Here, There and Everywhere

by Sudha Murty

  Meanwhile, my mother chose an auspicious day for me to pay the tuition fee. It was a Thursday and happened to be the end of the month. My mother nagged me to pay the fee of Rs 400 that day although my father only had Rs 300 left. He told her, ‘Wait for a few days. I will get my salary and then Sudha can pay her fees.’

  My mother refused to budge. ‘Our daughter is going to college. It is a big deal. We must pay the fees today—it will be good for her studies.’

  While they were still going back and forth, my father’s assistant, Dr S.S. Hiremath, came along with his father-in-law, Patil, who was the headman of Baad village near Shiggaon, the town where I was born. Patil curiously asked what was going on and my father explained the situation to him. He then took out his wallet and gave my father a hundred rupees. He said, ‘Doctor Sahib, please accept this money. I want to gift it to this girl who is doing something path-breaking. I have seen parents take loans and sell their houses or farms to pay their sons’ fees so that they can become engineers. In fact, sometimes, they don’t even know whether their child will study properly or not. Look at your daughter. She desperately wants to do this and I think she is right.’

  ‘No, Mr Patil,’ my father refused. ‘I can’t take such an expensive gift. I will accept this as a loan and return it to you next month after I receive my salary.’

  Patil continued as though he hadn’t heard my father, ‘The most important thing is for your daughter to do her best and complete her course and become a model for other girls.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘Sudha, promise me that you will always be ethical, impartial and hard-working and that you will bring a good name to your family and society.’

  I nodded meekly, suddenly humbled.

  My first day of college arrived a month later. I wore a white sari for the first time, touched the feet of all the elders at home and prayed to Goddess Saraswati who had been very kind to me. I then made my way to the college.

  As soon as I reached, the principal called me and gave me a key. He said, ‘Here, Ms Kulkarni, take this. This is the key of a tiny room in the corner of the electrical engineering department on the second floor. You can use this room whenever you want.’

  I thanked him profusely, took the key and immediately went to see the room. I opened the door excitedly, but alas! The room had two broken desks and there was no sign of a toilet. It was so dusty that I could not even consider entering it. Seeing me there, a cleaner came running with a broom in his hand. Without looking at me, he said, ‘I’m so sorry. Principal Sahib told me yesterday that a girl student was going to join the college today, but I thought that he was joking. So I didn’t clean the room. Anyway, I will do it right now.’

  After he had finished cleaning, I still felt that the room was dusty. Calmly, I told him, ‘Leave the broom here and give me a wet cloth, please. I will clean the room myself.’

  After cleaning the room to my satisfaction, I brushed off the dust on my clothes and went to class.

  When I entered the room on the ground floor, there were 149 pairs of eyes staring at me as though I were some kind of an exotic animal. It was true though. I was the 150th animal in this zoo! I knew that some of them wanted to whistle but I kept a straight face and looked around for a place to sit. The first bench was empty. As I was about to sit there, I saw that someone had spilt blue ink right in the middle of the seat. This was obviously meant for me. I felt tears threatening to spill over, but I blinked them away. Making use of the newspaper in my hand, I wiped the seat clean and sat on a corner of the bench.

  I could hear the boys whispering behind me. One grumbled, ‘Why the hell did you put ink on the seat? Now she may go and complain to the principal.’

  Another boy replied, ‘How can she prove that I have done it? There are 149 of us here.’

  Despite feeling hurt, I did not go to the principal to complain. He had already warned my father that if I complained, these boys might persist in troubling me further and I may eventually have to leave the college. So, I decided to keep quiet no matter how much these boys tried to harass me.

  The truth was that I was afraid of being so troubled by the boys’ activities that I would quit engineering altogether. I thought of ways to stay strong—physically and mentally. It would be my tapas, or penance. In that instant, I resolved that for the next four years, I would neither miss any class nor ask anyone for help with class notes. In an effort to teach myself self-restraint and self-control, I decided that until I completed my engineering degree, I would wear only white saris, refrain from sweets, sleep on a mat and take baths with cold water. I aimed to become self-sufficient; I would be my best friend and my worst enemy. I didn’t know then that such a quote already existed in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says, ‘Atma aiva hi atmano bandhu aatma aiva ripu atmanah’.

  We really don’t need such penance to do well in our studies, but I was young and determined and wanted to do all I could to survive engineering.

  I had good teachers who were considerate and sought to look out for me in class. They would occasionally ask, ‘Ms Kulkarni, is everything okay with you?’

  Even our college principal, Professor Khanapure, went out of his way to inquire about my welfare and if any boys were troubling me.

  However, I can’t say the same about my classmates.

  One day, they brought a small bunch of flowers and stuck it in my plaited hair without my knowledge when the teacher was not around. I heard someone shout from the back—‘Ms Flowerpot!’ I quietly ran my fingers through my hair, found the flowers and threw them away. I did not say anything.

  At times, they would throw paper airplanes at my back. On unfolding the papers, I would find comments such as, ‘A woman’s place is in the kitchen or in medical science or as a professor, definitely not in an engineering college.’

