Other activities

Apart from my studies in school, games and sports, I did quite a few things. Most of them, I did not pursue properly. I learnt Yajur Veda from a great Sanskrit scholar for eight years approximately. Right now, these days I am recollecting whatever I have learnt. I have forgotten a lot of what I have learnt. I used to participate actively in Rudra Ekadesis, Shiva Ratris and Sankara Jayanthis even during my final stage of schooling.

I learnt playing Veena from my mom and grandfather. My grandfather and so many people in my mom's side are stalvarts in Veena and Carnatic music. I did not pursue it properly and it is very difficult for me to learn from now on. I can play Veena only to a very little extent, say I can play some easy Geethams. These Geethams I can play because I used to lend my ears to my sister when she was learning vocal music at home. I also learnt to play a simpler instrument, Keyboard. I used to learn some new songs from my grandma(my dad's mom).

To say more on my music interest, I listen to a lot of old songs, Ilayaraja and Carnatic songs. I can identify a few raagas. My grandma used to sing songs and conduct a quiz for me and my sister to identify raagas. We would also analyze raagas in cine songs. Music is a huge part of my life, I feel. But I very rarely listen to latest releases. I listen only if I get good reviews. When it comes to songs, lyrics come second to me. I never listen to the lyrics.

Since I was telling about quiz, quizzing was another passion for me. I used to participate in a lot of quiz competitions and I have won some prizes also. But I lacked that enthusiasm there to know things which are not coming my way. This I felt when I went for bigger Quiz competitions where I found people answering questions which were not at all guessable. Guess work is a key to Quizzing. I have felt this. If some quizzer is reading this, do comment on this.

Then, Karate. I learnt Karate for five years. Self-defence and physical fitness are also key things in this world. I secured Green Belt and also appeared for Brown IV. Karate classes were also fun. The exercises were really tough and tiresome. We always used to skip when the master was not seeing us. Cuttas and sparing were always of great interest. Karate master's singularities are still in my mind. His counting in Japanese, his tamil proverbs to scold students are still in my memories. I wrote and removed since it will be unparliamentary to write them. If you are interested ask me in person. :)

I am very poor in drawing. Another interest of mine was Photography. My dad bought me a Snapper camera when I was in my primary school. I have taken some good pictures then, for the child level. That camera was not an automatic rewind camera. Later I was given a Minolta Riva automatic rewinding camera. I have covered my uncle's marriage fully and I still have the album with 108/108 good snaps. The current camera which I have is a digital camera Sony 5.1 Mega Pixels camera. I have lost interest in photography suddenly, the reason being I will never be in pictures when I am taking snaps.

And in the next blog I will continue with my final schooling days.

Off-the-school

In those days, I was fully occupied with activities. I never remained idle. We have played cricket like anything on the street near my house, in nearby schools' grounds and also in paddy fields. We used to hit balls and when it goes on the terrace of some house we would climb on top of a house and walk the entire street on the terrace and get the ball. Those were really adventurous and I am very scared now on the very thought of such activities. We would play ice ball in the evenings when there are power cuts. There were very strange rules for the game and it will be so funny to explain them and I am skipping them. Video games were creating the trend. Mario is a game which I have played in all possible ways to reach the queens. Business was another time killing game.

Some events are still so crystal clear in my memories. I do not remember the age when I did this. My grandma alone was in the house. My friends were all quite elder to me. They had planned to go to a movie. Indian starring Kamalhassan was the one recently released. I too wanted to join them. My grandma would not allow nor give money if I had told I am going to a movie. So I said I am going to buy a team cricket bat and we all are sharing the money. It was not a lie. We bought a bat but for 35 rupees!! We went to the movie Indian and saw it seated in the first row. Then I told this after a long time to my dad. He did not tell anything. After all he would have got reminded of his childhood.

One day, when we were playing cricket during some vacation in the day time, I was keeping wickets. Then, there was an edge from the batsman and I took the catch but the batsman said it was not. The stump was the base of an electric post. When the batsman denied it, I threw the ball in anger and the streetlight was broken. It burst with a great sound and people came outside their houses. But we immediately vacated the streets. But everyone knew we were the culprits. We have broken several roofs, water pipes of houses, hurt so many people while playing cricket, spoilt milk cans etc. etc.. On that eventful day, one of my friends who used to come by cycle to play left his cycle near the playarea. Since I was responsible for this, I had to get the cycle. I did not know cycling then. I had to pull the cycle by hands and took it to the street corner and handed it over.

