Madras - music, mugging & managing

Madras! It was an experience, albeit a continuing one of our exposure to Brahminism. We were quite comfortable with this exposure, while many who we came into contact with, were not. It was an extension of our experience of Amrutnagar Colony, only it was far more vivid. Amusing most of the time, sometimes it got your bile. However, Madras gave Ammamma an opportunity to expose us to the best of learning in every sphere.

When we first arrived in Madras, Tatayya, as usual, assumed that finding a house will be as easy as buying his cigarettes. We first stayed at a hotel near his office (Andhra Patrika) in Thambu Chetty Street. When our train chugged into Madras, Ammamma excitedly joined Maapi and me like a little child, to take in the first sights and sounds. We of course loved the dark blue Bay of Bengal, the mounds of salt near the sea and the smell and taste of salt on our lips, the crisp air. Ammamma told us how salt was made and why it is called a crop and she also wanted to tell us about the Salt Satyagraha - I told her that I already know about it, so she proceeded to lecture Mapi on it, while I gazed out of the window. However, the moment we got out of the station with Tatayya and started towards the hotel, the stench of the River Cooum hit us solidly and churned my stomach. After the refreshing and taking 'meals' in the hotel, we rested and promptly went out in the evening to take in the sea breeze. We revelled in the strong breeze and laughed when Ammamma had to bend and hold her saree from ballooning.

We stayed in four houses in Madras. First we sublet a room and a small cooking place in a Muslim's house in Vepery, and enjoyed their quaint Urdu and their Sheer Khorma with equal relish. We stayed in this stop gap arrangement for about a month and I wonder how Ammamma cooked food with the few things we had. On my birthday we went out to a hotel for lunch. I loved sambar in Hyderabad as it was not often made at home and I was looking forward to this treat, which, as fate would have it, was served as kakarakaya (bittergourd) sambar - Ammamma was perhaps more upset than me! She tried to alleviate a little bit by buying me a trinket off the pavement store and asked for the price. The hawker said 'paanji rubya', which Ammamma understood as 5 rupees and bought it for me and was aghast when the hawker demanded more. When the hawker told us 15 'rubees', the situation then dawned on us. Such language problems were galore and we soon learned passable Tamil for survival.

Ammamma and Tatayya found a house near the school I was supposed to go to in Thyagarayanagar (T.Nagar as it is popularly called) at 17, Burkitt Road. (it is strange how I remember all the numbers and names of my childhood addresses and nothing at all of recent events!). It was the kind of a bungalow in a compound - a two storied one that are usually seen in old movies of all Indian languages. The landlord and his family lived in one portion on the ground floor, we lived in the other, and on top, lived a husband and wife who were from Nellore. This couple were childless and the man came to Madras to produce a film. I remember Tatayya introducing Ammamma, me and Maapi to C Narayana Reddy who came to visit the upstairs producer for song writing. The producer's wife used to confide in Ammamma and cry her heart out as all their money was being spent and she was worried about their future. The film's name I think was Rickshaw Rangayya. We would witness scores of such 'dreams gone sour' stories in Tollywood.

Incidentally, Andhra Patrika also had its share of Brahmins and Tatayya had to rely on them for my school admission. According to them, the best schools were the Ramakrishna Mission run Sarada Vidyalaya and Vidyodaya school. They advised that Sarada is a better school for good girls (whatever that meant), but I was taken up with wanting to join Vidyodaya or Holy Angels. However, Tatayya and Ammamma were willing to join me in the recommended school and thus I joined Sarada Vidyalaya (incidentally, the person who got me into the school was Pilaka Ganapati Sastri, who wrote a delightful series called Pracheena Gaadha Lahari - all of which I had read because Ammamma had ordered them from Emesco mail order books. These stories were free renditions of old stories in delightful prose).

Sarada Vidyalaya was a complete opposite of Rosary Convent in Hyderabad. I was given marks only if I mugged up notes and/or guidebooks and not really encouraged to write on my own. However, there were a couple of teachers who encouraged me and I am truly grateful to them. I had to go to school in chappals, remove them when I approach the teachers, wear parikini onee (long skirt and half saree) and one plait for my very thick hair. I also had to wash my hair every Friday and this promptly made me a sinus victim all through my stay in Madras as my thick hair would not dry and compounded by the heat and humidity, I really suffered. In any case, my skin had already reacted to the Madras breeze and I had contracted rash which got infected. Ultimately, only homeopathy from the famous Dr Swamy (a dimunitive and pleasant man) cured me and remained our doctor during our stay in Madras. It is the treacherous Madras weather where, us Hyderabadis, used to dry weather, became chronic sufferers of bronchial allergies. The good part of the school was that I learnt many sanskrit slokas and music. I aprticularly enjoyed the vedic slokas and their intonation, however, I was horrified by the Tamil pronunciation of some words. I also learnt to appreciate Carnatic Music - so the school and Madras had a positive effect on me after all. I also became serious in studies as the entire atmosphere was highly competitive, something which did not happen in Hyderabad.