  Others would read, ‘We really pity you. Why are you performing penance like Goddess Parvati? At least Parvati had a reason for it. She wanted to marry Shiva. Who is your Shiva?’ I would keep the paper planes and refrain from replying.

  There was a famous student-friendly activity in our college known as ‘fishpond’. Rather than an actual fishpond, it was a fishbowl that carried a collection of anonymous notes, or the ‘fish’. Anybody from the college could write a comment or an opinion that would be read out later on our college annual day. All the students would eagerly wait to hear what funny and witty remarks had been selected that year. The designated host would stand on the stage in the college quadrangle and read the notes out loud. Every year, most of the notes were about me. I was often the target of Kannada limericks, one of which I can still remember vividly:

  Avva avva genasa,

  Kari seeri udisa,

  Gandana manege kalisa.

  This literally translates to:

  Mom, Mom, there is a sweet potato,

  Please give me a black sari and send me to my husband’s house,

  This is because I’m always wearing a white sari.

  Some of the romantic north Indian boys would modify the lyrics of songs from movies like Teesri Kasam:

  Sajan re jhoot math bolo

  Sudha ke pass jaana hai

  Na haathi hai na ghoda hai

  Vahan paidal jaana hai.

  This can be translated as:

  Dear, come on, don’t lie

  I want to go to Sudha

  I neither have an elephant nor a horse

  But I will go walking (to her).

  All the boys would then sneak a glance at me to see my reaction, but I would simply hold back my tears and try my hardest to smile.

  I knew that my classmates were acting out for a reason. It was not that they wanted to bully or harass me with deliberate intention as is the norm these days. It was just that they were unprepared—both mentally and physically—to deal with a person of the opposite sex studying with them. Our conservative society discouraged the mingling of boys and girls even as friends, and so, I was as interesting as an alien to them. My mind justified the reason for
the boys’ behaviour and helped me cope. And yet, the remarks, the pranks and the sarcasm continued to hurt.

  My only outlet in college was my actual education. I enjoyed the engineering subjects and did very well in my exams. I found that I performed better than the boys, even in hardcore engineering subjects such as smithy, filing, carpentry and welding. The boys wore blue overalls and I wore a blue apron over my sari. I knew that I looked quite funny, but it was a small price to pay for the education I was getting.

  When the exam results were announced, everyone else knew my marks before I did. Almost every semester, my classmates and seniors would make a singular effort to find out my marks and display them on the noticeboard for everyone to see. I had absolutely no privacy.

  Over the course of my studies, I realized that the belief ‘engineering is a man’s domain’ is a complete myth. Not only was I just as capable as them, I also scored higher than all my classmates. This gave me additional confidence and I continued to not miss a single day or a single class. I persisted in studying hard, determined to top the subsequent examinations. In time, I became unfazed that my marks were displayed on the noticeboard. On the contrary, I was proud that I was beating all the boys at their own game as I kept bagging the first rank in the university.

  My ability to be self-sufficient made me strong and the boys eventually started to respect me, became dependent on me for surveys and drawings and asked me for the answers to the assignments. I began to make friends and even today, my good friends include Ramesh Jangal from the civil department, my lab partner Sunil Kulkarni, and Fakeer Gowda, M.M. Kulkarni, Hire Gowda, Anand Uthuri, Gajanan Thakur, Prakash Padaki, H.P. Sudarshan and Ramesh Lodaya.

  I will never forget my teachers: L.J. Noronha from the electrical engineering department, Yoga Narasimha, a gifted teacher from Bangalore, Prof. Mallapur from the chemistry department, Prof. Kulkarni from hydraulics and many more. Between my classes, I also spent much time in the library and the librarian became very fond of me over time, eventually giving me extra books.

  I also spoke frequently to the gardener about the trees that should be planted in front of the college, and during my four years there, I had him plant coconut trees. Whenever I go to B.V.B. now, I look at the coconut trees and fondly remember my golden days on the campus.

  The four years passed quickly and the day came when I finally had to leave. I felt sad. I had come as a scared teenager and was leaving as a confident and bright young engineer! College had taught me the resilience to face any situation, the flexibility to adjust as needed, the importance of building good and healthy relationships with others, sharing notes with classmates and collaborating with others instead of staying by myself. Thus, when I speak of friends, I don’t usually think of women but rather of men because I really grew up with them. When I later entered the corporate world, it was again dominated by men. It was only natural for my colleagues or friends to be men and only sometimes would there be women, whom I would get to know over many years.

  College is not just a building made up of walls, benches and desks. It is much more intangible than that. The right education should make you a confident person and that is what B.V.B. did for me.

  I later completed my master’s programme from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Yet, B.V.B. continues to have a special place in my heart.

  When my father passed away due to old age, I decided to do something in his memory. He had allowed me to go ahead and become an engineer, despite all odds and grievances he had heard from our family and society. Thus, I built a lecture hall in his memory in our college campus.

  Whenever I go abroad to deliver a speech, at least five people of different ages come and tell me that they are from B.V.B. too. I connect with them immediately and can’t help but smile and ask, ‘Which year did you graduate? Who were your teachers? How many girls studied in your class?’

