My Sister Turns Into a Crow

Vijaya Jonnalagadda

Please don’t raise your brow either in disbelief or in scepticism. Yes, my younger sister turned herself into a crow. But don’t jump to the last paragraph and spoil the tempo of my narration. Please hold your breath in suspense till the last. It is a short piece only.

My sister Vijayalakshmi was born a healthy baby and grew up into a lively girl till she was two years old.

She ate well and played like any other girl of her age till then.     Thenceforth, her life began to take strange turns. On a bad day she refused to eat cooked rice. When she was spoonfed cooked rice, she did not open her mouth. She said that it was not a morsel of cooked rice but a swarm of ants.

No amount of logic could convince her little brain that it was cooked rice only.

My father, being a doctor, took her to child psychologists They tried their best to diagnose her problem and treat it in vain.

Then my father took her to the Parthasarathi Temple in Triplicane, Madras, on my mother’s suggestion, and met the chief priest there. He explained to him about the problem of my little sister.

The priest recited some mantras and tied a talisman around her neck. He also advised on Ayush Homam (a ritual for longevity).

Later there was considerable improvement. Now she stopped seeing swarms of ants in the cooked rice and started eating as usual.

But alas! She began to grow into a dullard, contrary to our expectations. Her learning skills were impaired. She always stuttered in her speech.

Her formal schooling was stopped at fourth grade as a result of these problems. She was very lean and short too.

To add to her woes, she got primary complex (childhood tuberculosis) when she was twelve years old which was successfully treated by my doctor brother. 

But in spite of all these shortcomings, she developed into a practical woman. She was very shrewd in day-to-day affairs. She counted currency notes correctly and bombarded the maidservant when the latter scrubbed the vessels clumsily. She was also very alert when the milk vendor tried to mislead her about the monthly account. 

My parents tried in vain to secure a matrimonial alliance for her. But, unfortunately, her horoscope did not match tthat of any groom. Yet, the astrologers who scrutinised her horoscope assured my parents that my sister would live a decent life and there were even chances of her going abroad.

She developed an affinity with my brother's family and reared their children as her own. She went to England twice to spend her time with my brother’s family.

But times changed as she began to grow old. She developed rheumatoid arthritis, which entered into her bloodstream and gradually found its way into her heart. The rheumatologist who treated her said her days were numbered.

This disease gave her uncontrollable stomach aches. The gastroenterologists, without bothering about her rheumatoid arthritis,  diagnosed that she suffered with gastric problems and treated her accordingly. 

After a short struggle and convulsions, she breathed her last. When life was about to ebb out of her body, she enquired about the welfare of my late brother’s children feebly. These were the last words she uttered. 

I performed her last rites with tear-filled eyes.

Now I come to the beginning of this piece. when I said that my sister turned herself into a crow. Yet it was true. In Hindu religion, on the 12th day of death ceremony and all subsequent death ceremonies on each annual death day, the departed soul takes the form of a crow (vayasa rupena) to partake the offering of a moong dhal (green gramme) morsel.

Now, on the day of the death ceremony of the year, a crow, considered to be the soul of my sister, would appear at the door of the house where my late brother's family resides and partake of the offering of a morsel of moong dhal.

Then the crow would look at the family members of my late brother and fly away.

 My Brother Narayana Rao

DR JL Narayana Rao

My mother delivered him during the last week of the seventh month of her pregnancy.

  He was very weak when he was a day-old baby and often gasped for breath. Our grandmother Janakamma always prayed to God for his long life.   

  Right from birth to three years, he faced many health issues, but he overcame them from his fourth year.

Though born in Madras during the early 1940s, he studied at our maternal uncle Sharma’s house in Machilipatnam till he completed his fifth grade.

He returned to our parental home in Madras to continue his studies from sixth grade at the corporation school at Nungambakkam, Madras. He studied diligently and was promoted to seventh standard. But he became a backbencher later and was detained in the eighth standard.

My father was very confident about the educational talent of my brother. When he learnt about the detention, he was furious. He rushed to the school and entered into a verbal duel with the headmaster.

  My father challenged him that he would make his son (my older brother) get through matriculation in two years with high marks.

While the ferocious war of words was going on between my father and the headmaster, my older brother was making rounds of the school premises on his old bicycle in a carefree manner.

My father called out to my brother and asked him to go home.

My father counselled my brother to study hard at home and get through the matriculation with high grades. My brother nodded humbly and studied hard.

When the results were published, my brother’s registered number was not to be seen in the third division of the column of the news paper.

My father was first disappointed. Still, he had hope about the success of his son. Even the number could not be seen in the second division. Then my father checked for the number in the first division. There's the number.. My father’s joy knew no bounds. He never expected my brother to be so intelligent..

My father was delighted. He gave my brother ten rupees to celebrate with his friends on his success.

His academic graph shot up thereafter. He studied pre-university at Pachaiyappa College and later joined in the medical course of M.B.B.S at Stanley Medical College.

Generally speaking, it is very tough to get through the anatomy exam in the second year of the M.B.B.S. degree course. But my brother passed through the exam, scoring high grades.

