MEPPAYUR NEAR CALICUT

Somewhere in 1992 I made a surprise visit to Calicut for some documentation work at the Calicut University. I had noticed some mistake in the totaling of marks and got it corrected by the University. Calicut had changed from what I saw in 1986 but the morning weather was pleasant and I went to my local contact capt. Srinivasan at the Zila Sainik Welfare board and stayed there..meeting Capt. Srinivasan that afternoon..an emotional meeting of having seen him after a long hiatus. Anoop the son of my uncle was studying medicine at calicut at that time and he joined us that evening and we had a stroll all over Calicut.

Few days down the line I went to the home town of Capt. Srinivasan..Meppayur and stayed there for a few days.It was a memorable few days ..the geography of this place was not well known to me then but now I understand it better. Meppayur is a town almost at the foot of he western ghat mountains..no wonder the bus takes a right turn at Koilandy and goes deep inland crossing few rivers in the process and reaching this place.I found a very silent hamlet in meppayur at that time barring few buses that travel into this place occasionally..there was TV which was the only source of entertainment.

Why I chose to write about these events would be a welcome gesture. I just remembered this place out of the blue. What I did the following day was truly an act of temerity. Climb the mountain in the rear of the house which must be few thousand feet and reaching the pinnacle and thereafter having a look at the huge stretch of mountains that looked yonder.What a sight...what I saw ahead was probably  the Karnataka state ahead.

The following day both of us set out early and chose to cross the river by boat..and what happenned there after was amusing having to cling on to the edge of a jeep for some ten kilometers to reach  Koilandy..this was a risky journey in  many ways as the jeep was driven very fast with quick swirls.

So much so about Meppayur..the whole place must have changed now ..a peaceful hamlet with large houses and the serenity of this place is worth tonnes in gold.

Dr. RAJKUMAR

Dr.Rajkumar is a distinguished personality  in  this part of the world and a true artist par excellence who maintained an austere life-style and at the same time ensnared and enchanted audiences in the Kannada language for more than four decades donning various kinds of roles with great ease and single handedly driving his cinemas into success.

I dont know what much I can write about this man as his achievements as an actor is written in gold in the minds of people of Karnataka state and to my mind the world is yet to see an actor of his stature who had looks,talent, charm and enigma and who took all these titles upon himself without much fanfare and ado and went about the world of acting with versatility and a broad spectrum of roles.THERE IS NO MAN IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF CINEMA WHO HAD ALL THESE BUNDLED IN ONE. Not to forget he was also a singer par excellence.

I had met Dr. Rajkumar twice ; once on the sets of the film Purushottama produced by Madhu Bangarappa inside the Graphite India plant and thereafter at the Muhurat of  Gandugali Kumararama produced by Dr. M R Pattabhiram. I have met his sons at various instances.

What makes Dr. Rajkumar special. One...he was a distinguished hero...second..he played character roles with equal ease and was a high performer as an actor....third...even at an advanced age with marginal make-up he looked very young...he could dance with alacrity...he could emote well....fourth...he appears to me to have done risky shots by himself..for example in Gandada Gudi he climbs on the tusk of an elephant for a shoot..fifth...he never acted in any language other than kannada....sixth ...he sang in the films for himself...seventh...though not an emotional person per-se he could do romantic roles with great ease....eighth..there are few actors who can take a long shot without difficulty in that he could go on with dialogues for a longer duration without cut........nine...he never cherished political ambitions and did not try to capitalize his position in politics for he knew he was not cut for it...ten...he has sung many songs that would put many trained singers in the shade;  Dr. Rajkumar you were truly special.

One aspect of Dr. Rajkumar is truly special to me ..though a enigma at an young age he did not get anywhere embroiled in any controversy with any heroine of his time and chose to get married as a normal individual of his times and kept his private life largely private.

When will the state of Karnataka see another man of his stature ?  This is a moot question that must be going in the minds of the many film goers of this state.

THE KSRTC (KERALA) BUS

I am  fascinated some times by the KSRTC Kerala buses..they can be seen all over Kerala and also on the highways connecting neighbouring cities. What fascinates me the most is that most of these buses are old by normal standards but do a stupendous service on most lines they are pressed into service sometimes negotiating difficult terrains with ease.

