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When my Father took over as HM of our high school at Muthukur, our school was housed in a pre-independence Court Hall-cum-Police Station. It had pucca accommodation only for higher classes and others like me were taught in what looked like cowsheds.
Father succeeded in getting grants for a new building for our school from the nascent Andhra State government using the influence of my Shakespeare Uncle who was friends with Dr Bezwada Gopala Reddy (BGR) who was a veteran politician and Chief Minister of Andhra State.
BGR and his wife were students at Tagore's Santiniketan and BGR translated many of Tagore's works into Telugu and was known as the Andhra Tagore. He was awarded an honorary doctorate for his literary achievements.
And BGR was invited as the Chief Guest of the Foundation Laying Ceremony of the new school building. The function was held in a makeshift tent house and there was only one mike and a loudspeaker.
The entire village turned up to see the CM.
During those years it was impossible for any student of the School Final Exam to get 70%...an impossible achievement....Telugu and Social Studies were the culprits. And our nascent school was proud that there was this boy Chandrasekhar who scored 400/600 that year, a record of sorts.
As my Father was droning on the mike reading his Annual Report, he came to the sentence going:
"We are proud to have produced Chandrasekhar who scored 400 out of 600 marks in the outgoing batch"
BGR, who was lost in his CM thoughts (whatever they were), sitting quietly in his chair, got up and grabbed the mike from Father and asked to meet this wizard boy who was found squatting on the floor in the last line.
Father ordered Chandrasekhar to come up.
And BGR hugged the tiny boy and gifted Rs 100 from his pocket as an impromptu prize.
There was a deafening applause. And a standing ovation for the gifter and the giftee.
The boy returned to his back seat.
And before BGR returned to his seat on the dais, he made the remark in the mike:
"I never expected a village school to have produced a student scoring as high as 80%"
And then there was a deafening silence...
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When my Father took over as HM of our high school at Muthukur, our school was housed in a pre-independence Court Hall-cum-Police Station. It had pucca accommodation only for higher classes and others like me were taught in what looked like cowsheds.
Father succeeded in getting grants for a new building for our school from the nascent Andhra State government using the influence of my Shakespeare Uncle who was friends with Dr Bezwada Gopala Reddy (BGR) who was a veteran politician and Chief Minister of Andhra State.
BGR and his wife were students at Tagore's Santiniketan and BGR translated many of Tagore's works into Telugu and was known as the Andhra Tagore. He was awarded an honorary doctorate for his literary achievements.
And BGR was invited as the Chief Guest of the Foundation Laying Ceremony of the new school building. The function was held in a makeshift tent house and there was only one mike and a loudspeaker.
The entire village turned up to see the CM.
During those years it was impossible for any student of the School Final Exam to get 70%...an impossible achievement....Telugu and Social Studies were the culprits. And our nascent school was proud that there was this boy Chandrasekhar who scored 400/600 that year, a record of sorts.
As my Father was droning on the mike reading his Annual Report, he came to the sentence going:
"We are proud to have produced Chandrasekhar who scored 400 out of 600 marks in the outgoing batch"
BGR, who was lost in his CM thoughts (whatever they were), sitting quietly in his chair, got up and grabbed the mike from Father and asked to meet this wizard boy who was found squatting on the floor in the last line.
Father ordered Chandrasekhar to come up.
And BGR hugged the tiny boy and gifted Rs 100 from his pocket as an impromptu prize.
There was a deafening applause. And a standing ovation for the gifter and the giftee.
The boy returned to his back seat.
And before BGR returned to his seat on the dais, he made the remark in the mike:
"I never expected a village school to have produced a student scoring as high as 80%"
And then there was a deafening silence...
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