top Tube) with my hands loosely grabbing the handle bar. Such rides though enjoyable and efficient in transporting – they always frightened me due to the super speed. I could have easily slipped from the rear pillion and fell on the wayside. But my friends were very caring and attentive to my apprehension, fear on my scared face.
One day a post card landed on the headmaster’s (Sri G K Sastry) desk in the front office. It was addressed to one final year (11th std.) girl student. We, the top three final year students were in the close purview of our teachers. Three of us were known to all the teachers as toppers. My opponent (GPR) in the adjoining section stood always first and I came a pitiable second. The girl in the story was always trailing us, steadily holding on to the third rank in the board (school) finals. Thus during one of those steamy hot summer days my friend succumbed to the love bug. All the girl students were placed in a separate “C” section and we boys in the remaining two sections were cruelly deprived of their company. Of course we would see each other in the grounds, hallway, and during the usual entrance and exit times. This girl (the addressee) was the daughter of our local Railway Station Master. As I try to remember now our school could boast quite a few pretty faces; except for a fleeting glance hardly I had time to spend on such distracting matters then.
Now, this post card had a simple innocent message: “Dear Varalakshmi, I love you intensely. Do you love me too?” The message was in Telugu script but it was encrypted. None of us could read it including most of the teaching faculty - except one Science Teacher! He quickly grabbed a mirror from the laboratory and looked at the post card in the mirror. Lo! The whole thing revealed nicely. Till today I do not know what happened after that. Everything was kept under the wraps. I came to know about it much later through tertiary (hearsay) sources. I used to see our special girl student during our daily commute to the nearby College - our pre-University days. But it was only for a year and then the Railway Master got transferred, so I recall. Thereafter I completely lost touch with our female high school classmates.
We all used to merrily commute to Narsapur daily in the RTC bus and steam engine powered crawling passenger shuttle train. I still remember the giggling, the hush- hush whispers, and the clumsy long lab notebooks clutching youth walking wearily between the College and home. Those days would never return. I was in touch with my friend (the daring) Naidu till sophomore in degree. Then we parted ways, he into medicine and me into sciences. Always I used to get tea or coffee and spicy snacks at his house. Often we would go to the terrace and exchange our progress in studies and life.
An interesting puzzle solved by our science teacher. Five thousand years back Rukmini sent a love letter to Krishna, resulting in a successful runaway elopement and marriage. Here in this case, my friend’s attempt - not bad in the larger scheme of things. Had it worked out it would have been the first love marriage in our small town, rather in our close circle of school alums! Copyright 2023 by the author