My father was so elated that he arranged a grand party for brother’s classmates on the terrace of our house.

My brother was proud to say that Parimalan, the adopted son of  late Annadurai, the founder of the DMK party, was his classmate.

  He was a victim of linguistic politics when he wanted to join the government medical service of the Madras state.

 The interview board, which consisted of a member of the legislative assembly of the state along with the medical fraternity, asked my brother whether he wa a Marathi or a Kannada or a Telugu, as his name was suffixed with 'Rao'. He even suggested why he shouldn’t seek medical employment in his native state.

Though he was appointed as a doctor at the Madras Government General Hospital and later at Chengalput Government Hospital, it was only on a temporary basis.

He was dedicated to medical ethics to the core. Once a patient demanded a false certificate for medical leave when he worked at an Employees State Insurance Dispensary (ESI) on the beach road in Madras. The patient even offered my brother money. 

But my brother was very honest. He had the patient necked out by an attendant.

The patient did not go away. He lurked at a corner of the lane, leading to the dispensary with a knife in his hand.

When my brother left the dispensary for home, the patient threw the knife at my brother, which hit him at the back of his head. The knife had almost touched the skull but did not pierce through. It was a providential escape for him.

The passersby on the lane rushed him to the General Hospital, opposite to the Madras Central Station.

A criminal case of assault was registered by the police, but the culprit was at large for a long time. Nobody knew what had happened to the culprit..

The government then transferred my brother to the Yercaud (a small hill area) government hospital in the Salem district of Tamil Nadu. There also, he was forced to work on a temporary basis only.

My brother was fed up with the murky politics of this kind and set up a private practice at Wallajabad, eight miles away from Kanchipuram.

Though he had a roaring practice and patients flooded his clinic, he had a great passion for research in rheumatology. He learnt that England was the right place for him for his research.

Shortly he found himself in a full-fledged hospital in Wolverhampton, England. 

Later he worked in Devonshire Royal Hospital, Buxton, and Hartlepool General Hospital, Bishop Auckland Hospital and Burton-on-Trent Hospital till he reached his late fifties, conducting extensive research in rheumatology. He endeared himself to the chronic patients as ‘Dr Jonnalagqadda' at whatever hospital he worked in in England.

Now I will go back in my narration to about three decades earlier. 

He grew up into a fair, short and plumpy boy, unlike me, who was rather tall, lean and dark-complexioned. He used to tease me with 'Aye, BB', which means 'Black boy'. He said that it meant a good boy. He continued to call me that until one day I had learnt the real meaning of the word and hit him with a measuring scale.

In spite of these small fights, my brother pampered me like a little prince since I was seven years younger to him. I took it as an advantage, and whenever I hit him, our parents supported me and scolded my brother not to irritate me. 

He had never let go of a single paisa which was due to him. Once our paternal uncle Satyanarayana, notorious for taking loans but never repaying them, took one rupee from my brother's pocket money as a loan. My brother kept on demanding that his loan might be repaid. But he did not oblige. Then my brother hit upon a plan. He stopped teaching him English. Then my uncle came to terms. He repaid the one-rupee loan and urged him to go to teach him English again. My uncle had no schooling. Hence, my brother had to teach him English.

  My brother told our father with a beaming face that he had recovered the loan amount of one rupee from my uncle.

Our father stared at my brother in disbelief. He observed humourously that my brother ought to have become a loan recovery agent for any bank with bad debts. 

He was a love boy even from his early teens. He used to pluck roses in our garden early in the morning and presented them to a fair girl nearby. He courted her thus for a year, but she was just friendly; that was all. So my brother’s romantic advances were in vain.

When my brother grew into a youth, he used to say with a chuckle that it was just a crush.

He married a fair girl who happened to be a distant relation after earning his medical degree. He had two children – a boy and a girl – who were married with children and settled abroad happily. 

Sometimes he was innocent as well. Once at a written general knowledge class in the fourth grade, he was asked who the village heads were. My brother answered that his grandfather and grandmother were the heads of the village.

He had a helping nature and always came to the rescue of the needy among our relatives. When we are all settled down in our lives with our families in different cities, I needed two hundred rupees urgently for a purpose. I wired him, who was in a different city, that I was in bad need of money. The next day, he sent me the required money by money order. But, by then, my purpose was served through some other source. So, I returned the money and thanked him. "See how honest my brother is," he remarked to my sister-in-law. 

Now I come back to my present narration. After working for long years in many hospitals in England, my brother toyed with the idea of getting a spacious flat constructed in Hyderabad to spend his remaining years peacefully..

But cruel fate willed otherwise.

He returned to Madras with his family and had a brief rest at my house and then proceeded to Kanchi to seek the divine blessings of the pontiff of Kanchi Sankara Peeth for the upcoming house-warming ceremony of his flat.

He was a diabetic and was expected to take care about his food timing. But he missed his breakfast and noon meals, because of his busy schedule that day.

While returning, he was to go down the staircase at Park Railway Station to catch a local train. While he was halfway through the steps, the sugar levels of his body suddenly dipped to zero, as a result of which he became unconscious. He fell down headlong, his forehead hitting the iron edge of a step hard. His frontal lobe bulged out, and his death was instant.

