Rip Van Twinkle

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In my school-leaving year (1956-57) we had a fantastic English text book...starting with Rabindranath Tagore's "Where the mind is without fear" and a "Psalm" ('P' silent like in Psmith of PG Wodehouse's "Leave it to Psmith").

I am so sad I lost that book. And would now gladly buy a used copy of it for Rs 5000. (RK Narayan  kept his 'Nelson's Reader' with him under his pillow till he died).

In our text book there was this Washington Irving's story "Rip Van Winkle" (condensed version).

My HM-Father-cum-English Teacher taught it so well that it soon became my favorite. Dreamy stuff.

And those days we had Quarterly and Half-Yearly, in addition to the Annual Exams (the final one held, not in our Muthukur but in Nellore). 

And in the beginning we used to get printed question papers for all these exams from our DEO's Office (later on cyclostyle machines got installed in some schools and the Quarterly and Half-Yearly became local affairs...but not the Annuals).

And in every question there was this "internal choice" ("either-or of two questions").

And in the Quarterly I chose Rip Van Winkle. Father was pleased. And in the Half-Yearly I chose Rip Van Winkle again. And Father taunted:

"Haven't you read any other lesson?"

And in the School Final Public Exam, in a different room, Father was an invigilator in the VR High School, Nellore, where it was held.

After the exam was over and Father and I got together for a quick lunch, Father said:

"Of course, you would have again chosen Rip Van Winkle which is your favorite"

"No, I chose RC Majumdar's 'Why should we learn English?' "

"You fool! Why?"

"Because you taunted me all the time"

"Ayyoe! Ayyoe! Ayyoe!"

"Don't worry...I have all the lessons in that book by heart"

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Here is an online summary of the story of Rip Van Winkle set in a Dutch-Settler Village in the suburbs of New York in the era of the American Revolution (1765 – 1783):

Rip Van Winkle is an amiable farmer who wanders into the Catskill Mountains, where he comes upon a group of dwarfs playing ninepins. Rip accepts their offer of a drink of liquor and promptly falls asleep. When he awakens, 20 years later, he is an old man with a long white beard; the dwarfs are nowhere in sight. When Rip returns to town, he finds that everything is changed: his wife is dead, his children are grown, and George Washington’s portrait hangs in place of King George III’s. The old man entertains the townspeople with tales of the old days and of his encounter with the little men in the mountains.

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I am somewhat like Rip Van Winkle. As well as unlike him.

Only, instead of his 20 years, I slept in Bengal for 40 years, away from my Andhra Pradesh, and returned to it upon waking up.

Rip Van Winkle found everything changed in his village during his long sleep.

For me however, nothing seems to have changed in AP during all those 40 years...in certain features.

Still, like Rip, I go on telling tall tales about the "good old times" to whoever I can catch.

(Purists! Don't yell that should be 'whomever' in the above sentence :)

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It is like this:

A few days after I was born, during my naming-ceremony (baptism), my father chose to name me "Prabhakar"...without consulting me. Apparently I had some infection in the scalp and astrologers told him that Sun God is in charge of the scalp since Sun is 'overhead' up above the sky.

During my elementary school years I had no problem with that name.

But when, as HM, my father entered my name in my SSLC Register (lifetime possession) he changed it to:

"Prabhakara Sastry"

Later on I came to know that he was fond of one Venkata Sastry (his uncle who went to Kashi and became a learned Pundit-cum-Panda).

...And my troubles started then on, since in AP those days 'Sastry' automatically revealed my caste as Brahmin.

And those were the beginning of  the 'reverse discrimination' decades.

Somehow I resented that 'Sastry' appendix to my name.

Most of my classmates at Andhra University had names ending in: "Murthy", "Rao", "Rajyam" et al whose caste could be anything...not as self-revealing as "Sastry". And our lady classmates had the bland names: "Kantimati", "Sasikala" and "Lakshmi Tanya".

 And I was always curious...

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This trouble ended for me as soon as I reached Bengal....they thought I was a close relative of our then PM "Lal Bahadur Sastry" and I was accordingly highly regarded. 

Incidentally Lal Bahadur was a Kayasth (Srivastava). His "Sastry" was a Degree he earned in Sanskrit and appended to his name; like our Avadhanis are fond of hooking pompous epithets in front of their names:

"Ashtaavadhaani", "Shataavadhaani", "Sahasraavadhaani", "Shata Sahasraavadhaani" et al.

And luckily there was no "caste discrimination" in Bengal then. They were indulging in "class discrimination" (till they themselves became rich by the excesses of the now-infamous "cut money culture"...ask Didi).

So I had no complaints with my name. In any case I was always referred to as "gps" by my students since that was how it was spelt in the Time Tables (called 'Routines' in Bengal).

And I was happy in my caste-anonymity for all of 40 years in Bengal.

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And then I woke up and returned to AP (now Telangana) and 'settled' in Hyderabad.

What happened then was weird. Here is the diverting story:

"AP is very caste-conscious....KGP was not. This was one of the factors in my Culture Shock soon after I retired from KGP and tried to settle down in AP.

Fortunately Hyderabad is slightly less, but the virus is latent.

A couple of days after we settled down in this rented apartment complex, I was accosted by a grand old gentleman, obviously a retired official, around 76. God (who else?) gave me a puny and nondescript stature which comes to me as a blessing. Whoever looks at me ignores me as a nobody. And I am always happy to be left alone to my woolgathering.

This retiree looked at me and the mobile phone tucked into my shirt pocket with a string round my neck to secure it, and asked me a direct question: "What is that in your pocket? Can you follow English?" To which I demurred trying to escape giving a straight answer to his second question. 

[RKN writes there are some questions which can't bear a straight 'yes' or 'no' answer, like: "Have you stopped beating your wife?"]

He then said: "I am a Chief Engineer...not a Cheap Engineer like the present crop".

It took a dozen encounters (unwilling on my part) over six months for him to be convinced that I knew a little English; after which he settled down to our mother tongue, Telugu.

I got to love him. He really is a dear, with vast experience in the field in Bhutan in the Border Roads Organization. Schooled in the golden 1940s, imbibing the Freedom Spirit of that SDM generation, and absolutely incorruptible.

After a year or so, he said: 

"Your name Sastry betrays that you are a brahmin. But I must confess I am a non-brahmin, in fact a Kamma". 

I said it didn't matter at all since I don't even wear any sacred thread.

The other day he invited us to his granddaughter's wedding, and said sotto voce, 

"It is a Love Marriage. She is marrying a Brahmin youth". 

I then said that we are now relatives and he was happy for it. Both my wife and I attended the wedding of our bridegroom."

One day he revealed that he has only one prayer: 

"Next birth I want to be born a Maharashtrian Brahmin... a Konkani Brahmin, if possible"

I asked him why. He said they are all well-versed in the Vedas, Upanishads and Sanskrit and also accomplished in liberal arts like Carnatic Music and Bharata Natyam, while his kamma community knows only how to make money. 

I said I would love to change castes with him for a year. But told him I will also add my 'brahminical' prayers to his own so that his wish could come true. 

https://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2014/09/potters-superstick-repeat-telecast.html?m=0

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श्रेयान्स्वधर्मो विगुणः परधर्मात्स्वनुष्ठितात्।
स्वधर्मे निधनं श्रेयः परधर्मो भयावहः।।

:)

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