DMK supporters began to replace the Brahmins at the apex of the society. E. V. Ramasamy – Periyar – the founder of the Dravidar Kazhagam, held that if you encountered a Brahmin and a snake at the same time, it would be better for you if you thrashed the Brahmin first. Fortunately, India did not witness a genocide of the kind Europe witnessed under the Nazis, but the unmistakable stench of Brahmin-hatred hung in the air and kept getting stronger with each passing day.
In pursuit of a degree in Tamil, Seeni Shanmugam enrolled in Karanthai Tamil University. Around this time, a format of public debating called patti mandram had begun to weave itself into the state’s cultural fabric. Speakers split into two opposing teams would debate on questions like: “Who was the chaster heroine in the epic, Kannagi or Madhavi?”, “Tirukural excels in ethics or politics?”, etc;
Like most teachers of Tamil, Seeni Shanmugam was a DMK sympathizer. The DMK realized that the most efficient way to gain power was to stoke the people’s passion for Tamil while strongly opposing Hindi. The anti-Hindi protests intensified in 1965. The DMK ordered that the Republic Day of 1965 be observed as a black day. School and college students protested in large numbers. The ruling Congress party that favored Hindi was blackballed as an enemy of the Tamils. The protests lasted for a few months. The police sprayed bullets and swung batons at the protesters. Two policemen and seventy people were killed in the riots. Some students set themselves on fire. It was then that self-immolation as a means of protest had incorporated itself into the political culture of the state.
Since the better part of Nagore’s population was Muslim, the anti-Hindi protests found little traction there. However, the situation next door in Nagapattinam was dire. Battalions of student-protestors would walk all the way from there to Nagore to enlist the services of the students there to help with the blackening of billboards and signposts that bore Hindi words. The protestors were convinced that the spread of Hindi would push Tamil into oblivion. I saw in the eyes of those students the kind of inflamed zeal one might find in those trying to fight off marauding invaders who were trying to rape their mothers. The riots were quelled when prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri assured the non-Hindi-speaking states that their languages were not endangered by Hindi and that they could use English as the official language.
The anti-Hindi protests had two key social consequences for Tamil Nadu. One, the Tamils remained completely illiterate of Hindi; two, the DMK had a smooth ride to power in 1967.
(I find it ironical that in the Tamil Nadu of today, a student can finish school and college without knowing any Tamil at all. It is fashionable for the folks of the upper middle class to claim they don’t know Tamil at all while the folks of the lower classes know little to nothing when it comes to reading or writing. There is a disgracefully small number of people in Tamil Nadu who have a zeal for Tamil these days.
It is ridiculous to see schools with names like Oxford Matriculation or Cambridge Primary operating under thatched roofs in tiny villages. What is even more ridiculous than the names of the schools is the fact that the teachers there know neither Tamil nor English. It was in one such school in Kumbakonam that 94 children were roasted alive in a fire accident in 2004.
The fact that an entire generation is growing up without proper knowledge of its mother tongue is one of the least concerns of the Tamils. But we have mastered the art of hollow chauvinism. Notwithstanding the inability of most people to read or write Tamil, all public events of the state kick off only after the recitation of an invocation to Tamil, the Mother Goddess.)
In 1968, C. N. Annadurai, the erstwhile chief minister of Tamil Nadu, decided to hold the Second World Tamil Conference. My father had come to Tamil Nadu from Andhra Pradesh, but he was an ardent supporter of the DMK. It is interesting to note that migrants from Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu were passionate about Tamil though they continued to speak Telugu at home. Sociological experts have also observed that those who migrate to a new place are more attached to it than those who have lived there for generations. This attitude is also observable in people who have converted to a different religion.
I suffered much on account of my change of name. “Who is this Arivazhagan?” the teacher would ask during the roll call. When I stood up, he’d scrutinize me from head to toe. Then he’d say with a smirk, “He has azhagu, but let’s see if he has arivu.” And for the next three quarters of an hour, he would test me to see if I possessed any arivu and how much. The teacher was a Brahmin who probably saw Periyar of the famous Brahmin-snake quote in me.