He left the material world without having a look at his dream flat in Hyderabad.

This was the sad end of my beloved older brother.

 My Father – Kind and Furious 

Dr. J. Nageswara Rao

One may think that my father was a mixture of opposites when I say that he was kind and furious. But he was not. He was kind to all except when his values – which he practised – were at stake, and then he flew into a rage.

During his student days, he rented a small portion which consisted of a kitchen and a room. This room served the purpose of a living room and a bedroom too in Aminjikarai, Madras. There were about twenty rented portions altogether in a large house.

The owner of the house was a middle-aged person named Subramanian. He often derived sadistic pleasure in harassing his tenants. None of the tenants dared oppose him as they feared his abusive mouth. 

 It was nine o'clock in the morning, and my father was getting dressed to go to the college. My mother was busy in the small kitchen cooking food and packing the lunch box for my father. Suddenly the tap water in the sink stopped. My mother was worried and stopped the cooking in the middle. She ran to my father in the room and told him that must have been the mischief of Subramanian.

  Subramanian used to close the main valve of the taps and enjoyed the plight of the hapless housewives.

My mother told my father sadly that she was unable to finish the cooking and pack his lunch box.

  My father was very hungry, and his hunger doubled his anger. “It’s o.k.," he said to my mother and  left the house for the medical college with a bundle of books under his arms.

My father was unable to focus on the professor's eloquent lecture during the crucial human anatomy class that day.

He informed his classmates about the incident and skipped the noon classes. Some of his friends assured him to stand by him to teach Subramanian a lesson.

When my father reached home, feeling ravenously hungry, Subramanian accosted my father in the front courtyard and gave out a villainous smile. “Pavam, onnum sapadamale college poyi vandiya. Ippu nalla pasikkada. (Poor guy, you went to college and returned without eating anything? You must be very hungry now.)

My father could no longer control his seething anger. He took his left shoe into his left hand. He caught hold of his short hair at the nape of Subramanian’s neck (pilaka in Telugu and kudimi in Tamil) and hit him hard on his face with the shoe.

  Subramanian soon began to bleed at his mouth. He ran into his kitchen and returned immediately with a knife with a wooden handle (katthipeeta in Telugu and aruvamani in Tamil) to slit my father’s throat.

But all of a sudden some five or six able-bodied classmates of my father rushed into the scene according to the plan hatched before. “Dare lay your hand on Nageswara Rao¹ You will be finished. They yelled at Subramanian, "Mind it."

He was instantly intimidated. He dropped his aruvamani and knelt. He folded his hands and said feebly, “Mannicchu saamee. Inimel kettavelai pannamatten (Sirs, pardon me; hereafter I will not resort to bad things).

That section of the house was occupied by my mother and father until he earned his A.L.I.M. medical diploma. 

Subramanian, the landlord of the house, had not bothered my parents thereafter.

My father runs his car over a bicycle

When my older brother Janakiram was sixteen years old, an auspicious day for his thread marriage (upanayanam) was fixed by our family priest.

The ceremony was a few days away and my father, Janakiram and I drove to the market in T. Nagar, Madras, in our Baby Austin car.

We were returning after buying the vegetables and provisions needed for the ceremony. When we were about to turn to the left and enter Usman Road from Pinjala Subramania Ayyar Street, a cyclist who was biking in front of our car indicated his right hand to turn to the right. But he went left, not as he signalled. The car hit the bicycle, and the cyclist fell on the road.

My father got down from the car and enquired, "Thank God, you’re not injured. But you might have sustained a shock due to the impact of the accident. I am a doctor. Put your bicycle aside and get into my car, I will give you some painkillers at my clinic.”

But my father’s kind words were met with rudeness.

"I don’t care whether you are a doctor or an actor," he yelled” I’ll file a police case against you.”

My father was aghast at his rough behaviour. Yet he was very patient with him. “O.K., you're welcome to file as many cases as you like against me. But remove your bicycle in front of my car. I have to hurry back home.”

But the cyclist was adamant. He did not remove the bike. “Come what may,” my father said angrily and got back into the driver’s seat, shifted the gear and pressed the accelerator hard.

My father’s car ran over the bicycle, and it was unrecognisable. 

A week later, my father was served with summons by a magistrate court in Madras. 

My father represented his case party-in-person without engaging a professional lawyer. 

The court provided the cyclist with legal aid, considering his poverty. The petitioner argued that he bled all over his body due to the injuries sustained in the accident. He accused that my father, though a doctor, of not having bothered to admit him into any hospital and went on his way.

When my father was called into the witness box, he questioned as to how the petitioner could have walked home if he were really injured grievously. 

Next, our manservant Balakrishnan, who was in the back seat of the car, said that the cyclist who was biking in front of the car indicated that he would turn to the left but turned right into Usman Road. 

After the magistrate was noting all the relevant points of the case, my father concluded his arguments by blasting the bomb that the electric post, at which the accident was said to have occurred, did not exist at all.

The sub-inspector, the sergeant and a constable who registered the case. were nonplussed at my father’s submission. 