Sometime back I was listening to Ganesh Iyer CEO of Caterpillar at Leela Palace in Bangalore where he was talking about Re-Manufacturing ..a fairly remarkable topic for modern times and these buses to me are some kind of case studies at Re-Manufacturing.

Not that other state corporations do not  use old buses but very few would have a preponderant majority of the buses of this kind and yet run the services with little disruption. I must also record that one of my journey's by KSRTC(kerala) AC bus from Calicut to Bangalore was awful  with the AC making a heavy noise and the whole journey was far from pleasant.  May I also add deep appreciation for the staff of KSRTC(Karnataka) whom I have many times observed repairing buses that have broken down with alacrity and dedication  sometimes at locations which were inhospitable....the bond that KSRTC (Karnataka) drivers show for their buses is to be seen to be believed.

It would be a welcome gesture if practitioners of Operations and Engineering would make some kind of a study on the Kerala RTC buses to appreciate and assess the methodologies applied at Maintenance which could be a lesson and input to bus corporations around the world.

Teachers at Sathya Sai College of our times.

I studied for two years at the Sathya Sai Arts Science and Commerce College. When I went into studying my Pre-university I had a major issue ..mainly the choice of the second language. Physics; Chemistry ; Mathematics and Biology were the core subjects along with English. All along through my schooling I had taken Kannada as my second language but many advised me not to take Kannada at the pre-university level as it was tough and less scoring.. The only other alternative was to take Sanskrit and the advantage was that the exam could be written in English.

I went with an application for change of language and permission to attend the sanskrit class to the principal Mr. Narender and the letter was written by my father requesting the principal that the language be changed. I remember at the first instance my father had forgotten to sign the letter at the bottom and the Principal awkwardly threw the letter on the table asking that I get the signature of my father which I did the following day. The principal signed the letter and asked me to meet Mr. Kulkarni who was the head of  Kannada department..and to my joy he consented and I landed up that afternoon in the class of Shri Chandrashekar who used to teach Sanskrit and was very enthusiastic and selfless in the manner in which he taught Sanskrit.

Table Tennis was a very important past time in this college. You could buy a TT ball Chinese made Sheild for Rs. 2/- from the sports room which was managed by Mr. Ravishankar and we used to run to the TT room where there were three tables. Anantanarayanan and Stanley were my school mates who were  contemporaries at the Sathya Sai College and both of them were in the Commerce stream. I never knew how to play TT and I picked up the game here.

In the first year PKS used to teach Chemistry and If I have not forgotton fully his name is P K Somasunder.....PN  P Nagaraj   and Gangadhariah used to teach Physics.....H R Ravi; H K Nagaraj  and H N Mahendra Raja Urs used to teach Mathematics...Mr. Chandrashekar  and Ganesh Kamath used to teach Sanskrit...the Principal Mr. Narender and Mr. Sudarshan used to teach English  and TSS T S Subramaniam  and H R Venkatesh used to teach Biology and another person whose name I do not recollect used to teach Zoology.

Mr Krishna Murthy used to teach English in the Second Year..and Mr, Hegde  Physics in the Second year, Mr Narahari Chemistry in the second year.

Sandeep Gangolli ; Santosh, Shailendra Khare ; Sanjay Dawar; Mrityunjaya; Deepak Sachdev; Satish Kini; Sai Krishna Rao; Guru Kiran; Nandan Bal; Shweth Kumar; Srikanta Swamy are all class mates and accomplices I remember at this place. Santosh ; Sanjay Dawar and myself went to NIT"S for higher education..Santosh to NIT Allahabad.....Sanjay Dawar to NIT Bhopal ..and myself to Calicut. This is the Guru Kiran who directs music in Kannada film industry.

One of the key attractions of the Sathya Sai College of our times was a Python attached to the Zoology department held in a cage near-by and students used to find joy tormenting it and in a fit of rage the snake used to make a bolt or a menacing advance in an act of flight ending at the fence of the railings of the cage..many a times students used to enjoy such taunting . Even otherwise there used to be a water tap near the cage of the snake and any one walking towards the tap always took a more than concerned look at the snake.