Maapi was put in a school nearby so that she did not have to walk on the busy T. Nagar terminus area. Ammamma took us to Andhra Balananda Sangham which was on the same road for many events. One of Tatayya's friends was an Assistant Director in movies and he came home one day and prevailed upon Ammamma to let Maapi audtion for a child artiste's role in a movie. He persisted so much that Ammamma agreed to have Maapi photogrpahed by a stills photographer (very nice pictures) and took me to a studio (We saw Ramana Reddy there and I of course asked Ammamma in a voice that could be heard whether he was indeed the same. Ammamma hushed me and Ramana Reddy smiled.) In any case, since Ammamma had taken time to make up her mind, the child artiste was already chosen. The role was that of Bhakta Prahlada and the girl chosen was Roja Ramani who went on to become an actress of moderate success. (Isn't it strange that decades later, Nishu would play with Tarun, Roja Ramani's son?). In any case, Maapi's education took the brunt of all our movements. She attended a total of eight schools in her career. In the meanwhile the lady from America who had sent us all the books, wrote about adopting children from India and offered to adopt Maapi! Ammamma was so scared that she stopped all communication with this lady.

Ammamma was unhappy with the Burkitt Road house because the bathrooms were used by all and sundry and we started looking for houses again. It was interesting to note that most Tamilians desired to rent their houses to Telugus as they can get more rent than from their own ilk. We found a small but decent flat in the outhouse of a large house (which itself had many tenants) at 25, Natesa Iyer Street. Going by Ammamma's diction and looks, the landlady mistook her for being brahmin and gave us the flat. When she discovered on the day of moving that we were not brahmins, she was upset, but was polite enough to tell us that she would not retract her promise, but made a request that we do not cook or eat non-vegetarian food in the house. It was in this house that we read about the bold decision of Indira Gandhi to stand up to the old guard in the Congress and went ahead with Mid-term elections. Her resounding success was the most hotly discussed topic. Ammamma made me write a congratulatory letter to her and surprisingly, she replied in her own hand, thanking for the wishes. Ammamma was very proud of me even though it was she who made me write it. Months later Ammamma made a casual mention of this to Vasiraju Prakasam (a young journalist and friend of Tatayya) who lamented that had he known about this at that time, he would have published it. Apart from this, she also made me join veena classes at Balananda Sangham under Koka Satyavati. I really had no talent, but Ammamma never gave up to make me learn something that she herself had no interest in! In fact when Satyam Mamayya visited us, he asked to me to play and said that music was expected to soothe children and animals even and that he did not find that true in my case and on the other hand, it might upset them!

Ammamma got fed up with the landlady who was constantly checking out on us whether we had non veg or not, so we decided to move again. We moved to the other side of my school to 81/1, habibullah Road, where we stayed in late K Raja Rao's house, who had produced the film Puttillu and which was Jamuna's break into films. The family had fallen on bad times and had retained only the house. They rented out three portions and lived in one portion. Jamuna used to visit them once in a while and take care of a few odds and ends and ask about their welfare. Ammamma remembers Sridevi (who was then an emerging child artist) coming to our house compound to take milk from the buffalo man who used to milk it in the compound, in front of his buyers (a practice that was prevalent in those days). Her house was across the road and her father was an advocate. On the same road there was S V Ranga Rao's house, where all I saw was a whole load of bright white clothes were put out to dry. I believe Savitri's house was also there. Rama Naidu, Adurti Subba Rao - all had their houses there. Harnath's (a handsome and talented actor) son - a cute little boy of four also used to come to this house and Ammamma and the neighbour used to talk about how Harnath drank away his career and his life and orphaned this poor boy. I used to hear many such stories, including the beginning of Savitri's degeneration into alcoholism. I believe that a girl called Surekha, used to visit this house as her class mate was the landlord's wife, which I do not remember. Ammamma tells me that she became Chiranjeevi's wife later.

On my walk to school, I passed music directors, directors houses and also the houses of N T Rama Rao and Sivaji Ganesan. I once saw two Tirupati buses with so many shaven heads (bodi gundlu) waiting for a glimpse of NTR. I did have the opportunity to see the funny sight of him actually coming out and all these people falling at his feet and he blessing them in Lord Krishna fashion! No wonder he believed himself to be so great. Once in Nalli's, I was forcing Tatayya to buy me an expensive parikini and he was finding it difficult to say no to me. N T Rama Rao glanced appreciatively in my direction and Ammamma felt very proud of her children. Later, other people like Shambhu Prasad (owner of Andhra Patrika) and several others also were appreciative. Ammamma used to vacillate between pride and dread as I started getting glances from people around, which was but natural at that age. She used to be fiercely protective, despite the fact that she herself had braved all odds when she was my age. The cinema atmosphere of Madras also affected her as we were witness to several girls being dumped into 'call centres' in lure of acting in movies.

Among the many other things Ammamma did in Madras, one was to buy me an Agfa Click III box camera and make me click different subjects and what started as a sport and enjoyment, soon became an ordeal for me becuase of her constant critique. Fortunately, the phase passed. Then I had to participate in a radio plays for BalaVinodam. I lent my voice for stories from Panchatantra (I was the deer among the four friends), and for a play set in Varanasi of two elephants, in which I, the she elephant ultimately dies. I had to record several times for the death cry as it would always come out as laughter. I remember Dasaradhi Rangacharya (a famous author), who was the head there, asking me to stop laughing. Ammamma also took us to several exhibitions, including a defence exhibition housed in a train (!) and for which the queues were so long that we reached home at 11 in the night and our neighbours who accompanied us, got a sound dressing out from their father/husband. Ammamma took us to movies, beach, sightseeing and so many other places because Tatayya was working till late in the evening (all press people stayed late in those days of typesetting, teleprinter news flashes and typewriters. I remember Tatayya's habit of imaginary typing of asdfg and other notations absent-mindedly with his fingers).