Childhood

On the 23rd of July 2013, I sat down on the cane sofa opposite him and with a pen and a diary in my hand, I revealed my intentions of writing a biography on him and enthusiastically asked him to narrate his life story. With a very amused and a slightly pleased expression on his face, he decided to humour me.

“Tell me, what is it that you want to know? Ask me questions and I will answer them.”

As predicted, he did not seem to need a lot of questioning to get him going. He eased his way into this time capsule and took me along with him to his childhood days.

“I was born on 23rd January, 1934 in a village called Gattu. Back then, it was a part of Raichur district in Karnataka but it is now a part of Mahabubnagar district in Andhra Pradesh. I was named Krishna Rao Manvikar by my maternal grandmother. My mother was Narsamma and father was Sanjeev Rao Manvikar.”

At the mention of his mother’s name, I glimpsed a microexpression of sadness on his face.

“Unfortunately, she passed away when I was about 11 years old. She was diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB) and back then TB meant death. There were no good medications available and healthcare was very backward in the 1930s/40s.

Her adoptive parents, Bharatamma and Somanna (a.k.a. Swami Rao) took me under their care immediately after she passed away. She was adopted by them when she was a baby; probably when she was a few months old. My mother was Somanna’s younger sister’s daughter. They decided to adopt her as the couple could not have children of their own.

Although she never had a formal schooling as such, she was literate in Telugu and could speak Kannada as well. My family is inherently Kannadiga but since we had a lot of Telugu influence, we are all literate only in Telugu but since the scripts are so similar, I can read Kannada as well.”

When I asked him to describe his father, he said, “My father, Sanjeev Rao, was Bharatamma’s younger brother. Although, by relation, my parents seem very closely related, by blood they were not. Hence they had such golden children,” he said mischievously and gleefully chuckled.

Composing himself, he morosely added, “This couple faced great tragedy. With his wife passing away, my father had to look after us by himself. Things were very different back then. People used to surrender to situations. Nowadays, people try to challenge and change the status quo.”

“My mother was made to sleep outside the house in the veranda to ensure sufficient ventilation of air for her. This is the most they could do to ease her suffering. TB was sort of incurable in those days.

He then gleefully remarked that he was among the lucky 4 children to have survived for so long. On a serious note, he mentioned that he had 2 other brothers who unfortunately passed away at a very young age. Rami, Vitta, Babu and he managed to survive and live long enough to marry and have kids. His other siblings namely Vasanta and Prabhakar passed away when he himself was a kid.

Vasanta saw daylight only for a couple of months. Prabhakar, on the other hand, lived up to a couple of years.

“Jeeva thind bidthidda aa Prabhakar”. I was a little perplexed at his remark about his younger brother troubling him.

When I prodded further, he said, “Since I was the eldest child in the family, and with my mother passing away, Prabhakar was my responsibility. I carried him around and had to be by his side at his every beck and call. In fact, it was expected of me to prioritize him over my schooling. I rejoined school after he passed away.”

When he saw my appalled expression, he added, “Our lifestyle was very different in those days. In the outskirts of our village was a group of nomadic campers called Thaanda (Lambadi). One day my Avva (Mother), Prabhakar and I woke up early in the morning and set off to visit the Thaanda on a bullock cart. We were told that these nomads had medication for my younger brother. Upon reaching there, to my horror, they took wooden sticks and using flame from the fire used for cooking, they jabbed Prabhakar’s lower back and burnt it. They believed this process would heal his ailment. Poor Prabhakar yelped in pain.”

He looked down at his palms dismally.

When I asked him about the burns on his abdomen, he replied, “I don’t remember when or how I was given these burns. I was too young to remember it anyway. But I remember the Vice Principal of my college, Mr B D Chaudhary had burns on his temples and the part between the eyebrows and above the nose”, and he pointed to his glabella.

“When we asked him about the history of the burns, the Vice Principal shrugged and disapprovingly said that superstitions have been ingrained deeply in people and he was given those burns as a baby.”

“I wonder when our country will be rid of all these superstitions”, he added softly.

I just sat there in silence and let it all sink in.

He glanced at the wallclock and declared that it was lunch time. On that note, we got up and made our way to the dining table. Budmakai huli and rice awaited us. As usual, he happily picked out the vegetable pieces from the huli and apparently safeguarded them from me to eat them later.

The twinkle in his eye was very typical of him. I looked at him fondly and threatened to steal them from him. He took a small piece, tossed it into his mouth and pointed to the sky indicating that it flew to the sky.