As a young boy with a complex, I couldn’t help but notice the mocking smiles of the girls when they heard my name. In Delhi, where the /zha/ sound is non-existent, my plight was even worse. On the first day of my job in the Civil Supplies department, the administrative officer had a major problem pronouncing my mouthful of a name.
“What? Ari? Hari? No… Aa-ree-va-la-gan.” He was exhausted. “Bapre! Howdo you pronounce it? Angam Jangam? What do your folks call you at home?”
When I told him I was called Udhaya, he was relieved to have something common and disyllabic to call me. In the twelve years that I worked there, nobody knew that my name was Arivazhagan.
My father’s devotion to the DMK led him to bring his entire family to Chennai to attend the World Tamil Conference. It was the first time seeing the city. People were flocking there by the thousands. The WTC was more like a huge Urs Festival. Every year in my town, there was an Urs for which huge crowds would gather. I think the desire to be a writer at a later age, was sowed earlier at the World Tamil Conference, when I saw the tableaux procession of the Tamil literary greats of the yore - Avvaiyar, Thiruvalluvar, Kambar and Ilango Adigal.
For some inexplicable reason, after the conference, I developed a disaffection for the DMK. But I never became a Congress sympathizer either for I never liked the party at all. I started buying books like Learn Hindi in 30 Days and began to teach myself Hindi. This was because I’d begun to despise whatever Tamils took pride in.
Seeni Shanmugam proudly claimed that the Chola kings had crossed the seas and made a name for the Tamils in places like Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, Malaysia and the Maldives, but I placed the Tamils on par with the colonizing Europeans. If anyone claimed that Tamil was the oldest of all the world languages, I would taunt them with Pudumaipithan’s words: “So, was the world’s first monkey a Tamil monkey?”
Until the eleventh grade, I did fairly well in my studies and stood first in class. I used to go home for lunch and return to school. This meant that I made four trips daily – barefoot, as it was not feasible for my parents to buy six pairs of slippers for their six children. Because I had no slippers, I had blisters on the soles of my feet from walking in the hot sun. I remember how I’d walk only in shaded places just to avoid the scorching roads which were luckily not tarred. When I enrolled in Arignar Anna Government Arts College in Karaikal to study Pre-University Course and medium of instruction was English. As I never understood a single word, I began failing in every subject. Disillusioned, I never made any efforts to study Tamil either. Though I’d learned butler English in school for eleven years, I was unable to keep up with the standard in college. When the physics teacher said, “Let us consider…,” the only word that registered was “us.”
I was very shy even as a youth. I could never stand beside another boy and take a leak. So, I would control my bladder until I returned home. Once I was home, I’d change into a lungi and squat in the yard. Even now, I cannot urinate if there’s someone standing beside me. In some cinemas, there is no barrier between the urinals which means you can see the dick of the bloke standing next to you. To avoid the sight of another man’s member, I’d use the individual stalls that were meant for people who wanted to defecate.
Since I performed well in school, the family elders suggested I choose the first group that included math, physics and chemistry – MPC. Of the ninety students in the first group, ten came f
rom convent schools and we had nothing to do with them whatsoever. They conversed only in English and answered every question they were asked correctly. Not one of them was seen in the Tamil class and I’d learned this was because they’d chosen French as their optional language. All those who wanted to pursue medicine chose the second group that included the subjects of physics, chemistry and biology. The third group was for the dullards and had subjects like history, geography and commerce. This group was a happy place to be in. Many years after I’d finished college, I realized that a lot of the boys who had chosen the third group had gone on to become professors.