The magistrate ordered the police to check the veracity of my father’s submission.

The police rushed to the accident spot and checked for the electric post in question. Evidently the electric post was far away from the accident spot. The police entered the electric post number wrongly.

The magistrate dismissed the case and reprimanded the police to behave themselves.

My father’s friends cautioned him that the police, who lost the case, would bear a grudge against my father and might implicate him in a false case.

Luckily the police had forgotten the case. Later. some of them visited my father’s clinic for treatment.

My father Always stuck to his guns

  My father always stood firm on what he had believed to be right. He never changed his opinions much.

He was a small-time tennis player at the Krishna Club (closed permanently in 2010, standing as a mute witness of its past glory of about a century), Machilipatnam.

One day when he was through the game, he tripped over and fell down. Soon he felt a shooting pain in his knee.

The X-ray revealed a small piece of the tibia was broken and dangling, touching the cartilage. Fellow doctors advised my father to rush to Madras to get it operated upon at the earliest. 

But my father dismissed the suggestion of surgery and argued that the small piece of the tibia would eventually be reduced to powder due to constant friction during the movement of the knee joint. But all of them were sceptical about my father’s perceived logic. 

But fortune favoured my father. The pain in the knee joint gradually subsided. A fresh x-ray showed no trace of the piece of the tibia. It might have become powder, as my father expected. 

Again, a party in person in high court

This is my father’s second incarnation as a party in person.

  My father was issued a notice by the government of Madras Presidency to pay excise duty, as the government thought that he mixed alcohol in Draksharishta and Dasamoolarishta, the Ayurvedic medicines manufactured by him

My father filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court, challenging the government order, and obtained the required legal permission to argue his case party in person without engaging a professional lawyer. 'An advocate, who later turned into a Congress party activist and became a Union minister, represented the government in the case,.

My father argued that he did not bring alcohol from outside and mix it in the said herbal medicines. He informed the honourable judge that the alcohol content in the herbal medicines concerned was autogenerated through the chemical reactions called in the parlance of chemistry 'anaerobic respiration' (in the absence of air) and 'aerobic respiration' (in the presence of air). 

While the case was halfway through, it so happened that my father came across it in the courtyard during recess. My father greeted him with a wide hi. The advocate also returned the smile and said, "Doctor, your argument is very powerful, though you are not a professional lawyer. You can avail of my legal advice if you need it.”

The father naturally and politely declined his offer. 

  My father won the case. To avoid being mistaken for the names of his competitors, he changed the name of his draksharishta to Vitone.

I also learned that a raja of an estate appeared in person to plead his case concerning a property. But the judge was annoyed during the raja’s argument and said that the raja was arguing his case ‘out of depth’. Then the raja understood what the learned judge meant, and took a professional lawyer.

So it obviously means that my father was the only petitioner in those days who argued his case party in person and won.

Refuses to be the co-producer of a film

My father’s classmate and renowned stage actor Dr. Raja Rao urged my father to invest Rs 50 thousand in his upcoming film "Puttlllu", in which he was the hero and Jamuna was the heroine. The film was an utter flop and my father thanked his stars for saving him from losing his hard-earned money in the cinema venture.  

Burns his research papers

My father had done extensive research and processed a formula to manufacture a herbal tablet for safe abortion even during the last week of the fifth month of pregnancy. He showed it to an Ayurvedic pharmaceutical company. The managing director of the company was so impressed with the formula that he offered my father Rs. One lakh for patent rights.

My father said he wanted some time. The next day he kept awake till midnight. He thought deeply about whether to sell the patent right or not. The next morning he arrived at a firm decision. He lit a match stick and burnt the research papers of the drug.

My mother and my two older brothers rushed into the living room on seeing the flames. My father told them that the drug in question might be misused by the youth to indulge in unbridled sex. So he consigned the papers of his laborious research to flames with a heavy heart!

Zero tolerance

Once my father caught a teenage boy while he was stealing mangoes in our garden. My father was enraged at the theft. He thought the boy ought to be taught a lesson; otherwise, he would grow up a burglar. He tied his hands with a rope and produced him at the a Police Station. My father told the sub-inspector what had happened. The S.I. took pity on the boy who was crying unconsolably. “Avan chinna payyandhaa..Pavam vidungo saar (He is a little boy). Poor fellow. Leave him, sir.

  “No, you must teach the boy a lesson," my father said and reversed his car.

The S.I. sent the boy away as soon as my father was out of sight.

  Thus, my father was kind to good people and stern with bad ones throughout his life.

My Dad – My Hero

 

Dr. J. Nageswara Rao

If somebody is asked as to who his hero is, pat comes the reply that so-and-so movie star is his hero. But as far as I am concerned, I would say that my father was my hero. He rose from rags to riches.

 My grandfather Jonnalagadda Lakshmi Narayana had five sons and one daughter, my father being the third one of the six children.

