Hemantha Kalam - 101 "Men Who Mattered More - Inspiring 'TV'"

This blog and the next two or three blogs would be in continuation to my blog Hemantha Kalam-100.

After my ‘Askhara abhyaasam’, the next step in my literacy programme was to get me enrolled into a school. Accordingly in 1961, I was enrolled into a school called ‘Sri Bala Gurukul’ in T. Nagar, Madras (now Chennai) which was nearer to my house (presently the school is extinct). This school was being run by a South African born gentleman called Duncan Greenlees [Late Thomas Richard Duncan Greenlees (1899-1966) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Greenlees]. When India got independence in 1947, apparently, Duncan Greenlees was appointed to draft the country's education policy. And my mother used to converse with him with her very little faulty English but with full conviction. :-) 

                                                      Late Duncan Greenlees

                                      School Magazine of 'Sri Bala Gurukul'

He was the first foreigner I ever came into contact with in my life. Later, when I have become a global person, it became a matter of routine though.

My school journey which began in 1961 went on till 1972. However, during this journey I had been influenced and inspired by many close acquaintances and friends, from school or otherwise. There is Mukkamala Sita Rajya Lakshmi with whom I had to always compete with, for better grades. Then there was G. K. Venkata Kumar who was quite friendly; Madhu Babu the ever soft-spoken fellow with an enviable perennial smile, come what may, and who was always keeping in touch with me, all these years, irrespective of  wherever I had been; Jonnavithula Radhakrishna, Prabhakar and Ramesh, the three brothers, who were always kind to me and shared with me whatever they had without hesitation; Rajarushi for his boldness and straight-forwardness; Badeti Venkataramaiah, for his gregariousness; Chundi Ravindranath for his affection towards my mother as if he was another son of hers; V. Hemachandra Chowdary; for his ingenious business ideas; T. N. Srinivas for his educational prowess, and so on, as the list is endless.

However, for sure, the two persons who had clearly inspired me in measurable ways also happened to share the same name – Venkateswara Rao. One is my father and another is my classmate, almost throughout my entire school journey.

I don’t remember how I made friendship with Tekumalla Venkateswara Rao or TV for almost all, who know him closely. But it was in Sri Bala Gurukul, I guess, sometime during 1961, that I met him in class, when we were both admitted to the same school, same class and same section.

                          TV is sitting next to Sakunthala teacher (to her right)                                Pic: Circa 1964-65

His house, my house and the school were sort of in a triangular path. I was a single child (at that time) and had no one to play with, at home. The entire compound of three families didn’t have a kid of my age and it was a privilege to be a single child at home and at neighbour’s home too. But it had many disadvantages as well.

So, often in the evenings, I used go to TV’s house (about a kilometre away), along with another classmate G. K. Venkat Kumar. We were not from a well-to-do family and were living in a sort of single-room tenement and TV’s house, even in those days, was like a colonial mansion (later when they remodelled their house it was in no way lesser than that of any top film star’s and was quite enviable). But he was quite good with us. We used to play together in the backyard of his house and sometimes went to the nearby Somasundaram Public Play ground to play cricket or watch others play cricket. Even if we played, it was TV who was arranging the cricket kits. He always used to be finely dressed, draped by the latest fashionable clothes in the market.

It was TV who introduced me to comics that today I could become a Pannapictagraphist. Otherwise, I am sure I would not have, perhaps, known even the word ‘comics’ till much late in my life. It was again TV who introduced me to airguns and I loved shooting pellets at targets in his backyard. Though today I cannot credit myself as being a marksman in the ‘grouping’ segment, I can say that I am a fairly OK guy with a real gun in ‘free shooting’ or ‘application fire’!

Even at that time, for the young age that ours was, TV used to have some fancy bicycles and he generously used to allow us ride them. The first ever bicycle I tried to ride on by myself was his. It was he who introduced the word ‘Kawasaki’ to me and explained that it was a Japanese name for a motorcycle. I was always awestruck by his wide connectivity to the outer world aspects. Mind you, at those times, there was no internet or any of the latest gizmos that the present generation has access to, for information gathering. It was amazing to know his knowledge in such matters. Later, when I purchased my motorcycle, it was a ‘Kawasaki’. TV was the guy who even introduced the word ‘auto racing’ to me. If it’s not for him, for a long time to come, I would not have known the importance of the place ‘Sholavaram’ (before Irungattukottai, Sholavaram’s unused airstrip was where auto racing used to take place in Madras - now Chennai).

When I came to know that my first boss (Mr. Rajesh Malhotra) was a friend of TV, I was proud that it is not just my boss, but even I could address him on a similar belonging/possessive way – as TV!

Without even being aware of it, I must have started working to gain things that TV introduced me to. I can say that it’s because of him that I started looking at the world differently, at my life style differently. And I am grateful to TV for all these. But still, there have been so many things that even if I aspire, I will never be able to do what TV could do. I just can’t reach his pace!

His house, most probably, was the first in Chennai (I think I can say this with fair conviction) to have a dish antenna over his house and when I say dish antenna, don’t think the type of the silly small dish antennae that we all have over our roof tops nowadays. It was a giant dish which he must have put up some 40 plus years ago. It was at a time when the word ‘Dish antenna’ was not even known to noobs or anybody in the city, for that matter even in the country except, maybe, to scientists! I could not do it. I wouldn’t have been able to do it either. He was a part of a family industry that supplied vital parts to Indian government’s space establishments. I can’t do that. Today he has established an organisation that makes parts for aircrafts and supplies across the globe. I can’t even imagine doing that, ever. In fact, even if I try, I will not be able to really reach the pace of TV.

After school, though in the same city, I hardly ever met him or spoke with him. Our meetings mostly used to be on airport tarmacs, airport buses or in flights when, by coincidence, we were travelling on the same dates or on same flights!

Yet, for all this, even today, whenever I say that we are planning for an ‘old buddies / classmates meet’, he tries to make it without fail and generously foots the bill; almost always.

As, we are all growing old and I do not know what may happen tomorrow, I wanted to acknowledge his warmth and tell TV through this blog; “dear TV, damn it, you have been an inspiration to me man, thank you!”

TV and yours faithfully

And yes, though may not be role models, there have been other gals / guys who inspired me! Like, many of my other class mates, school mates, college mates, colleagues and some relatives, who had influenced me, helped me, especially when I was down and in tight corners, and who were kind to me. I will need a book to write on each one of them; so I am saying a blanket ‘Thank You’ to all of them too!

The long and short of it is that even today I do not acknowledge anyone as my role model.

But TV and my dad, of course, have been different! They have been among the few who had shown me paths - one directly and one indirectly, without even perceiving it – and that which left lasting footprints!

Isn’t it? What do you think? Please do let me know!

Until the next, 

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy                                                                                                  Chennai, India