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As soon as we came to our Fourth Form (Class IX) at our High School in Muthukur in the early 1950s, our HM 'opened' an SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) Register in each of our names in a holy ritual.
That Register was our most precious lifelong possession. It was a marvel of primitive technology. It was a booklet of about 50 pages (there was enough scope for us to fail ten or more times in our journey through the school...then on a supplementary register had to be stitched on to it ). Its covers were greenish. They were as thick as our heads but eminently foldable. They were made of a combo of paper pulp, raw cotton, jute fiber and such exotic stuff. No fountain pen could write over them without cracking its nib.
A day came when we were let off from our boring geography class and asked to line up in front of the HM's Office to enter his sanctum one by one. When called in, the student would stand before the HM and answer questions one by one. These were like Name, Father's (or Guardian's) name, Caste, Male/Female (sex was an unknown term) etc.
Then came the most important question: Date of Birth. And the student (coached by his father/guardian) would be told to think well and answer, because once entered, it would be impossible to change or erase it. The SSLC Register was the only proof of our date of birth. We didn't have Birth Certificates then since all of us were born at our rural homes in darkness.
I carried my SSLC Register to IIT KGP when I joined as a faculty there. The Registrar's clerk demanded it as proof not so much of my height, weight, number of pull-ups, long jump, high jump, games like badminton I excelled in, and marks from Fourth Form to Sixth Form, but just as an invaluable proof of my date of birth. IIT KGP promised to retire me as soon as I achieved 60 years of age...that was the reason why they wanted a look into my SSLC Register.
Were I an employee of our State Government, like a teacher in the V. R. High School at Nellore, they would have confiscated my SSLC Register till I got it back on my retirement or death whichever was earlier. This was to prevent me from joining any other employment...they needn't have worried...there was none.
When the student answered all those questions, the HM' Assistant would examine his (the student's) body and strip him/her if necessary. This was because there was an entry called:
Marks of identification:
1.
2.
These marks entered there would be sole proof of our identity...no thumb impression (ink was costly), no passport, no biometric retinal signature, no PAN card, no ration card, no driving license, no Voter id card, no Aadhar card, no DNA, no nothing...
The marks on the body that the Assistant looked for were called moles. These were the ever-present birth marks, black in color for brownskins like us. In general there were plenty and the HM chose the most visible ones on the face, arms, neck or palms unless he/she was a pervert judge. In my case my HM Father didn't do his homework properly since there were no visible moles for me on my exposed parts. When the Assistant duly stripped me (at my expense), he did find one and read it out for the HM to record it:
1. One black mole on the right inner thigh at a distance of approximately 2 inches from the groin (a word new to me then).
That was all. So Father scrutinized my face and discovered a dent on my left forehead. It was due to that fall from grace I had from my tricycle at 3. The local doctor had decided to stitch it up to show off his surgical skills...and left his indelible fingerprint there.
So the entry went:
2. One dent on the face approximately 1 inch above the left eyebrow.
That was my exclusive identity till I retired, when IIT KGP gave me her invaluable Pension Card with the miniature bust photos of myself and my poor wife side by side, along with my precious date of birth.
Perhaps our CM who asked the AP Assembly:
"Who am I?"
lost his SSLC Register if ever he had one. He was of course in an identity crisis created by our Congress President when she chose to bifurcate AP into 2:
1. Telengana
2. Residual AP
This Residual thing always reminds me of the Cauchy Residue I had to mug up in my Complex Variables Class much later...my friend, NP, used to term the leftovers of the Bangla Paans of KGP as Cauchy Residues.
Our CM was born and brought up and schooled and cricketed in Hyderabad, the contentious heart of Telengana. But his ancestors hailed from the Residual AP where they have lands and houses and voters...
Our confused CM ought to have asked the Uncle of the Onondagan tribe in New York:
...Huston Smith on The Primal Religions:
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The Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh asks: "Who am I?"
...DC Front Page Headline, Saturday, 11 January 2014
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As soon as we came to our Fourth Form (Class IX) at our High School in Muthukur in the early 1950s, our HM 'opened' an SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) Register in each of our names in a holy ritual.
That Register was our most precious lifelong possession. It was a marvel of primitive technology. It was a booklet of about 50 pages (there was enough scope for us to fail ten or more times in our journey through the school...then on a supplementary register had to be stitched on to it ). Its covers were greenish. They were as thick as our heads but eminently foldable. They were made of a combo of paper pulp, raw cotton, jute fiber and such exotic stuff. No fountain pen could write over them without cracking its nib.
