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| Dr. J. Nageswara Rao |
My grandfather 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.
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| 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.