This is an accident I saw very close to my eyes. We were playing a tournament in a school ground. When our side was batting, we were sitting on the terrace of the principal room of the school. One of my friends, was standing on the wall of the terrace. There was a high voltage line passing on top of the building. He started swinging holding that and at some point, he held two wires together and he started screaming. Another friend of mine, was too smart enough and hit his hand with a rubber slipper. The boy fell down and we could see his bones in the forearm. His flesh had already melted. I took him to some doctor and after dressing up, I took him to his house and I got scoldings from his family. Poor people, how would they know what had happened. I saw him after a long time and we remembered everything.

I have played a lot and have gone missing from my house and have got a lot of scoldings from so many people. Everything just seem to be nothing other than memories now. I have enjoyed my life each and every moment, whether it was happy or sad, I have enjoyed. I was quite athletic and used to run considerably fast among my classmates. And I also used to play many more games like Shuttle Badminton, Volleyball, football and have won prizes. Even now I play some volleyball, cricket, football but the frequency has come down considerably. I will write more on things other than sports and games.

My Schooling - III

Continuing with playing cricket in school as it is more fun... So how do we used to play cricket? This is a very very interesting way. We used to bring cricket balls hidden in our bags. Bringing balls to school was banned. If found the P.E.T staff used to collect them. If even balls are banned how come you get bats. Is that the question in your mind? Cricket bats were manufactured by us in school. We used to break chairs and tables and get a leg of it or an arm of it and used to play with them. So it is obviously indiscipline as per the school. If ever the P.E.T staff come to the ground, we all would run and hide somewhere.

Sometimes for our big hits the ball used to go out of the cricket ground boundary wall which means outside the school premises. Some watchmen would allow us to go outside the gate. Some do not. In that case we would climb the wall, jump over it and fetch the ball. Of course sometimes we would get caught for such activities. We most of the times were successful. There used to be a lot clashes on the cricket field for small small things. Our class B section remained to be a terror till X standard. A lot of notorious activities used to happen. Bunking classes fetched us cleaning the ground. We always used to go and play whenever a staff was on leave. Copying in exams, seeing the original question paper in the staff room were some other thrills practised in our class.

There were three kinds of boys I have felt in my class - who were wanting themselves to be disobedient, who were spending time with girls of the class and the others were very quiet and obedient. I used to move with all kinds of people and mostly I was very much a mix of these three with the third kind more in me. The girls were also quite similar. We did not have any tomboy or tomgirl in our class to my memory. Will continue soon with my studies and other activities in my next post with a better title.

My schooling - II

My fourth standard found me a new girl competitor. She was a beautiful brilliant girl from a minority religion of India. She is doing her studies in medicine when I am writing this blog. I liked her very much. I do not want to attribute any word like "crush" etc. as it was a very young age and I am quite bold enough to tell the same to the girl today. I would still like her! There are so many indefinable relations I have felt.

Fifth standard was a totally dark classroom. The classroom had a pigeon's nest and the classroom was always stinking. They closed windows always to avoid the birds. The bird would give some strange sounds and the class would burst into laughter. Many of our classes have got cancelled because of this reason. We would chant Bhagavad Gita in those classes or play some games. I am really having a very poor memory of these primary classes and this should be acceptable as it was more than ten years ago.

There was a boy in the primary school. He was quite a genius. His mother was a teacher in our school. He was consistently topping the class. Me and my friend always used to look at him with awe and also make fun of him. It never mattered to me as I never was topping the class.

Sixth standard, I was shifted section from A to B. In A section, the staff felt there was too much elitism and wanted to have it balanced in both the sections. The toppers were shuffled. I got first rank in my sixth standard first exams. After that what happened, I never secured first rank. B section was totally totally a fun-filled classroom. We started playing cricket regularly. Everyday in breaks, lunch and in the evening after school.

