namm aNNa (Our Father)

It was on June 19, 1910 that father's day was celebrated for the first time to honor fatherhood. Soon in the 1930s, commercial interests saw an opportunity to increase business by using father's day as a pretext to promote sales of gifts and greeting cards.

In general I have refrained from getting involved in father's day formalities. The idea of an institutionalized celebration of a very personal figure was and is, anathema to me. However yesterday on radio, I was listening to Eric Idol of the Monty Python fame. There were many middle aged men calling and telling how they got their children interested in Monty Python. I too realized how much my father has influenced me. As a result, this father's day, I felt I need to use this opportunity to recollect some of my fond memories of my father whom we called aNNa.

Since mid 70s, our family of 4 lived near Sreeramapura, in Bengalooru. At that time my father's office was in Shivajinagar. In the mornings my younger brother and I, who were both in primary school at that time, would sit with Anna, as he ate break fast which include the day's special such as UppiTTu or avalakki or chapaati and a glass of hot Horlick's milk . As our mother prepared the 'carrier' (lunch) for aNNa, he would start pacing up and down and start raising fears of missing his bus-number-58 which ran from Rajajinagar Ramamandir to Shivaji Nagar. My mother had a trick to stop this fussiness. In her own words "I will make the Horlicks very hot. That will buy me some time". At 8.40 AM, I and my brother would go and drop him off at the bus stand and wait till his bus leaves. He had a big friend-circle who had formed a passengers-of-58 club and they thought it was cute to see me and my brother at the bus stop in the mornings.

In the evening he would come back in the same bus number 58 which arrived in Devaiah Park at around 7.10 PM. It was a road train with two compartments colored gray and yellow. The sides of bus would carry advertisements such as "kshema nidhi or bala nidhi safe deposits' by Corporation bank. I would receive him at the bus stop as he got down from the bus and take his lunch bag and walk all the way home with him. Many times when my mother was not home, I would make him tea after we came home. I used to look forward to dinner. Not in the least because my mother would cook the most Delicious simple food. Rice, saaru (Karnataka style daal), cucumber kosambri and diluted butter milk immediately come to mind. Another rare delicacy she would make is kaDle bELe and red chili chutney made from chana daal. Such delicious dinner would be accompanied by me telling the jokes I had added newly to my list. My father was always eager for a laugh.

I have come to realize that I have acquired many of my personal traits watching and adopting my father' mannerisms. My grand father was a railway station master and as a result my father lived in different small towns across Karnataka and had collected varied life experiences. He would engage our relatives with his fascinating retelling of hilarious and exciting personal experiences. He would tell a story of how he was attacked by a bison when my grandfather was the station master in the remote Makali Durga railway station. The bison knocked him to the ground and charged at him with horns pointing at him. The only reason aNNa escaped was this - the sharp horns missed anna and got stuck in the ground giving my father enough time to get up and run away.

Watching him narrate the incidents in his own style I felt it was not only OK to talk in one's own unique way but it was the natural thing to do. I was totally influenced by the way he narrated anecdotes. He had a naturally humorous style of speaking which I seem to have adopted. Many of my relatives fondly see my father in me when they hear me tell jokes or recount anecdote. It is common to hear "yalla avarappan thara ne" (just like his dad) or "namm moorthy maataDida haage annisalava". (Does not he sound like our Murthy).

I would help my dad do his work around the house. This was when I was still 4 or 5. My father was fixing an electrical issue . It was common for him keep stool atop a table and he would stand on the stool to reach the ceiling and do his electrical work. I was assisting him by holding the table, the chair or screw drivers etc in my hands. I was also thinking that I was securing the table and stool with my 5 year old hands and helping aNNa not fall down. Once when aNNA was perched in this position he received an electrical shock and he came crashing down along with the stool and table. I remember him telling his friends with a hearty laugh "As I hit the ground I looked around to see what had happened to Madhu and I noticed that he had run away and was peeping from behind the door". He taught me how to iron clothes. Right from when I was 9 or 10 it was my proud job to press his old style woolen trousers and bush-coats. That was when I learned the art of pressing trousers - especially the ones which had a generous dose of pleats.