A day came when we were let off from our boring geography class and asked to line up in front of the HM's Office to enter his sanctum one by one. When called in, the student would stand before the HM and answer questions one by one. These were like Name, Father's (or Guardian's) name, Caste, Male/Female (sex was an unknown term) etc.
Then came the most important question: Date of Birth. And the student (coached by his father/guardian) would be told to think well and answer, because once entered, it would be impossible to change or erase it. The SSLC Register was the only proof of our date of birth. We didn't have Birth Certificates then since all of us were born at our rural homes in darkness.
I carried my SSLC Register to IIT KGP when I joined as a faculty there. The Registrar's clerk demanded it as proof not so much of my height, weight, number of pull-ups, long jump, high jump, games like badminton I excelled in, and marks from Fourth Form to Sixth Form, but just as an invaluable proof of my date of birth. IIT KGP promised to retire me as soon as I achieved 60 years of age...that was the reason why they wanted a look into my SSLC Register.
Were I an employee of our State Government, like a teacher in the V. R. High School at Nellore, they would have confiscated my SSLC Register till I got it back on my retirement or death whichever was earlier. This was to prevent me from joining any other employment...they needn't have worried...there was none.
When the student answered all those questions, the HM' Assistant would examine his (the student's) body and strip him/her if necessary. This was because there was an entry called:
Marks of identification:
1.
2.
These marks entered there would be sole proof of our identity...no thumb impression (ink was costly), no passport, no biometric retinal signature, no PAN card, no ration card, no driving license, no Voter id card, no Aadhar card, no DNA, no nothing...
The marks on the body that the Assistant looked for were called moles. These were the ever-present birth marks, black in color for brownskins like us. In general there were plenty and the HM chose the most visible ones on the face, arms, neck or palms unless he/she was a pervert judge. In my case my HM Father didn't do his homework properly since there were no visible moles for me on my exposed parts. When the Assistant duly stripped me (at my expense), he did find one and read it out for the HM to record it:
1. One black mole on the right inner thigh at a distance of approximately 2 inches from the groin (a word new to me then).
That was all. So Father scrutinized my face and discovered a dent on my left forehead. It was due to that fall from grace I had from my tricycle at 3. The local doctor had decided to stitch it up to show off his surgical skills...and left his indelible fingerprint there.
So the entry went:
2. One dent on the face approximately 1 inch above the left eyebrow.
That was my exclusive identity till I retired, when IIT KGP gave me her invaluable Pension Card with the miniature bust photos of myself and my poor wife side by side, along with my precious date of birth.
Perhaps our CM who asked the AP Assembly:
"Who am I?"
lost his SSLC Register if ever he had one. He was of course in an identity crisis created by our Congress President when she chose to bifurcate AP into 2:
1. Telengana
2. Residual AP
This Residual thing always reminds me of the Cauchy Residue I had to mug up in my Complex Variables Class much later...my friend, NP, used to term the leftovers of the Bangla Paans of KGP as Cauchy Residues.
Our CM was born and brought up and schooled and cricketed in Hyderabad, the contentious heart of Telengana. But his ancestors hailed from the Residual AP where they have lands and houses and voters...
Our confused CM ought to have asked the Uncle of the Onondagan tribe in New York:
...Huston Smith on The Primal Religions:
...Oren Lyons was the first Onondagan to enter college. When he returned to his reservation for his first vacation, his uncle proposed a fishing trip on a lake. Once he had his nephew in the middle of the lake where he wanted him, he began to interrogate him. "Well, Oren," he said, "you have been to college, you must be pretty smart now from all they've been teaching you. Let me ask you a question. Who are you?" Taken aback by the question, Oren fumbled for an answer. "What do you mean, who am I? Why, I'm your nephew of course." His uncle rejected his answer and repeated his question. Successively, the nephew ventured that he was Oren Lyons, an Onondagan, a human being, a man, a young man, all to no avail. When his uncle had reduced him to silence and he asked to be informed as to who he was, his uncle said, "Do you see that bluff over there? Oren, you are that bluff. And that giant pine on the other shore? Oren, you are that pine. And this water that supports our boat? You are this water."
...Some bells ringing there with Uddalaka and his son Svetaketu...
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