Sixth standard, the uniform changes. Boys wear full-pants. That gave us a great feeling. Boys were not allowed to use the school van service from sixth. But they permitted me as I had my sister in the KG. So what and all I did outside the school in those times. Let me continue in my next post. Will write soon!!

A few more childhood events

This is the latest of the stories of my childhood and I heard this a few days back. My grandfather was a homoeopathy doctor and I used to get those sweet medicine daily from him. He used to prepare the sugar balls separately and add medicine later. So I guess he would give me the sugar balls alone. My grandfather used to spend most of his time upstairs in his easy chair. One day, when he had gone downstairs, I had creeped upstairs and poured a full bottle of gumon his easy chair and applied it. He had laid on that chair and he got stuck on it. Then people slowly detached the chair from him or him from the chair. He was so angry with me that day.



And yet another "hit" story. I had hit my great grandmother with a cleaning stick which is used to remove spider webs near the ceilings. My grand father who used to prostrate to his mother everyday and check her pulse, did the same that day and told people that there is no pulse. Everyone got scared and they called on our family doctor. And so very luckily she survived and the doctor told my mother that I had hit the old lady on her way back home. She had come home rushing to see her mother-in-law's mother-in-law!!

My schooling - I

I was not 3 years complete when I started going to school. I was underaged when I was admitted to Lower Kindergarten. My grandma used to carry me to the school which was near my house. I still remember my care-taker teacher and the school principal. They too remember me till date. I did my LKG and UKG alone in that school. That was a very small school and I do not have great memories of what happened in that school nor could people know what happened there and told me.

Some of my memories in those days, I wish to share in this blog. The first is a fancy dress competition where I was dressed as Swami Vivekananda. Lot many people were involved in making me up and teaching me a few lines to speak. Great lines but nothing difficult to memorize or present it. "Awake, Arise, Stop not till the goal is reached". I remember I was asked to speak like this. But I see this quote everywhere as "Arise, awake, stop not till the goal is reached". Whatever be it. The thing here is that I won the first prize for this fancy dress competition.

Nothing more I wish to share about the school. I guess it was quite like everyone else's KG schooling. But I have been told this incident quite a few times and it happened in that time but not in my school. It was near my house gate. My neighbor was very fond of me and she always used to make me speak something. That day, I was with my grandma near our gate and my neighbor entered her house. She as usual asked my grandma some common questions and then turned towards me and asked if she could come to our house for lunch. And my answer was so simple and it was "We did not place the cooker on the stove today!".

Then I got shifted for my I standard to another school, in which I continued for 10+2 years. I remember all my classrooms and almost all my teachers. In my first standard, the class was asked to do an assignment and it was to collect some insects. And children never do assignments in that age and it was work for the parents. My father's office staff collected insects for me and my father did the fit and finish job. I remember this very much because I saw this years later in my school. All the insects had decayed and there were no remains but the names of the insects and my name were there.

I started playing cricket on the streets from my first standard. I used to play daily in the evening as soon as I come back from school till sunset. In my second standard, in school, there was good competition in our school and the toppers in the class, we were really close friends. In the maths class, I remember there was always a race as to who finishes all the problems first. And I do not have any statistics as to who used to win the race mostly. The things I remember are that I used to score good marks but I never have stood first in the class. I had come first in class only once till my X standard. In my II standard, the maths papers where distributed and I had secured a centum. The teacher used to teach Tamil and Maths. The teacher gave me the paper and said "Keep it up!". I was a sincere student and I immediately climbed the book rack and placed the paper up. I do not remember whether it was my ignorance or my intention to create a laughter in the class. But everyone laughed in the class then.

We used to play a lot in the school. The school was far away from our house and I was a passenger of the school van. During the waiting time for the van, I would finish all our homework in school so that I could play as soon as I get back home. In my second standard or third standard, I joined the Veda chanting class near my house. That I continued for 8 years nearly. My third standard memories are totally void or I did not do anything special or rememberable. I guess I had a fancy dress dance competition where I played a Frenchman. There was a girl for a frenchwoman. I do not remember her name.

Let me continue with more on my schooling in the next entry.