One of the biggest influences I have had from my father has been his thrill for movies, music and popular entertainment. He would take me and my brother for watching second show movies at the nearby theaters namely Geethanjali, Navarang, Sampige, Central, Savitha and Nataraj. We have seen many movies this way including 'naagara hole' , 'naarada vijaya', 'bangarada manushya', 'singa poorinalli raaja kulla', 'aalemane' 'bara' ans 'sampattige sawal'. His taste for comedy is what runs in me. I can recollect his enjoyment of movies by Dwarakish, Mehmood and Johnny Walker. At the beginning of Dwarakish's movies there is the standard scene where a Karnataka map shows up and Dwarakish roars like the MGM lion. He would get a kick out of it.

He introduced me to Laurel and Hardy which we watched for the first time in Cubbon Park's Bala Bhavan. He also took us to other English movies including 'McKenna's Gold', 'Its a mad mad world' and 'The Crazy Boys' series which was very popular those days.

He was a great fan of Shammi Kapoor, Joy Mukherjee and Mohammed Rafi. He would enjoy songs like 'tum se accha kaun ho' and 'lakho hein nigahame'. The 'Rafi and Asha hit' from Aradhana "gun guna rahi he bhavara khil rahi hi gali gali' had a special place in his heart.He also liked the Junglee title song. He would be beaming as he said "Do you know who screams yahooo in the song. It is actually Jai Kishan of the Shankar Jaikaishan duo'. He would repeat famous dialogues from movies. Consequently my fascination for movie dialogs is equally deep. This was how I learned that being interested in tidbits can provide for great conversation material and is a genuine way to warm up to strangers and friends. When the popular Kannada song 'gombe aatavayya' played on the radio he would wait for the right moment and say "watch now, he is going to softly say 'krishna'" which PBS does in between background music. When the song 'onde ondu hosa haadu' started playing, he would get the same thrill into his face and say "listen to the guitar piece, it is very nice". Such innocent excitement really fills me up even today.

During Ramanavami celebrations, I would go with him, amma, my grand mother and aunts to attend the concerts by star Carnatic music performers at Sheshadripuram college. His favorites included Jesudas, Kannukudi Vaidhyanathan and Kadri Gopalnath. In one of Kadri's conccerts my father got so excited after a piece that he jumped up from where he was sitting and gave a good round of applause. Kannukudi's antiques with his violin like playing it like it is talking was enough to send him into bursts of enjoyment. The concerts would end late after midnight. I must have been 12 or 13 then. It was such a comfortable thought that at 12.30 in the night, we could safely walk back home from Sheshadripuram with women, children and elderly. In fact we would groups of such families on the streets, walking back home, talking about the concert.


He introduced me to the exciting Cantonment area (which according to him were all areas that were not under the influence of Kannada culture and environment). He came from a small town far away from Bangalore. He was brave enough to explore a big new city all by himself and that spirit - I carry with me today too. My mother would often say, "You are just like your aNNa. You seem to be familiar with all nooks and corners of the city".

He had a child like fascination for seeing himself in pictures. He would cheer when he saw his own picture and point at picture and say "hey, guru illidaane'. Seeing the pictures in this article, I am sure he would have been extremely happy. I find it interesting today - especially since it is father's day, that when ever I called him aNNa he would also address me as aNNa'. If I called out to him 'aNNa' he would lovingly reply 'yen aNNa' (What dad). Even though he was echoing my words in an affectionate way, I guess he had seen me going on to be a dad like him one day.

Happy father's day to all.

Photo credit: Thanks to my sister-in-law Archana, brother Arun and my mother for providing the photos. Archana even transferred the old photos from their physical form into electronic form and enhanced the quality of the pictures. Hats off to my mother for preserving these photos in her Godrej bureau. Having received what I asked for within an hour gave me the additional impetus to write this article.