It was four in the evening and
my auto brought me to the main gate of the Bapatla Agricultural College, my
alma mater. At the gate, a security guard peered at me perhaps to ensure that I
am a harmless visitor… Hearing that I am an old student of the college, he did
let me in… So, here I am on the campus once again after 54 years.
And there in front of me a
two-kilometre-long lane, the main artery of the College, snaked ahead connecting
the main gate to the rest of the buildings in the campus. As I walked in, there,
right in front stood that imposing and dominating two-floor stone edifice with
its long corridors adorned by gothic arches, joining Lord Byron “…left a grand
impression on the mind, / At least of those whose eyes were in their hearts.”
Behind it the playground and
the pavilion, to its right was the Veterinary block then the old hostel
(Pothana), opposite to it was the JC Bose Life Sciences block, as we proceed
further down, there was the new hostel (Vemana), opposite to it stood rows of
asbestos sheds housing Extension Dept. on one side and Physiology labs on the
other side, then those two new hostel
blocks called Siddartha and Vivekanada opposite to which there was the diary
and attached dormitory rooms … and behind it towards the east stood two huge
sheds of World War II time. Abutting them was an expansive vacant space and to
its south there stood veterinary hospital and Animal Husbandry labs. This was
the road that I had walked several times over, for four long years.
As it is said that the mind
first seeks familiarity… I too scouted for the familiar spots on the campus.
And this led me to the gallery in that stone building sitting in which I heard first,
third, and final year theory classes. As I entered the gallery, a battalion of
fuzzy memories assaulted me…
It was also the same venue in
which I did practice mock-teaching, of course, when none were around, what a
pleasure it was! In one such mock-teaching session I encountered a surprising
or should I say shocking experience: as I, scribbling Kerbs cycle on the board,
turned towards the empty benches in an attempt to explain it, there sat the F&BG
Manager in the second row abetting entrance, silently watching me or should I
say, listening to me. But quickly recovering I continued the lecture as
though he was not there.
That was followed by another
interesting encounter. After finishing the drill, I went to the restroom to
wash my hands that were dusted by chalk piece powder. Unwittingly I left the
door unbolted, for I was in just to wash hands. As I came out, Prof IVP, that
domineering lot (though lean and of frail personality) of the campus, who
standing in front of Chemistry lab, perhaps, for me to come out, said with a
quizzical smile, “What man, what would it have been, had Pushpamma came?” Offering
excuses, profusely, managed to somehow wriggle out of that awkward situation.
It was the same gallery in
which, while I was reading Alistair MacLean’s The Guns of Navarone sitting by the window in the back row facing
gas tanks, in the Dairy-Chemistry class of Mr. Rehaman, that he suddenly calling
me, “that last row, window-side man”, questioned, “What is anaerobic metabolism?”
Taken by surprise, I tried to answer him by structuring something from out of
what he had scribbled on the board and I thought I was near right. Instead of
being satisfied with it, obviously with a clear understanding of what I was
doing, he enquired about my marks in the second term exams. I said, “Got 36”
(out of 50). He then questioned, “How did you get it?” “That’s what I was given”, replied I. “Don’t
be smart, come and sit on the front bench from now onwards”, ordered he. That
was really a hell of a punishment for me.
This episode suddenly took me
to Biochemistry classes of I V Subba Rao, whose lectures I enjoyed the most. What a
professionalism! He used to write lengthy chemical equations on board without a
piece of paper in hand in Biochemistry classes. Remarkable. So was the case
with Dr. Rangarao’s classes, who used to say with a mischievous smile in his glistering
eyes, “I can teach DDT for months, for Muller wrote three volumes” indicating
their size with his hands. How impressive it was to listen to crop husbandry
lectures of Prof IS Rao delivered in his unique rising intonation.
Coming out of that trance, as I walked towards the other end of the building where the Agronomy Dept is located, Mr. Rama Rao and his long-winding recitation about growing tobacco nurseries in one of our 2nd year practical sessions struck to mind. More as a messenger, starting thus, “Along the coast of Andhra, over 650 km, stretching from Kalingapatnam in Srikakulam district to Kothapatnam in Ongole, tobacco nurseries are grown in raised beds of sandy loams during the months of August-September…” he vomited, all that he might have struggled to memorise last night, in one go. Indeed, I did say to that effect to my neighbour, who unfortunately laughed at it. Perhaps, feeling that I mocked at him, he ordered me to walk all the way back to college that was almost five km from the farm, while he along with others drove off by college bus. And that love-hate relationship with him continued for the rest of the year. For, after all, hadn’t Salinger said: “You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something [?]. They just do it”.