  My grandfather was a Kuchipudi dance teacher, and he taught dance to devadasis (temple dancers) who paid him a little money, rice and provisions as a fee. He toured from his native village Avanigadda to Kodali and Mellamaru in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh to take dance classes. He was a purohit too. He used to conduct religious rites like naming ceremonies, thread marriages (upanayanam), house-warming ceremonies etc. to supplement his income. But the money he earned thus,  was not enough to support his large family. So my father had to discontinue his studies from fifth standard. 

  My grandfather wanted to initiate my father into the Kuchipudi dance tradition much against to his wish. He wanted to study further and grow up as a Britisher. What should he do? Is it better for him to learn dance and become a dancer or to learn English and develop into a European? He came to a firm decision before daybreak. He slipped out of his house with a loincloth and upper garment on his body.

  He left Avanigadda for Machilipatnam, which is about 45 miles away.

  He walked for a few miles and then hitchhiked a bullock cart. He was very hungry when he reached Machilipatnam after the tedious journey. He went to his paternal uncle Bhushiah’s house with the hope of getting sumptuous food. But his uncle was cruel and refused to feed him. Instead, he directed him to the bungalow of the Raja of Challapalli. He said that there would be a feeding ceremony for Brahmins (Brahmana Samaradhana) the next day. Then my father begged for a glassful of water at least. He was kind enough to do that small favour. 

  It was midnight by then, and my father’s legs ached. He could walk no more, as he was ravenously hungry. He begged the driver of a bullock cart to drop him at Challapally. But he pushed away my father roughly. 

  The small family of a couple and two children in the cart took pity on my father. The head of the family ordered the cartman to stop.

  My father got into the cart and thanked him.

  It was daybreak by the time the bullock cart reached Challapalli. The cart man halted the cart near the bungalow of the Raja. My father got down and went into the front yard of the bungalow where the brahmin priests were assembling for a holy feeding ceremony.

  The head priest noticed my father’s unkempt appearance and ordered a royal servant to give my father an oil bath and give him washed white clothes.

  My father, with neatly combed tuft of hair at the nape of the neck and holy ash on the forehead, sat among the priests. He also recited some mantras which were taught by my grandfather. 

  After a bountiful meal with all the choicest puddings, my father slept like a log in a corner for sometime.

  It was evening when he woke up. He began to walk along the dusty lanes. He had no idea as to where to go. Suddenly there was a commotion. Some patriots were leading a procession, chanting vande Mataram. Though my father was too young to know the purpose of the song and the procession, he also joined them and cried ‘Vande Mataram.’

  A policeman caught my father by his hair and slapped him on his back. He was shocked and asked the policeman why he beat him. “Vande Mataram is a bad song, and only bad people will chant it. 'Understand, boy,' the policeman thundered at my father.

  My father bent his head timidly and kept silent.

  There were no juvenile detention homes in Machilipatnam during the days of early freedom struggle. So my father was detained on the premises of a school, a makeshift prison. 

  The next day morning another policeman on duty was surprised to notice a Brahmin boy of ten as a detainee. He took pity on my father and released him.

  Now my father sat on the pyol (arugu in Telugu) of a tiled house. He made a resolve to continue his studies in the town. But he did not know how to secure the means for it.

  While my father was engrossed in such thoughts, the elderly householder came out. “Who are you, boy?” he asked. 

  My father narrated his story in brief and expressed his ambition to study in high school.

  The kindly elderly man who was also a brahmin offered meals and accommodation for a day in a seven-day week for my father. He also promised to arrange daily meals and accommodation for the remaining six days, a day at each house for six days. A person who depends for food on such an arrangement is referred to VAARAALA ABBAYI in Telugu.

  My father did odd jobs for them and got a few annas (one anna being equal to about six paise). He bought a postcard for three paise and wrote a letter to our grandfather. My father sought the pardon of our grandfather for his sudden disappearance and disobedience. He assured his father about his well-being in the letter.

  The kindly householder who first took notice of my father got him admitted into the George Coronation School in the sixth class.

  Thus my father completed his eighth class, scoring high grades. He prosecuted his studies from sixth class to eighth class, wholly depending on charities. Meanwhile, he made periodical visits to Avanigadda and made his parents and siblings happy.

  My father wanted to study medicine and put the tag Dr before his name. The four-year diploma course of Ayurveda Bhishagvara was available in Madras after middle-level high school education.

  One fine morning he thanked all the donors who supported him for three years and boarded the passenger train for Madras with a four-anna coin in his pocket. He had no means to buy the ticket. So when the ticket collector entered the coach to check the tickets of the passengers, my father hid himself in the lavatory till the tc left.

  When the train reached Madras Central Station, my father, being short, mixed with the crowd of passengers and slipped out.

  The hot sun was at the zenith of the sky and my father sat on the pavement near the railway station. He enquired of the passers-by the way to any medical college. Most of them were not bothered to answer his question. At last a middle-aged person took pity on him. He understood that my father was a Telugu boy by his accent. He replied in chaste Telugu. He directed my father to the Integrated School of Medicine at Kilpauk and advised him to meet the principal of the medical school Dr. Achanta Lakshmipathi.

   My father walked for two hours in the blazIng sun and reached the medical school in Kilpauk. 

