Warning: Giving or accepting bribe is crime under the law
I guess I was 12 years old at that time. We were living in Kakinada, a calm town on the east coast.
The ‘Jai Andhra‘ movement was at its peak. Classes at schools were hardly held for six months in that academic year. There were always strikes and agitations. The first causality for any agitation is the education system. Initially, the forced holidays seemed fine for us. But after a while we were getting bored.
We were always playing in the neighborhood. The only requirement for the kids was to be able to respond as soon as we hear amma shout out to return. This was more or less the routine at that time.
My friends Patnala and Achari were planning to go for a motor boat ride near the Jagannathpuram bridge on that year’s 15th of August. (It was common to be called by surnames in those days). I wanted to go with them by all means. When I asked amma, she said, “I don’t know, ask baba.” She also had something to ask baba. “I myself am hesitating to ask baba” she said. Does that mean that I have amma’s approval?
Is is not easy to convince baba. Something must be done. (I am not sure I told to you earlier, we called our father as baba).
That day baba had his afternoon shift. (Baba used to work one of two shifts). When at home, he had a regimental routine. After morning puja, he reads out loud the Andhra Maha Bhagavatam by Potana. After completing his Bhagavatam session, he shouts out “eme!” to indicate he is done with his reading session. Amma responds by bringing in hot coffee. It took a long time for us to understand that he might be reading what all he reads so some of it will get into our heads. He never seemed to read for himself.
As baba started off with his Bhagavatam reading, amma put the hot coffee tumbler in my hand and said “go and give it to baba“. I started wondering if amma chose today to ask baba what she wanted to ask. “Aha!” exclaimed baba enthusiastically as he picked up the coffee tumbler from my hand. He seems to be in good mood! Almost simultaneously the fan in the ceiling went off due to a power-cut. “What a bad time to have the fan go off!” he said, in a disappointed tone. He only knows the ecstatic feeling of drinking hot coffee while sitting under the ceiling fan. Of course, amma knows it better.
Just then, something flashed in my mind. I reached out to my handfan1 in one jump. While baba started drinking coffee, I started swinging the hand-fan as though to compensate for the ceiling fan that went off. I started mentally patting myself for my timing (to pick up the hand-fan). Luckily, baba was not in the mood to discover the cunning smile that inadvertently showed up on my face. He was thoroughly enjoying his coffee.
I did not realize when amma came there. She said to baba, “Your sister is coming from Madras next month. after a long gap. It is good if we can offer her a saree when she leaves. Can you manage?”. I could read in her eyes the empathy for baba. Maybe she was sorry for adding to his burden with this idea. Baba‘s response was unexpectedly cool. He said “I already put in a word with Venkatarao. He told me to pick up whatever we need from his cloth stores. We can repay him in three or four installments”. Amma looked relieved and said “I was tensed up to bring up the conversation, it is good you already have plans” and left. Looks like the coffee time plan is working well. Clever amma, as always. That was quick.
“What’s your matter my boy?” baba turned to me and said. Even though I was prepared so much for this conversation, “Nothing!” came out of my mouth unintentionally, almost immediately. “It’s okay, tell me, there’s something,” he said with a smile, looking at the swinging hand-fan in my hand. I felt like getting caught red-handed while offering bribe. I shrank even more with shame. Even if baba does not seem to notice, he knows it all.
I gathered my courage and said, “all my friends are going for a motor boat ride on the fifteenth of August …” I did not even finish. “No!” he was curt in his response. I said “there is no ticket, it’s free on August 15th”. “If it is free, then definitely no!” saying that bluntly, baba got immersed himself into the Bhagavatam. His face turned red maybe because I said “it is free”. “Did I rub him on the wrong side?”. I was not sure. I don’t have the courage to talk about it anymore.
On the fifteenth, both Patnala and Achari made a last ditch effort to ask amma to allow me to go with them. Amma said “do not to drag me into this. baba already gave you his decision”. I was just short of crying. They bid good bye to me and went on the planned boat trip.
Within an hour, Patnala and Achari came back, panting. “Sit down. Why did you come back like a replycard2? Do you want some fresh water?” amma has so many questions for them. Why is she excited? Why does she need to be so formal and polite to these guys who come home every other day? I was already feeling bad that I didn’t go. But amma suspected something was wrong as soon as she saw their faces. As they took water from amma‘s hand, they started crying. It seems they missed the boat they were to board. (Is it because of me that they were late? Are they blaming me because they missed the boat? My mind started wavering before I listened to them completely).
The boat they were supposed to board was overloaded and capsized. It is not known how many survived. They said, “today we both survived because of you, Swayaprabha garu” they were in so much grief that they were trembling and sounding gibberish. (When we were kids, we didn’t call our neighbors and friend’s mothers as ‘auntie’, just took their names with a respectful suffix as ‘ji‘ or ‘garu‘).
It took me a while to fully understand what had happened. They thought it was two but actually it was three that were saved that day. I am the third person. That was because of baba. Now amma would start new fasts and offerings to thank God. Oh my God, will I be asked to accompany her to the temple to do the pradakshina-s (circumambulation)?
That evening when baba came back home, this topic did not come up. Everybody behaved as if nothing happened. Does he not know the boat incident that day? The whole town is talking about the capsized boat entire week. He must be aware but did not seem to care to show that he knows. I felt like saying “thanks” to baba from the bottom of my heart; but I didn’t. I had no guts to look into baba eye-to-eye that day. Had I looked, I would have read in his eyes that they are telling me “Never mind kiddo, this is not the first or only time you were saved“.
1 If a palm leaf hand-fan is damaged, it can be used as a gun or as any other thing to play. That is why there were hand-fans all over the house but a good one was never found when needed. It is a big battle if two (or more) children share the same hand-fan. Buying again and again is a battle with baba. Initially, my mother wrote the child’s name on a hand-fan with a pen and thought “problem was solved”. These are monkeys in the house, not children. If some-one’s hand-fan is not found, we used to scribble on the hand-fan of another so nobody can find out whose hand-fan is lost or damaged. That is why colorful blouse pieces were sewn on the edges of the hand-fan and amma used to caution us to take care of our own hand-fan. Initially, we thought that such great ideas were amma’s own. But then, when we visited our neighbors and relatives, we realized that piping on the hand-fan with a cloth was the trend at that time.
2 There used to be paired post cards (and I guess they still are available). These were called reply-cards. If a letter is written on a reply-card and sent, the recipient writes a reply on the second card and posts it back. The recipient of the letter does not have to spend even ten paise, this is the facility provided by Postal Department.
Image Courtesy: Ahalya Sattiraju