“Know Thyself”. If you know yourself, you know everything. I am not talking in that philosophical sense here. I wanted to introduce myself. Who Am I? Modern scholars divided generations into Baby Boomer generation, Generation X- people born between 1965-1979, Millennials (also known as generation Y)- People born in between 1980-1994 and Generation Z, – people born in between 1995-2019.
I belong to Gen X – born on 20th August, 1966, Saturday. I am a Leo. My birth was at my mother’s native place, Vemulwada, a small sleepy town about 250 km away from Hyderabad. Latitude & Longitude of Vemulwada Telangana, India are 18.481934, and 78.867226. It’s a popular religious place where the temple of Raja Rajeshwari Swamy or Lord Shiva is situated.
My mother’s name is Smt. Shanta Devi and father’s name is Shri. K. Muthiam Reddy. My mother studied up to class 12 or PUC. She hailed from a lower middle class agricultural family. My mother was quite beautiful. My father a 6 feet handsome man – is born in an agricultural family at Govindupalli village near Jagityal. There was no light, no road in that village with a solitary house amidst green agricultural fields. He grew up with buffaloes, cows, chicken & goats. The nearest Govt. school was about 5 km away, he walked at least 10 km a day!
My childhood was split between Vemulawada and Jagityal. Of the four children, I was the eldest. No sisters. My father studied his undergraduate and post graduate courses from the Osmania University, Hyderabad. Later, he studied law. He wrote competitive examinations because getting a Govt. job was the dream of youth in those days, got selection as Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP). He studied well and was hard working. My father’s job was transferable and thus I ended up studying in Govt. Telugu medium schools. Wherever my father was transferred I was shifted. Thus, I studied at Khammam, Nellore, Kurnool, Amlapuram, Hyderabad, Jagityal, Nirmal – some names I can recall.
I grew up seeing N.T. Rama Rao (NTR) and Sridevi’s movies. My first Hindi movie exposure was, I think, Dostana. I did not understand a word.
Everybody said it’s a great movie because of ‘Laila O Laila’ song. I was idealising, fantasizing, imitating and following Telugu heroes and heroines. The primary source of movie information was newspapers and movie magazines – Sitara and Jyotichitra which we only get to read at the Barber shop. As fate would have it, I was admitted to Andhra Pradesh Residential Junior College (APRJC) Nagarjuna Sagar for class 11 and 12 -Intermediate. It was a turning point in my life. I understood what studies & competition are all about. As it was a Govt. establishment, the Govt. paid for tuition fees, books, food and other facilities for all who were admitted at APRJC. Somehow l managed to get a good score in Intermediate.
I described life events from my birth to intermediate stage. We had no access to telephones. Computers, of course, were unheard of! We were obsessed with freedom fighters, freedom struggles and glorified sacrifices of patriots for India’s freedom. We grew up hearing India is a great country and all Indians are brothers and sisters and lots of patriotism. Few cars on the roads – only 2 or 3 car brands.
My father’s first car was Standard Herald. Few years later, he purchased a second hand Ambassador car. It used to be a status symbol. The cost of petrol was around Rs 5 per litre – prohibitively expensive! English movies? What are they? English newspaper means – The Hindu. Eenadu, Telugu newspaper was yet to take birth. The cities looked bigger and population much smaller. Traffic negligible. The only means of transportation was few buses provided by the Road Transport Corporation buses (APSRTC). Around that time, my father decided for the sake of the family to settle at Hyderabad.
I had many childhood crushes. I don’t remember the names of those girls but yes, I did have huge crush on them. I could not afford, but seeing NTR, wanted to smoke. But from where would I get a cigarette or money? So, I found hollow sticks – light one end and inhale smoke from the other end. Beedis were quite prevalent, I did smoke beedi too. The soap we had was Lifebuoy and luxury soap was Lux. We could not afford to buy lux, so we bought lifebuoy. Another soap of those days was OK soap – bigger & cheaper than lifebuoy. No shampoos. Either Reita or Shikhakaye used for hair cleaning. Access to readymade clothes was zero. So invariably the tailor would have to come and take measurements to stitch. Usually for festivals like Dussehra or Diwali we used to get new pair of clothes.
I used to steal from my mother’s purse – 5 paisa / 3 paisa – which had a lot of value. I bought toffees that were displayed attractively in the bottles.
I am including the following photographs in this article: My parents wedding card; My mother’s PUC certificate where she scored miserably in English. Couple of photographs of my parents and my own.
I had a camera called Click3 (I still have it). So, we used to get B&W Fuji film and gradually during my later childhood I saw the advent of colour film rolls. And some photographs which were shot with Click3 I am including in this article. And please don’t ask of the other people in the photograph, I have no idea. What was the occasion? No memory please. Memories fade away. I enjoyed my childhood. I swam in rivers, streams and in the wells. I rode on buffaloes and cows back. Most of times I drank milk straight from the udders of the cow / buffalo / goat. We found bee hive and after an enormous struggle we took honey and drank it. We stole fresh chicken eggs from neighbour’s houses. We caught fish, ran amidst green fields. Drink fresh cool water from wells. Light fire using flint stones as 10 paise matchbox was unaffordable! We climbed mango, tamarind, neem trees, made swings to swing. I fought with friends, sometimes seriously…only to become friends again. School was an excuse to get out from house at 6.30 am returning at 7 pm only to be punished by mother. Hot dinner, tired body and inviting bed… the world was dead to me by 7.30 pm.
Like the waves of the ocean, the memories come back and most of the time I cannot put these waves into words. Faded memories!!!