 My father was about to swoon due to extreme hunger, as he did not eat anything for the past one and a half days. Dr Lakshmipathi understood my father’s plight. He made arrangements for him to eat at the canteen.

  My dad said he wanted to study Ayurvedic medicine. He added that he had no money to pay the required fee.

   For my father, Dr Lakshmipathi had a plan. He said that my father was to babysit his infant daughter Indira after his class hours. He would pay the fee and arrange for my father’s accommodation and food. He needed a babysitter since his wife, Mrs Achanta Rukmini, was the minister for public health in the Provincial Assembly of the Madras Presidency. Now Marshalls Road in Egmore, Madras, was renamed as Rukmini Lakshmipathi Road.

 Lakshmipathi instructed my father to give a brief account of himself in grammatical English. He wanted to test my father’s English knowledge since the said Ayurvedic course would be taught in the English medium.

  My father obtained the Bhishagvara certificate from the Integrated School of Medicine after completing a four-year Ayurvedic diploma programme.

  Now my father wanted to take the A.L.I.M. course, which was a combined course of Ayurveda and allopathy. Though the course was designed for four years, my father was offered a condensed course of two years since he had already studied Ayurveda in the Bhishagvara course. 

  After completing A.L.I.M., also at the same medical school... My father served as an intern (house surgeon) in a government hospital.

  Later this medical school was upgraded into a medical college, Kilpauk Medical College which offered M.B.B.S., medical degree, scrapping both A.L.I.M and Ayurveda Bhishagvara courses.

  While studying A.L.I.M., my father manufactured Chyavanaprash. Draksharishta, Sowbhagya Sonti, etc. and sold them at the medical shops. He had an old Rally bicycle. He fixed a wooden tray at the back of the seat of the bicycle and neatly packed the medicines in it. He biked for long distances and sold the indigenous medicines.

  Good times favored my father and by the time he finished the A.L.I.M. course, he earned a lot of money. He got a spacious house constructed at Bazulullah Road in T. Nagar of the city and bought a Baby Austin car. 

  My father often reminisced about Dr. Lakshmipathi. He was grateful to him and used to say that it was he (Lakshmipathy) who shaped a rough boy of fifteen (my father) into a young, promising doctor. It was he who taught my father yogasanas and advised him not to skip the asanas even for a single day.

Our sweet home

  My father lived in that house for more than fifty years. He performed even the most difficult yogasanas till his end in his early eighties.

  On a fateful day, he fell to his right side motionless while performing Seershasana (head downwards and legs upwards).

  The grand house which enshrined sweet memories for my father, mother and us (his children) crumbled and gave way to an engineering college.

To date I have a huge colourful photograph of my father in a carved wooden frame on the wall of my study. I worship him as my hero with tearful eyes before I sit down before the computer for work.

  

 God’s Command Fulfilled

Acharya Ananda

    It was 1999,the penultimate year for the dawn of the 21st century and       the birth of the year 2000, but that one year seemed a distant dream  as     the world had lost its reason and plunged into turmoil.

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    The sky was dark and ugly like a monster. The intense heat of the                atmosphere was such that people were panicked as if the clouds were        raining fire.

  Everything on earth, trees and plants, animals and birds and the once     green fields were scorched as black as coal. Rotting corpses and carcasses were littered in the dried fields.

People thought that it was the end of the world and accepted their destiny stoically. The desperate conditions drove many people to crime and violence and they indulged in looting, arson, rape and killing.

  Could it be the end of the world really? If so, why does God, who created this beautiful world of myriad wonders as his divine sport, sing a dirge to it.

  No! It cannot be. It must be the wrong interpretation of the theologians. No artist destroys the beautiful painting he has created.

  Count it be that the Almighty who has created the world out of himself is withdrawing it into Himself again.  

  Acharya Ananda was troubled by these thoughts at his ashram at the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and Sarawati. He was in deep meditation in front of the large bronze image of Lord Shiva - Nataraja in the dancing pose. As he passed through the five levels of awareness and entered into deep consciousness he experienced strange vibrations all over his body. He knew by intuition that he would receive a divine command shortly.  He opened his eyes and beheld the image of Lord Nataraja. It was no more a bronze image. It was God Himself. The brilliant divine light flooded the ashram for a full minute. Gradually the effulgence became a small spark and it circumambulated thrice round the image of the God. Then it entered Ananda’s head.

Now Ananda had become aware of the divine command imparted into him.

  Anand was the only son of Ramananda, a middle class orthodox brahmin, who taught Sanskrit and the  basics of shastras on a raised platform in front of his house. Though it was a small household school, it was considered to be a seat of good learning for brahmin children in the village because of his vast erudition of the Vedas and Upanishads.

  Anand, the apple of the eyes of his parents, was brought up with great love and affection. But the parents doting on the boy did not come in the way of their stern discipline in learning and performing religious duties.

  When Ananda was eight years old, his head was tonsured, with five small tufts round his head and the sacred thread marriage (upanayanam) was performed. 

 After upanayanam, he was initiated into the perusal of the holy scriptures and when he was fourteen, he had mastered all the shastras by the grace of Goddess Saraswati.

  Now Ananda assisted his father in running the home school.

