My Father – Kind and Furious
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| Dr. J. Nageswara Rao |
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 the Magistrate Court of Saidapet, 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 sticks 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.
Mohana Kumara Mangalam, the eminent lawyer and later 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 Kumara Mangalam in the courtyard during recess. My father greeted him with a wide hi. Kumara Mangalam 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.”
Of course my father declined his offer politely.
My father won the case in his favour. He changed the name of his draksharishta to Vitone to avoid the confusion of the name from his competitors.
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 Pondy Bazar 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 payyanda. 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.
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