Apart from math, physics and chemistry, I had to study English and Tamil. All three groups came together for these two subjects. The Tamil teacher stood in stark contrast to Seeni Shanmugam Saar and the lessons were nothing but hogwash. As we reached a higher level, we were forced to study stories, plays and poems written by other inferior Tamil professors whose junk passed for “contemporary literature.” The classes became a bitter experience for us. Since the professor was no good, we named him Pandaara Vadai. Every class was like the Sepoy Mutiny on a smaller scale. There was no such problem when it came to the English class as the teacher looked like a goddess. We did not pay attention to what she taught as our minds were too busy spinning wicked fantasies as we disrobed her with our eyes. There were rumors that the boys in the back benches used to masturbate when she was in the class. This was believable as even I used to get a boner when I looked at her, but I couldn’t jerk off because I never got a chance to sit in the back row.
Math, physics and chemistry classes were like torture camps. The antics of the professors who taught us these subjects were comparable, in their unspeakable cruelty, to torture methods like nail-pulling, stretching on the rack, the water cure and the passing of current through a man’s dick. There was a torture that went by the name “record notebook.” We had to copy from our textbooks in handwriting that resembled print, draw all the pictures and finally submit the book to the teacher. And if the teacher was not happy with it for whatever reason, he’d hurl the pillow-sized book to the ground or, worse still, at the unfortunate student. We had to wordlessly endure their murderous rages. Looking back, I wonder if they behaved like sadist psychos because their sex lives were unsatisfactory. The fact that the students were powerless made them even bolder. Internal assessments carried twenty-five marks out of the total hundred. If the professor disliked a student, he could destroy his life by giving him a zero. Another weapon in the teachers’ arsenal was the Conduct Certificate that was issued by the Principal at the time of leaving. If it did not have the word “good” in it, the student’s future would be over before it began. He would be doomed to be a cowpoke for the rest of his life as no other college or organization would accept him. And if the teacher complained about you to the principal, you were finished.
Despite the fact that the teachers enjoyed so much power, we were able to have our way with Pandaara Vadai. The reason behind this was that Tamil teachers were not a very respected lot and they did not score internal assessments. One of the many insulting things we did in Pandaara Vadai’s class was cupping our mouths with our hands and howling like wolves.
We traveled by bus from Nagore to Karaikal. The Nagore bus stand was near the market and the police station. We would loiter near the Thennavan Tea Stall in front of the bus stand. (Thennavan was a schoolmate of mine who started working in his father’s tea shop after finishing with school). As soon as the bus came, we’d sprint across the road like lunatics to board it.
Around this time, a young police inspector had come to Nagore. Now because he was young, he was eager to prove his mettle and conducted several raids in shops and huts where sex was being peddled. One day, Maraikka Vaappa, a friend who commuted with me in the bus, howled when he saw the inspector who, infuriated, gave us all a taste of his lathi. I was the first to flee, but duck-footed Maraikka Vaappa couldn’t. Never in my life will I forget his agonizing screams.
Luckily, there was a man called Ramalingam at the bus stand who, like Ramalinga Adigal, had shorn his head and covered it with a cloth. He was blind and gyrated slowly, chanting Adigal’s verses. I never once saw him sitting or lying down. When a bus arrived, he would stop singing and tell the people exactly which bus it was and where it was headed. It was he who managed to calm the inspector down. Otherwise, Mariakka Vaapa’s skull would have been bashed on that day.
It took me three years to pass my pre-university exams which I should have passed in one year. I could have continued my education in Karaikal but difficulties cropped up all on account of a particular girl.
I had passed the lower and higher levels in English typewriting at the typists’ training institute in Nagore; they also taught shorthand, but with no success which was why I began to train under a teacher called Thanikachalam in Nagapattinam. He worked as a stenographer in the Velippalayam court and taught in the evenings. Most of the people who trained under him passed, not in the first attempt, but in the second or the third. People flocked to him because institutes were no good. There were three levels in English shorthand – lower, intermediate and higher. People usually passed exam for lower level but not for the other two. You had to transcribe eighty words per minute for lower, one hundred for intermediate and one hundred and twenty for higher.