  Thus elapsed fifteen years and Ananda was about to be betrothed to his maternal uncle’s daughter, who had bloomed into youth on an auspicious day.

  When Ananda’s father was looking into the almanac to fix an auspicious date for exchange of betel leaves in acceptance of the marriage proposal, came the command from the pontiff through a messenger that Ananda be initiated into the religious order which preached  that the universal soul and the individual soul were one.

  Ananda’s father accepted the command stoically as ordained by God Shiva. He felt an intuition that his son was born for a divine cause.

  But it was a sentimental blow for Ananda’s mother, who wanted the house to be filled with half a dozen noisy grandchildren and a dutiful daughter-in-law to look after her in her old age. Alas! Ananda should remain a celibate if he was initiated into the Advaita order.

  But Anand was Sri Rama in obedience to his father and eventually he found himself in the presence of the Pontiff in flowing saffron robes.

  From his childhood Ananda was always perturbed by the plight of the poor and the diseased.

  At the tender age of seven, he was seized with the burning question that if God were the creator of this University, why should He create the ugly along with the beautiful, the pauper along with the prince and the barren land along with the fertile one.

  Unable to contain his troubled mind any longer, he expressed his doubts to his father. His father sat him in his lap and kissed his forehead.”Son,”he said, “the mysteries of creation are not to be questioned. The humble human being should accept whatever comes across the path of his life, as ordained by God. Even those great savants who could churn the four Vedas, the one hundred and eight Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita into a glassful of water and drink it in libation, are unable to realize the inscrutable will of the Almighty. So my dear little son, do not trouble yourself with such profound questions.  Pray the immortal One for salvation. Proceed that way. Do not question the wisdom of the Sastras. It’s time for you to offer obeisance to the setting sun (Sandhya Vandan). Go and perform it with deep concentration. my son.”

  But Ramananda’s exhaustive answer could not clear the philosophical doubts of Ananda. He thought that his father gave the same answer which the scriptures say time and again.  These burning questions made Ananda realize later that he could no longer confine himself within the four walls of the center of the religious order.So with the permission of the Pontiff he left the center. He established an ashram at Triveni Sangamam.

  “Yes! Now I have found the answer” Ananda said to himself.as he opened his eyes and came into the physical reality, from meditation. 

  “Man suffers from an innate weakness to do wrong. If wise counsel prevails upon him to do the right then he will be a good person and a child of God.”

  “Man is a spoke in the wheel of birth and rebirth which goes on rotating  as long as the past deeds have a sway on the present life of a person.”

  “Yet man is endowed with discretion. By discrimination the wrong from the right and by deep meditation on the Eternal Consciousness, one realizes that he is none but the universal consciousness (Aham Brahma). With that enlightenment, one should help his fellow beings to attain the same supreme bliss and encourage them to follow their profession with the greatest possible work culture.

  With this divine message on his lips and with an ethereal  light glowing all over his body, Ananda left his ashram.

   Ananda, now the messiah of God, was treading the lanes and bylanes. He was visiting the houses of the poor and the rich alike. Just by the magnificence of his presence, the rich realized their follies and parted their excess wealth to their poor brethren.

  There was death in a house. Ananda’s discourse about the perishability of the human body like an earthen pot, brought solace to the grieving family. 

  There was a wedding in another house. Ananda blessed the couple and enlightened them with the knowledge that the wife and the husband are two equal halves of a single soul and they should pass through the various phases, their attention constantly fixed on the Almighty.

  At another house, a young bride was being burnt.by their avaricious inlaws for not bringing enough dowry. Ananda made his way into the house through the crowd that gathered outside. Ananda rushed to the kitchen and cast his spiritual glance at the bride, who was set on fire. The flames on her body disappeared and she felt she bathed in cool, scented water. Ananda casts his benign look at the villainous bridegroom and the inlaws. Then it dawned on them that a daughter-in-law was part and parcel of the family and should be treated affectionately like a daughter. They prostrated before Ananda in repentance and Ananda blessed them with long life and prosperity. Ananda kept walking through villages, towns and cities. Sometimes he appeared like a miniature being and some other times he was a macro being. While he walked, his pace had become superhuman. Sometimes a single pace of his foot covered hundreds of miles.

  By the touch of his blessed feet, the barren fields turned lively green and the dried river beds became moist and were soon flowing with water.

  While Ananda was walking a sea of humanity was following him. As he crossed the Deccan plateau, a fierce communal riot was in progress in a big city. People who lost their reason and were intoxicated with communal frenzy, were cutting one another’s throats in the name of religion. There was looting, arson and killings everywhere.

  Ananda raised his hand and said ‘stop.’ 

  Suddenly all the lethal weapons in the hands of the hooligans slipped and fell down. The warring communities realized the essential nature of religion. A feeling of brotherliness dawned on them and all of them hugged one another like brothers.

  “Religion is nothing but a way of life that lays down social and moral codes for the well being of the people and ultimately prepares them to become one with the Supreme Spirit” thus  spake Ananda and move on. The gospel of Ananda put an end to the bloody wars in the name of religion and politics forever.  As Ananda reached the outskirts of Delhi, word reached the prime minister about Ananda’s arrival to the capital city.

