Kurnool ki Kahania...

When my mom tells most of the relatives how I end up being the lower mortal among the friends, I used to shrug it off thinking it is one of those pampering things that any mom would say about their kids. But boy was I not wrong as I recall now and blog about my 3rd Class pal: Praveen. This trend had set in long ago i.e. from 3rd class to till date. Excepting intermediate all the times I had people around me who were much better. And this is what puzzles my mom as she can’t comprehend how I haven’t been able to get some qualities from these guys and UP my studies. Even I wonder.

The days in Kurnool are the most memorable in my life. Ironically I don’t remember much of what has happened in classes but off the school, I do. Staying at Narsingarao Pet, it was always warm, traffic free, pollution free and more importantly free of endless apartments and noise that I am witnessing here. The whole area was cut off from the busy part of the town. Five to six parallel lanes made up the place with school as the entry point. It was ten minutes walk from my house to the school. My brother used to escort me during lunch hours, and with T.V switched on he had no problems taking care of me.

My tryst with Cartoons:

I am big crazy fan of cartoons right from childhood. During my breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks or whatever time it was to eat from me the first thing she does is to switch on the t.v. and put some Cartoon cassette Tom and Jerry, or Mickey Donald (my childhood favorite), or Popeye( I had huge collection of those..).


As she recollects I used to utter not a sound of approval or disapproval as she goes on feeding me with the spoon. Once she knows how much is enough, she promptly cleanse my face and continue with her work. Even now she relishes it telling it to everyone she meets how she used to make a doll out of me for feeding. Till 5th class this continued. Don’t get me wrong, I was a spoil child mind you with lots of lots of crazy and irritating things I used to do. But not during the EATING times, because of cartoons.

Well, that’s how life was till 5th. Maybe there was more but I don’t remember. But things stared changing for better. In the evenings all the children gather near one house where we had this 10th class student Srinath as our guide to make us understand what to play. We had somewhere like 10 to 15 people covering almost all the classes from 1st to 8th class. During weekdays it was mostly hide and seek(the toughest of all), gilli-danda, tops or chain game. After few games we all sit around for a while and then disperse for the studies. The actual fun was always in the weekends i.e. the time when Saturday ends to the time Monday begins literally. These were allocated to GAMES like Football and cricket.

Cricket was played extensively. So many rules, so many restrictions but still we managed to play with whatever options we had. We had these games hours together with lots of juggling. After assessing the two to three games we change the teams and when there seems to be good enough battle we had series of 5 or 10 to decide the best one. There wasn’t any betting. Everything taken in right spirit. Movies weren’t quite a craze nor was the t.v. No wonder there is eternal debate about the boon and bane of the Technology.

It was a mixed crowd all the time. Sometimes the fun was with my classmates and sometimes it was with colony people. As the night progresses, we end up in Kishore’s house (my bro’s friend..). there again was an option of playing cards or caroms. Rummy being everyone’ favorite, three to four decks were brought in and we used to catalogue the points to decide the winner and there was minimum of ten games to get that. This was only during the times when there was lot of time before the exam dates approached.

Of all the festivals, Vinayaka Chavati topped the list for the kind of celebrations we had. There was always one twenty-odd feet Statue kept in our lane and there was week long celebrations. The nights we see the entire lane being decked up with lights. Mimicry, dance shows, antakshari, singing competition would take place in the night- the carnival like of atmosphere is something that can be felt and seen only in towns and villages. All we guys used to make many trips round the queue for prasadam(it being free…).Over Three hundred people a day used to throng for the darshan, so it wasn’t easy for pujari’s to spot the second or probably fifth or sixth-timers too.

As I look back I feel sad with the hectic life that we are to put up with, nostalgic as they can never come back, happy because of such a wonderful atmosphere I had and overall immensely satisfied to be able to recollect and share my wonderful experiences.