This happened in 2011. I got hold of a Kannada photocopied book of about 30 pages, neatly spiral bound with a blue shaded transparent cover page. Surprisingly, it was my Grandfather’s autobiography, Sri. T.Thimmaiah. He had written this in 1996 just before he departed this world.
He had actually written it in an executive diary, which my father had made copies of it and distributed them among his 6 siblings. This was one of them.
It was a little hard for me to gain momentum and speed while I started reading it, due to the shaky writing of a 75 years old man and limited photocopy quality. However, I was surprised by the standard of the vocabulary and smooth-flow of events depicted.
He had started off with his childhood then drifted to his schooling, marriage, later career as a government primary school teacher and retiring as a Headmaster. He was generous enough to draw the family tree with three generations above him, because he was the last in our family’s bloodline to have known that. While the first part comprised of his physical life and family, the second part was dedicated for his spiritual journey, the genesis, initiation and his sadhana.
There were precisely two things that struck me while I was reading this book. It is the respect that he had for his word and community service. The entire book was inside of the celebration of these two aspects.
There was no doubt, of me getting inspired by the essence of this book. Anybody had authored this book; I would not have been spared being impacted. However, that being my own grandfather, I was more proud than anything else. This brought about a profound relatedness with my grandpa and my family.
But something was still biting me inside after I read this book. This was the story of a mere farmer of a small town Vijayapura (near Devanahalli), who became a school teacher, then turned into a HariKatha reciter alongside spirituality. The question was, “how come I’m reading my own grandpa’s autobiography after about 15 years of having written!” I realized that this book is not easily accessible for our own family members. I took on to digitize this book and make it easily available.
I shared this idea with one of my uncles Sri. Mukunda, and he said that he has already started that work and he was more than happy to share his work in as-is condition. I was so happy at that moment, that I was not the only one in the family who was craving for this to happen. I got a partner now. I took over his work and I started typing the entire text. It was not an easy task since I had to type in Kannada. Over time I picked-up speed. Over time, this work went down in my priority list. Then there was a time when it was simply not moving. That’s when I sought support of one of my cousins Yashaswini (Yashu). She jumped to partner me in this. Her quick actions brought the digitizing work to completion within a week.
There were numerous references of locations in his episodes. Be it the schools where he served, the farm he worked in, nearby villages where he was transferred in his job, the temples where he used to recite Harikathas and so on. I’m not too proud to say this, but I was unable to completely relate to his story since I was not aware of my own grandpa’s village and its geography!
I wanted to visit all these places. I ganged-up with my father and uncle Mukunda and set-forth on a journey on Jan 14th this year. I called it “The journey to the past”. This journey was more an exploration into my family for me than a mere tour. My knowledge had nothing to imagine when I started off. But, what I experienced was beyond my expectations.
My father had made a list of places to be visited around the vicinity of my native in the order of the visit. The locations included my grandfather’s first appointment as a primary school teacher in Channarayapatna (about 6kms from Vijayapura), the tomb of the my grandpa’s spiritual guru who had initiated him into spirituality, my grandpa’s peers in the mythological plays that he used to enact in the village, a village named Mandibele (about 3kms from Vijayapura where he served as a school teacher for 3 years), the farming land about a kilometer or two from my native which was donated by my great-grandfather in order to maintain the operational cost of the Sri Venkateswara temple founded by my great-great-grandfather, few temples in our native where my grandpa with his friends had initiated few bhajans and satsang and so on.
We started-off early in the morning and headed as per the tour map. We first visited Channarayapatna. We could not believe that we witnessed the mantapa (covered by walls now to make it room-like) where my grandpa actually started his teaching career about 60 years back in this place. In front of that there has been another small building with tiled roof that my grandpa initiated to expand the school. Later we were informed by villagers that there the government has shifted the school to another 10acre land where primary and secondary school is running now. I could relate that the school that has grown from a room to a vast establishment was started by my grandfather.
My grandpa used to enact in mythological plays in the village. We set-off to a village where few of his co-actors from the drama were staying. We could find only one of them who is in his nineties now, still working in his farm. He was shocked to see us when we introduced ourselves to him. He would not have definitely woken-up that morning thinking of meeting us! At that senior age, he started off reciting those historical Kannada lines of the plays. I could not resist myself from recording his whole recital. And it has become a treasure now.
Then we moved on to visit the village Mandibele, where my grandparents lived for about 3 years while my grandpa was serving as a school teacher in that village. This was from about 1953 to 1955. My father was very excited to visit this village as he did his schooling there during the stay and was visiting this village after 55 years. He had hand-sketched a map of the village as he remembered from his childhood. And also was keen and curious to witness the house where they lived then. He started-off speculating that something else would have come up there by now and we would be able to only locate the geographical coordinates of the house. But what we saw was beyond our expression.
To our surprise the village has hardly changed its demographics over time! The street plan, the locations of the temple and school remained untouched since then. We could witness the school where my grandpa taught, which is about to be brought down since there is a new school constructed beside it. And we were lucky to get its final glimpse and click a few photographs.
Then we moved-on to look at the house location. We were shocked by the innocence of the village that had left it untouched. My father finally located the house coordinates as in the map passing through a 4 feet wide passage between the rustic village houses. The house location was intact. It’s an 8 feet by 15 feet plot. There were only 6 stone pillars standing at the corners and at the mid-walls. Walls and roof has fallen off. The place is now a residence of goats and cattle of neighboring houses.
I was enthralled to witness the ruins of the house where my grandparents lived. Along with them were their first two sons (including my father being the eldest), another boy of their distant relation who was staying in their house at that time while his schooling, and a cattle and a calf- all residing in that 8X15feet house. I could picture the financial situation of my family 55 years back. I was overwhelmed by the developments that have happened in our family since then till now. Now our family has multiple properties in different parts of India and also on different continent! I was spellbound by the expansion that my family has brought into reality in the past 55 years.
Till then, I had my own unsaid complaints about my childhood comparing mine in my peer groups, that it was not “as luxurious as theirs”. While standing there in front of those six pillars of the house, one thing got really settled for me. My childhood was the way it was, inside of the grand plan of my family’s expansion. We all 37 family members had to bring forth something or the other at different time-points. And we have all played our roles knowingly or unknowingly to make this a reality. Of course, the expansion I’m referring to could be termed materialistic, however to bring about this materialistic transformation, there is leadership that’s glaring out and all family members have demonstrated that.
Later we proceeded to our native town. Visited the farming land, temples and the school where my grandpa retired. Captured them on my camera, wrapped-up our journey and got back to the present world.
Later I processed the snaps to affix them on relevant locations in the autobiography book. Finally the copy of the book was out. My father, my uncle Mukunda, my cousin Yashu and my wife Lakshmi worked relentlessly editing and proof-reading till it was printed on a hardcopy. It was a fulfilling experience having that in my hand.
We called for a simple family gathering where we formally released the book in the family. It was joyous for me to hand-over the simple but glorious and accomplished life-history of my grandfather on paper to his own decedents. We also had arranged for projection of the photographs that we had taken on the tour while the whole family watched curiously with comments from my father and my uncle.
Somewhere, we all got connected to our ancestors on that day. There is a whole new relatedness to our family now. The past has paved the path for the family’s future. The path is “Respect for one’s word” and “Service to community”.