  The Parliament was summoned urgently and the President, the Prime Minister and the opposition parties adopted a unanimous resolution declaring Ananda the spiritual, moral and political  head of the country. The President and the Prime Minister would rule over the country as Ananda’s representatives. 

  The President approached Ananda and prostrated before him. “Oh, the enlightened One!”he beseeched, “ War has become imminent with our neighboring country, which threatens the peace of the sub-continent. No doubt, our soldiers are valiant and we are sure to win the war. But the price is heavy and our future generations have to pay for it. The war will mostly be fought with nuclear weapons.

  “Fear not,”Ananda said and proceeded towards the frontiers of the country where the nuclear war was to take place.

  To keep pace with Ananda’s gigantic foot steps, the residual army in Delhi had to move in fast army vehicles in escort.

  Ananda’s blessed feet touched the battlefield where the conventional weapons like the battle tanks, cannons and the long range firing guns of both the sides were ready to plunge into action. 

  A little distance away, medium and long range missiles which could reduce their targets into ashes and asphyxiation bombs which could suck away life in the range of about fifty kilo meters were ready to be activated to wipe away the human race from the sub-continent.

  As Ananda stood at the center of the battlefield, the soldiers of rival countries witnessed nothing but Ananda and Ananda only. He was here, he was there, he was everywhere. There was little space left where there was no Ananda.

  By Ananda’s divine presence everywhere, the weapons of death and destruction were immobilized. News reached the president of the rival country who rushed to the frontiers of his country to see the wonder for himself. 

  Ananda cast his divine look upon the dictator and he realized his inner self  immediately. He avowed in the divine presence of Ananda that he would not wage any war, not only against India but also not against any other country.  In the same breath he declared Ananda the spiritual and political head of his country.

  Thus Ananda’s march of victory continued and country after country, continent after continent accepted his spiritual and political supremacy. 

  Wherever Ananda treaded, the touch of his blessed feet brought peace and prosperity to the region. Throughout the world people spoke nothing about but the divine name of Ananda because he was their Messiah who mitigated the suffering of humanity.

  When Ananda reached the statue of liberty in the United States of America, the people there were panicky. They were awaiting the arrival of Ananda eagerly because they believed that he might do something - some sort of a miracle to ward off a nuclear  conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. The realization that the world was going to end due to nuclear catastrophe drove the people of the US, western and eastern Europe including the Soviet Union to commit all sorts of violent acts. The world was literally burning. Ananda stood beside the statue of liberty. A benign look from the kindly eyes of Ananda restored order throughout the world. The three commanders of the army, navy and airforce resigned to their posts and fell at Ananda’s feet. “Oh, enlightened One,”the three said in unison,”Our president and the president of the Soviet Union, gave commands to activate the most modern nuclear weapons to outdo each other in a fit of rage. The nuclear bombs were to be exploded in a matter of minutes. Only a miracle from you can save the world.”

  The multitudes of the people who assembled there were looking at Ananda with a desperate ray of hope. 

  Ananda invoked the mantras which bestowed the ANIMADi SIDDHIS (power to become a macrobeing  to power to grow into a micro being). Ananda was growing and growing into space.

  Now he was a macro being. The liberty statue and the skyscrapers of the States looked like tiny structures before his gigantic size. He raised his hand and stretched his palm, which spread the entire space.

  Now he had all the nuclear weapons of the big five countries in his vast palm which spread throughout space. He crushed all the nuclear arms in his palm, which turned into

Petals of roses.

  Ananda was everywhere. His macro being was a divine feast to the eyes at Lenin Square in Moscow, Trafalgar square in London and Eiffel Tower  in Paris at the same time.

  The numerous ecclesiastical heads of various nations arrived on the scene in their nuclear powered airplanes and declared Ananda to be the spiritual head of their respective seats. 

  The spiritual heads of the USA and the USSR also prayed to Ananda to be their spiritual mentar.  

  Ananda spake: I am with you. I am everywhere. I am with you and you are with Me. Man has an innate Godly spark in him. He should realize it through constant practice of  meditation on the Absolute. As the Supreme Spirit enlightens the individual, the individual should behold Him in every animate and inanimate things and serve humanity. 

  Whenever there is decline in Dharma I manifest Myself in any form and restore Dharma.”

  The people of the world listened to the divine revelation with rapt attention. 

  “  We thank thee, O Lord,” they prayed in one voice. “Thou hast led us to light from darkness. We humble mortals abide  by thy divine command.”

  Ananda blessed the world. Gradually the macro form of Ananda was reduced to micro form and disappeared. 

  Having fulfilled the divine command, Ananda found himself at his ashram at the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. He sat in deep meditation before the huge bronze image of the dancing Siva.

  As Ananda gradually reached the first stage in meditation, the light of life departed through a micro hole in his head and merged in the breast of Lord Nataraja. Ananda’s mortal remains fell dead.

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  This story is woven on reading about  the prediction of  Nostradamus  that a Hindu sage of South India unifies the world and restores order in 1999.

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