  Now, whenever I go back to the college, it is like a celebration, like a daughter coming home. Towards the end of the visit, I almost always stand alone in the inner quadrangle of the stage. My memories take me back to the numerous occasions when I received awards for academic excellence. I then spend a few minutes in front of the noticeboard and walk up to the small room on the second floor of the electrical engineering department that was ‘Kulkarni’s Room’, but no longer dusty. I remember the bench on which I sat and prepared for my exams. My heart feels a familiar ache when I recall some of my teachers and classmates who are no longer in this world today.

  And then, as I walk down the stairs, I come across groups of girls—chatting away happily and wearing jeans, skirts or traditional salwar-kameez. There are almost as many girls as there are boys in the college. When they see me, they lovingly surround me for autographs. In the midst of the crowd and the signings, I think of my parents and my journey of fifty years and my eyes get misty.

  May God bless our college, B.V.B.!

  21

  Three Thousand Stitches

  We set up the Infosys Foundation in 1996. Unfortunately, I knew precious little about how things worked in a non-profit organization. I knew more about software, management, programming and tackling software bugs. Examinations, mark sheets and deadlines occupied most of my days. The concept behind the foundation was that it must make a difference to the common man—bahujan hitaya, bahujan sukhaya—it must provide compassionate aid regardless of caste, creed, language or religion.

  As we pondered over the issues before us—malnutrition, education, rural development, self-sufficiency, access to medicine, cultural activities and the revival of the arts, among others—there was one issue that occupied my uppermost thoughts: the devadasi tradition that was pervasive throughout India.

  The word devadasi means ‘servant of the Lord’.

  Traditionally, devadasis were musicians and dancers who practised their craft in temples to please the gods. They had a high status in society. We can see evidence of this in the caves of Badami, as well as in stories like that of the devadasi Vinapodi, who was very dear to the ruling king of the Chalukya dynasty between the sixth and seventh century in northern Karnataka. The king donated enormous sums of money to temples. However, as time went by, the temples were destroyed and the tradition of the devadasis fell into ruin. Young girls were initially dedicated to the worship and service of a deity or a temple in good faith, but eventually, the word ‘devadasi’ became synonymous with ‘sex worker’. Some were born into the life, while others were ‘sacrificed’ to the temples by their parents due to various reasons, or simply because they caught a hair infection like the ringworm of the scalp, assumed to be indicative that the girl was destined to be a devadasi.

  As I thought about their plight, I recalled my visit to the Yellamma Gudda (or Renuka temple) in Belgaum district of Karnataka years ago. I remembered their green saris and bangles, the smears of yellow bhandara (a coarse turmeric powder) and their thick, long hair as they entered the temple with goddess masks, coconuts, neem leaves and a kalash (a metal pot). ‘Why can’t I tackle this problem?’ I wondered.

  I didn’t realize then that I was choosing one of the most difficult tasks for our very first project.

  With innocence and bubbling enthusiasm, I chose a place in northern Karnataka where the practice was rampant and prostitution was carried on in the name of religion. My plan was to talk to the devadasis and write down their concerns to help me understand their predicament, followed by organizing a few discussions targeted towards solving their problems within a few months.

  On my first day in the district, I armed myself with a notebook and pen and set out. I dressed simply, with no jewellery or bindi. I wore a pair of jeans, T-shirt and a cap. After some time, I found a group of devadasis sitting below a tree near a temple. They were chatting and removing lice from each other’s hair.

  Without thinking, I went up to them, interrupting their conversation. ‘Namaskaram, Amma. I’ve come here to help you. Tell me your problems and I’ll write them down.’

  The
y must have been discussing something important because the women gave me a dirty look. They lobbed questions at me with increasing ferocity.

  ‘Who are you? Did we invite you here?’

  ‘Have you come to write about us? In that case, we don’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘Are you an officer? Or a minister? If we tell you our problems, how will you solve them?’

  ‘Go away. Go back to where you came from.’

  I did not move. In fact, I persisted. ‘I want to help you. Please listen to me. Are you aware that there is a dangerous illness called AIDS that you could be exposed to? There is no cure for …’

  ‘Just go,’ one of them snapped. I glanced at their faces. They were furious.

  But I did not leave. ‘Maybe they need a little convincing,’ I thought.

  Without warning, one of them stood up, took off her chappal and threw it at me. ‘Can’t you understand simple Kannada? Just get lost.’

  Insulted and humiliated, I felt my tears threatening to spill over. I turned back and fled.

  Upon returning home, with the insult fresh on my mind, I told myself, ‘I won’t go there again.’

  However, a few days later, it occurred to me that the women were probably upset about something else and that maybe I had simply chosen the wrong time and date to visit them.

  So after another week, I went there again. This visit took place during the tomato harvest. The devadasi women were happily distributing small oval-shaped bright-red tomatoes to each other from the baskets kept near them. I approached them and smiled pleasantly. ‘Hello, I’ve come to meet you again! Please hear me out. I really, really want to help you.’