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We didn't have play-school, nursery, LKG (PP1 fancifully) and UKG (PP2) like Ishani has.
No Baa Baa Black Sheep for us.
It didn't mean we had no pre-schooling at all. We had lots of it. Lots.
First there were these home tutors.
They came in two varieties to teach us from our age of 3 (or a bit less as was with me as soon as I started lisping). All of them were South Indian Brahmins (I regret to say).
The first variety were very old and shrinking and shriveling and smiling and shining retiree granpas who traveled home to home seeking to teach kids of tender age for a princely monthly pay of Rs 2 (Father's take-home was all of Rs 30 then of which another Rs 2 went for house-rent).
I guess they were either pretty hard up or didn't know what to do with their ample leisure (since they couldn't blog...some of them wrote books but). But they were simply loved by the kids they taught...they had a kindly way with them unlike the strict parents of these devils.
My first home tutor was the dhoti-clad Sri Laxmi Narasaiah (I forget his surname). He was extremely fair and graying. He had lovely hands on the back of which I used to watch bulging greenish veins crisscrossing the entire hand. I was charmed by the sight and used to peer at my own hands and secretly wished mine would turn like his soon. I happened to be his early student because I was the second-born with a didi 2 years older to me. She was very naughty, like Ishani now, and Father thought that a home tutor would drill some sense of discipline into her. So he agreed to the daily evening visits of LN Sir to our home.
All homes those days in South India had pyols:
As soon as Sir came and took his seat on his stone-throne, Father would call me and didi out to stop doing whatever we were doing and sit in front of Sir with folded legs. And I obeyed forthwith since I loved the old man. Didi would dodge and dawdle and grumble and groan and had to be teased out to attend the class. And as neither of could read, the old man would ask us to repeat aloud, starting with the invocation to Lord Raama:
This is the opening verse of a lovely Telugu collection called Sumati Shatakam (100 verses for Good Kids). And we would chant the poem in unison and in no time didi would skip the class and run away to the backyard, the entry for which was denied to our tutor. And then I would be all alone (I was a good boy till I enrolled as a Research Scholar...CSIR JRF in 1963).
But the old man wasn't bothered too much about disciplining girls since it was understood that their schooling would be terminated as soon as they started 'adult-eration' when they reached 12 years or so of age.
But Father wouldn't agree and would go hunting for his 4-year-old daughter and find her plucking flowers by the backyard wall and chatting with the neighbor girl. And would drag her back to the pyol.
By then Sir would be teaching me (asking me to repeat) the poem from Krishna Shatakam:
which is a Surrender to Lord Krishna body and soul.
Didi being two years older to me and much better at rote-learning (since she was destined to do her MD later on which was not known to her or our tutor), she would repeat it at one go and disappear once again, this time into the kitchen where mom would protect her from Father.
My recitations would go on till mom brought a steaming glass of coffee to the old man for whom, I guess, it was a superior attraction to the Rs 2 a month.
As he would be sipping his coffee, didi would return since she knew he would quit as soon as he drained his cup. And the old man, with infinite patience, would repeat all the poems she missed...Father would ask the old man the progress of the day and then examine both of his kids if they learned anything new that evening.
And Sir would hunt for his worn-out chappals that the lurking stray dogs would by then have lugged here and there; and take leave of Father for the day.
...I wonder what happened to Laxmi Narasaiah Sir and his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, if any....
...Posted by Ishani
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I was talking (randomly as usual) of the education system of my childhood (in the 1940s and 50s).
Often, when I talk about those times, I feel like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner:
We didn't have play-school, nursery, LKG (PP1 fancifully) and UKG (PP2) like Ishani has.
No Baa Baa Black Sheep for us.
It didn't mean we had no pre-schooling at all. We had lots of it. Lots.
First there were these home tutors.
They came in two varieties to teach us from our age of 3 (or a bit less as was with me as soon as I started lisping). All of them were South Indian Brahmins (I regret to say).
The first variety were very old and shrinking and shriveling and smiling and shining retiree granpas who traveled home to home seeking to teach kids of tender age for a princely monthly pay of Rs 2 (Father's take-home was all of Rs 30 then of which another Rs 2 went for house-rent).
I guess they were either pretty hard up or didn't know what to do with their ample leisure (since they couldn't blog...some of them wrote books but). But they were simply loved by the kids they taught...they had a kindly way with them unlike the strict parents of these devils.
My first home tutor was the dhoti-clad Sri Laxmi Narasaiah (I forget his surname). He was extremely fair and graying. He had lovely hands on the back of which I used to watch bulging greenish veins crisscrossing the entire hand. I was charmed by the sight and used to peer at my own hands and secretly wished mine would turn like his soon. I happened to be his early student because I was the second-born with a didi 2 years older to me. She was very naughty, like Ishani now, and Father thought that a home tutor would drill some sense of discipline into her. So he agreed to the daily evening visits of LN Sir to our home.
All homes those days in South India had pyols:
As soon as Sir came and took his seat on his stone-throne, Father would call me and didi out to stop doing whatever we were doing and sit in front of Sir with folded legs. And I obeyed forthwith since I loved the old man. Didi would dodge and dawdle and grumble and groan and had to be teased out to attend the class. And as neither of could read, the old man would ask us to repeat aloud, starting with the invocation to Lord Raama:
Sri Ramuni daya chetanu
Naroodhiga sakala janulu nauraa yanagaa
Dharaala maina neetulu
Noruraga javulu butta nudiveda sumatee!
This is the opening verse of a lovely Telugu collection called Sumati Shatakam (100 verses for Good Kids). And we would chant the poem in unison and in no time didi would skip the class and run away to the backyard, the entry for which was denied to our tutor. And then I would be all alone (I was a good boy till I enrolled as a Research Scholar...CSIR JRF in 1963).
But the old man wasn't bothered too much about disciplining girls since it was understood that their schooling would be terminated as soon as they started 'adult-eration' when they reached 12 years or so of age.
But Father wouldn't agree and would go hunting for his 4-year-old daughter and find her plucking flowers by the backyard wall and chatting with the neighbor girl. And would drag her back to the pyol.
By then Sir would be teaching me (asking me to repeat) the poem from Krishna Shatakam:
Neeve tallivi tandrivi
Neeve naa todu needa neeve sakhudau
Neeve gurudavu daivamu
Neeve na patiyu gatiyu nijamuga Krishna!
Didi being two years older to me and much better at rote-learning (since she was destined to do her MD later on which was not known to her or our tutor), she would repeat it at one go and disappear once again, this time into the kitchen where mom would protect her from Father.
My recitations would go on till mom brought a steaming glass of coffee to the old man for whom, I guess, it was a superior attraction to the Rs 2 a month.
As he would be sipping his coffee, didi would return since she knew he would quit as soon as he drained his cup. And the old man, with infinite patience, would repeat all the poems she missed...Father would ask the old man the progress of the day and then examine both of his kids if they learned anything new that evening.
And Sir would hunt for his worn-out chappals that the lurking stray dogs would by then have lugged here and there; and take leave of Father for the day.
...I wonder what happened to Laxmi Narasaiah Sir and his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, if any....
...Posted by Ishani
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