Thanikachalam was dark, potbellied and hirsute and he gave dictation very clearly. I used to practice hard at home and was able to take the exam after three months of training. He thought that I’d already learned shorthand and refused to believe me when I told him I would practice six hours a day at home. When he saw that there wasn’t a single mistake in my shorthand notes – the others would have at least fifty – he would accuse me of having read the passages beforehand. One day, he dictated the contents of the Hindu editorial and I made only three mistakes. “You don’t need me. You can appear for the exams without my help,” he declared. He didn’t tell me this nicely, but angrily, as he was under the impression that I was somehow cheating.
To attend Thanikachalam’s classes, I had to catch the 4:10 Thanjavur Passenger train that reached Nagapattinam at 5. It would take 50 minutes by the steam train to cover the travel distance of 6 kilometers. There would be two bare-bodied drivers in the engine’s cabin at the front and they would shovel coal into the furnace from time to time. With rivulets of sweat streaming down their bodies it just was not practical for them to wear shirts. They would sport a bandana on their head and have their trouser legs rolled upto their knees. Their bodies would shimmer in the fiery glow of the furnace and sheen of their sweat making it appear as though they were carved out of anthracite. It would seem to me then that a train driver’s job was the most difficult one on earth. The main downside with the steam engines was you could not enjoy a window seat. Coal cinders would fly into your eyes and cause acute discomfort.
During one of those train journeys I met a girl to whom I slipped a love letter. She gave me one in reply. The people who witnessed this exchange decided to thrash me because this girl was a Muslim. When I learned of their plans, I fled to my uncle’s house in Golden Rock near Trichy. As I’d passed college, I enrolled in E. V. R. Arts College’s undergraduate English Literature course. After failing my intermediate exams, I roamed around for two years and learned a bit of English. Two people – R. K. Karanjia and Baburao Patel – were responsible for this. The tidbits of movie dialogues that appeared in Karanjia’s Blitz and Baburao Patel’s questions and answers helped me to learn English to some small degree.
My uncle was an even more ardent follower of the DMK than my father. He always wore a veshti with a black and red border – the colors of the DMK – and he wore it in such a way that everyone who looked could see his striped drawers. His house was also painted black and red. I used to wonder if his stools were also black and red.
I couldn’t live in my uncle’s house for long, again because of a woman. My cousin Kamali – my mother’s sister�
��s daughter – lived in Golden Rock and I would often go across to see her. I was nineteen then and Kamali was five years older. Her husband was forty and looked more like her father. After lunch, Kamali would lie back in bed and say, “My feet are hurting. Could you press them a little while?” I would press her feet and slowly advance up to her knees but I lacked the courage to go beyond. Finally, one day, I decided to risk it and went all the way up to her privates. When she felt my hand there, she woke up and angrily struck it away.
One day, Kamali asked me if we could drink some whiskey. But I couldn’t do any of the things I’d imagined and planned doing with her as we both fell asleep after a few swallows. A short while later, her brother-in-law arrived at the house and knocked on the door. When no one answered, he jumped over the back wall and entered, only to find the two of us in what he thought was a “compromising position.” There was no one who would have believed us even if we swore upon every God that nothing had happened. The news reached my uncle’s ears and it became clear that I was no longer welcome in his house. However, it is said that when one door closes, nine others open. It was just after this event that my aunt Kamakshi approached my mother and said, “I will send Udhaya to college.” My mother was not excited about my aunt’s offer, but in the end, it was my decision to go and stay with her.
I joined the Bachelor of Physics course in Serfoji College. The reason why I switched from English Literature is a huge story.
There was an aged Christian man called Saamy who lived in front of my house and I am, in a way, indebted to him. It was he who introduced me to English Literature. He started me off on Daniel Defoe and we slowly moved on to Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. I was unable to get past the first line of a play of Shakespeare, so he suggested I read Charles and Mary Lamb’s simplified version of Shakespeare first. After I did, he made me read the originals. He was also responsible for my becoming a stenographer instead of a professor. He told my father that studying literature would ruin my life and he convinced me to switch over to physics.
Marginal Man Page 28