Bitter Surprises

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One day, when I was in Class IX in our Village Muthukur, I was allotted a chaperon duty (boy-in-waiting) by my father.

Jairam Sir, the famous Sanskrit & Telugu Pundit of our District Headquarters town Nellore was visiting us. He was an ultra-orthodox Brahmin like my father (these guys stick together). So, it was taken for granted that he would be staying in our house for the day as an esteemed guest, eating home-cooked food after Puja, not even drinking a glass of water that was not offered to God. Such arrangements were quid pro quo, and whenever my father visited another town or village, even on Election Duty, it was understood that the hospitality was taken care of by the local Brahmin Pundit.

Jairam Sir was invited by the bigwigs of our Village to give one of his famous Mono-Acting performances that night in the public grounds of our school. There were no tickets sold. Everyone was welcome. A ballot box (piggy bank) was kept on the stage and whoever was pleased could walk up and insert a coin or a currency note.

I escorted Jairam Sir from the Bus Stand to our house early that morning, forgoing my morning play. And he was received by my father with due courtesies and asked to have his bath. Seeing the cramped condition of our thickly populated bathroom, Jairam Sir asked me to lead him to the Village Pond where he could jump in, swim and wash to his heart's content. While walking I could sense that he was sizing me up as all teachers are prone to do. He saw at a glance that I was a shy silent kid who preferred Work to Small Talk.

As he flung his dhoti (lower garment) and jibba (upper one) on the ground to jump in, I noticed that something fell out of his jibba pocket. On recovering it I saw it was a blue plastic bangle ladies wore those days. I could have pushed it back into his jibba pocket quietly, but the boy-scout spirit prevailed and I was waiting for him to return, and present it to him to earn praise and thanx.

As soon as I handed it to him, he looked at it, looked at me, shook me warmly by my young hands, went emotional, said I saved his honor, and went all soft and gooey. I was getting embarrassed at such a display on a trivial matter when he narrated the Story of the Blue Bangle in a tear-jerking voice:

Apparently, he lost his young wife and child in her first childbirth, and since it was a marriage of deep love, he never married again. When the corpse was being led away to the cremation ghat, he stole this one bangle of hers and kept it with him on his body in jibba-after-jibba; and this was the first and hopefully the last time in his life that he ever lost it.

Even for a kid like me the whole episode reeked of soup and I averted my eyes to hide my tears..

The evening show went off very well: Jairam Sir chose the famous episode from Ramayan where Raam and Laxman were led away by a fake golden deer and Raam's wife Sita was stolen by Raavan and whisked away to Ceylon; a truly tear-jerking story.

The performance lasted three full hours: every half an hour he was taking respite, when I would be serving him home-made coffee and pills that these pundits keep in their pillbox to keep their voice from getting hoarse.

As the story progressed with ecstatic scene after scene, I could see that the hoi polloi were moved and frequently walked in pushing note after currency note into the ballot box, the front row VIPs vying with each other.

He made quite a pile.

Next morning when we were waiting for the bus in the bus-stand, he embraced me and slipped a silver rupee coin into my hands as remuneration for services rendered, and with a twinkle in his eyes he again thanked me for retrieving the blue bangle and said:

"Nice gul I told you yesterday. My wife is very much alive and we have three kids like you and she was pestering me to buy her a pair of silver bangles. I wanted to give her a surprise, so I stole this one bangle from her kit-box for size before I left home yesterday, thinking that if I made decent money, I could buy a pair in the Silver Shop in Chinna Bazaar on my way home. You will see that if you become a teacher like me, you have to be in constant practice of telling tall tales making them up as you go."

The bus arrived, he got up and left..

I still have that silver rupee coin which I preserved all these years...it was my first earning...

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Sorry folks: I made up that entire story (plot stolen from Madhurantakam Rajaram who wrote something like it more than half a century ago...I don't know where he stole it from) now as I was going to tell you the True Story of today's blog:

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Now my True Story:

My HM father was very strict and never made easy money by selling Marks.

But Brahmin teachers were as poor as church mice and the populace those days were convinced that if they offer some fruits, flowers, vegetables, ghee and the wherewithal to deserving Brahmins, they would go to Heaven duly.

So, we did get a few Offerings now and then with no strings attached.

But these were forbidden for a month before and after the Exam Season, till the Results were put up; so that no tongues could wag.

One morning during Exam Season, when I was running along the road for a round of goli play, I was hailed and beckoned by the newly-opened Modern Tailor, the fancy one.

As I went in, I found that a well-to-do Reddy was sitting and rolling his various gold rings around his fingers. The Modern Tailor asked me to stand erect and took measurements for my full shirt and full pant (a dream come true!), and asked Reddy if lining is required for the pant, at which he grunted yes, make it silk!

My joy knew no bounds, as I thought this was going to be a wonderful gift to the HM's son after the Exam Season was over....perhaps the wealthy Reddy wanted to go to Heaven in Business Class.

After more than a month elapsed and nothing happened, I could no longer bear the suspense and shed my shyness and walked to the Modern Tailor and asked him if that pant and shirt were delivered in due time.

"Oh, yes...that Reddy wanted them the very next week as a surprise birthday gift to his son who is about your build"......

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