Of course, my preceding-numbered
classmate often used to question me: “Emoi
Radhakrishna endukoi why do you tease
the instructors? They will spoil your chances of …”. But I used to simply brush
it off saying “it is a hell of a lot of fun and to have it, aren’t we to pay a
price?” A lousy rationalisation of a lousy student! But looking back, I now
feel how stupid of me to pick a row at them, and end up in lots of
disadvantages?
But then, that was how life
was then… As I was caught in it, a funny incident came to mind: once, in the
veterinary practical class, Dr. Venugopal Reddy was explaining how to get the animals
that suddenly fainted back into senses using ammonium carbonate salt to activate
their sympathetic nervous system. Watching my neighbour meddling with the jar
containing the salt I just said, “Smell it”. And he did it… and Lo! He had it …
at once shrieked loudly, for the mucous lining of the nose might have got strongly
irritated (for the bottle containing salt must never be kept directly under the
nostrils, it must only be moved in front of the nostrils from this side to that
side). Thank god, in a knee-jerk reaction, I snatched the bottle and put it
aside. A momentary horror … but thank god nothing untoward happened, for Dr. Reddy is known as a strict disciplinarian.
Reminiscing over such recollections, walking till the end of the road and saluting the corner room of Vivekananda hostel in which I stayed before walking out of that campus once for all, took a U-turn and as I neared the basketball court, a sudden surge pushed me to that sandpit abutting the basketball court in which I and my roommate spent many evenings listening to Radio Ceylon that blared out from the pavilion and talking endlessly about Burmanda’s compositions for Navketan, particularly songs sung by Kishore Kumar such as Hum hai rahi pyar ke… dardbhi hamen qubul, chain bhi hamen qubul; Aankhon mein kya ji roopehla badal… and so on…
In that creeping darkness, as I
settled in it, cheers from the pavilion rose and fell sinusoidally, a raw energy
pulsating in the thick air was palpable in that cheering… Dusting off the sand,
tucking away my memories, slowly walked back to the gate. As I returned to the entrance,
involuntarily my eyes looked for kakkurthi,
that seedy town hall canteen,
sitting in which we talked about everything under the sun over a coffee glass…
Noticing a new building in its
place, slowly walked along the road and by the time I realised where I am, I am
already in the railway station Lo! Those walks in solitude on that soft sand
along the railway track towards the VLW training centre in the twilight hours
ruminating on everything under the sky flashed at once. In the silence of that
encircling darkness, one evening it could be about the life of Gopichand’s
Sitapati and his ineptness, another day about Buchibabu’s Dayanidhi and his
flirtations with … yet another day about Adriana, that simple girl of Albert
Moravia from Rome with no fortune except her beauty that turns her into a
prostitute and her nudging us towards Nietzsche’s “amor fati”, and its underlying philosophy… “Do not seek for things
to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the
way it happens; then you will be happy”, and so on….
And yet in another evening it
was about Somerset Maugham’s Larry Darrel in Razor’s edge and his loafing to search for true meaning of life
–its pain, passion, and poignancy of life itself – his landing in India and
getting bugged by Advaita philosophy
…to “Raise, wake up, seek the wise and realize…” but finally planning to
practice in Chicago “calmness, forbearance, compassion, selflessness and
continence”— and in the maze of that ambiguity, how many evenings were thus spent/wasted?
Come Sunday, I used to sit in
town library dusting off the old books such as Radhakrishnan’s Eastern Religion and Western Thought or
his two volumes on Indian Philosophy and
inhaling the accumulated dust while flipping the pages and of course, enjoying
their musty fragrance… Or, it could even be those volumes that present us with Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda… how
many mornings I hanged around with his Advaita Vedānta Philosophy … But then looking back I wonder today, why I
did all those foolish deeds… deeds that have no bearing on my college
education…Well! Then in those days I was certainly feeling high with such books
in hand… But today, it certainly appears to be a non-profitable deed. May be ,
an offence even,,, for, that is not for what I was sent to Bapatla. Too late to realize!
Now you may question, what’s
this rumination all about? Or, why at all? Well, I don’t know, but one thing I
know for certain: whenever I think of my alma mater, a strange bewitchment
overtakes me.
**
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