My infancy and childhood

This blog is an attempt to share with others the Prasad I know. I am sharing only shareable memories of my life! I would simplify the narration instead of burdening people to remember names and relations, thereby being safe also.

I was born on 23rd July 1985 at Nagerkovil. Nagerkovil is a place in Tamilnadu, one of the southern most states of India. My birth alone was there in Nagerkovil. I do not share any other significant bond with Nagerkovil. I was slightly above normal weight at the time of birth.

17 years of my childhood I spent in Tirunelveli. I was brought up by a lot of people. Our family is big and in those days after my birth my parents, grand-parents, great-grand mother, my two uncles(my dad's younger brothers), one with his wife used to live in the same house. We lived in a house on the main road. Our house had a ground floor and a first floor. It was a rented house and the owner of the house is one of our very close relatives(like an elder brother to my dad) who stays in a street parallel to ours. My dad's sister used to stay in the street parallel to ours. From the backyard of our house we can reach the backyard of her house and our elder uncle(our house owner) stayed in a house opposite to that of hers.

I was less than a year old when the following happened. One night I had cried to the peak of my voice. I used to cry around midnight and my mother would give some infant food drink and the bottle would be finished by me in a few mins and thrown away. That night my mother thought that it was the same and she had come with a feeding bottle. I had not stopped crying that night. People were worried that some insect had bitten and thought that was why I was crying. So immediately they had taken to me to our family doctor. The doctor was the right person and he did find the correct reason as to why I was crying. There was some fluid coming out of my ear and they immediately took me to a nursing home at around 2 am. I was medicated properly and I have fairly good audibility till date. However, my ears are one of my weak spots and I hated people touching my ears till my high school days.

The above was one of the incidences people used to discuss very frequently and almost all the following incidences are not from my memory but from the narration of the people who had grown me up.

I was quite fast in learning things in my infancy. I stood up and used to walk even before when I completed 1 year. I never had had a childish accent. I had been able to pronounce "KA", "RA" (the indian way of pronouncing "RA") even in my very young ages. My uncle's wife used to give me lunch as both my parents were employed. I used to run to my aunt's house behind ours and make her run after me to feed me. One day, as usual when she was chasing me to feed me, I had stopped in the garden in our backyard and threw a big piece of a brick at her and people say that she was wounded!! Was I that strong when I was a year old?

I was very agile and used to run through all the places in all the three houses(ours, my aunt's and my elder uncle's). I was 2-3 years old when the following happened. In my aunt's house, I used to play cricket with my aunt's son in the first floor. On the day of this anecdote, we had played for long and we were getting down for lunch. My aunt's mother-in-law had her head shaved that day and was seated in the staircase. I asked her to give way for me to get down. I remember she had some hearing problems. Whether she heard me or not, I do not remember, but the fact is that she did not give me way that day. So what happened next? I had a cricket bat in my hand. It was not a plastic bat but a bat with the famous brand Sunridges written on it! BANG!! Blood started pouring from her head and Prasad was nowhere in the spot after seconds of her scream. Poor old lady but she survived the hit thankfully.

I used to play with my elder aunty in their backyard. There is a well in their backyard which serves them water till date. This well situated in the river bed of Thamirabarani has had water all round the year for several years. The people then in this house were my grandmother's sister, her husband and their two sons(my elder uncles) and daughters in law(elder aunties). I spent time almost equally in all these three houses. My grandma's sister was drawing water from the well that day. It was around noon when she was drawing water and she saw something glittering in the sunlight in the well. She managed to take that object and found that it was a tumbler. That day all the inmates of the house worked for hours and found several utensils from the well. They are not treasures but they were all their own vessels with their initials in them. So the obvious answer as how they went to the well is me. I had been dropping all these into the well unnoticed.

This was me during my pre-school days. I was a kid whom everyone loved and feared. I was scared of one person, an old person who used to roll in the streets begging for alms shouting the name of the lord Govinda. On hearing his voice I used to run from wherever I was to my grandma and close my ears. Apart from this, I have hit people, made people run behind me, thrown stones, bit some noses, carried a fully grown pussy cat which people were so afraid of etc..

These are some memorable anecdotes of my pre-school days which people have told me. In my next blog, I would continue with my school day memories.