Letters from a Son to his Father

I have had occasion in the past to share my thoughts pertaining to the challenges one faces getting rid, over time, of various objects from home and hearth. Notably books that have seen better days, music cassettes, spool tapes and LPs that are of no more use to man or beast given the rapid advancement of technology in music delivery systems (Spotify, Apple Music et al) and sundry knacks and gewgaws lying about the house for the proverbial donkey’s years. The bottom line being that after much soul searching and emotional contortion, pretty much most things are carefully put back where they have lain. Perhaps the one category that one finds most heart-rending to consign to the rubbish heap are old, handwritten letters. Remembering that we are talking about missives written by or to us over the best part of seven decades. School friends, pen pals, relatives providing gratuitous advice, reject letters from some newspapers or magazines to whom one had the temerity to submit articles and much, much more – all of them stuffed to bursting in three or four old Bata shoe cartons or rusted, Black Magic chocolate tins.

Many of these letters can safely be dispensed with because they are not likely to enhance anybody’s reading pleasure once you have departed for the great post office in the sky. For instance, who on earth is going to be even remotely interested in learning that your pen friend in Addis Ababa recently contracted small pox and was lucky to survive the ordeal? Into the shredder it goes, as do many other such inane letters sent par avion. However, one bunch, carefully preserved and tied with a thick brown twine by my father, contained a series of letters written by me and my brother to him from boarding school. My old man had this obsessive habit of never destroying any letter or note he received from anybody. Even provision bills or hand written receipts for salaries paid to drivers and sundry household staff could be found amongst his effects. They are of scant interest to anyone other than to know that his driver in 1961 earned a monthly salary of Rs.120/-, petrol set him back by Re.1/- a litre and that vegetables purchased over an entire month burnt a very small hole of Rs.300/- in his pocket. An economist studying the effects of inflation over the decades might have jumped for joy at such discoveries, but I was indifferent.

However, the personal letters I wrote from boarding school on a light blue 10p ‘Inland Letter’ to my father made for extremely absorbing, if not entertaining reading, a weird trip down memory lane. There were at least 40 or 50 such letters gathering dust. So, I duly dusted them off and started poring over them. Many of them were just routine “How are you, I am fine” type of letters, but every now and then, I extended myself and made an attempt to bring a smile to my dad’s lips. I have picked just three of these which are representative of that period and am reproducing them here, carefully censoring such observations as I deemed were not relevant to a wider public. Bear in mind, dear reader, that these letters were written when I was around 10 to 15 years old. They have been hand-picked by me at random and they are not in any chronological order.

July 10, 1960

My dear Appa,

How are you and Amma? I am doing fine. Boarding school life is not too bad. Everybody complains about the grub, but you get used to it. The Pantry Sergeant, his name, believe it or not, is Mr. Rice and he is in charge of deciding what we get to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. My being a vegetarian is making me the laughing stock with many of the boys. Even one of my teachers, a Mr. Caleb, mockingly calls me ‘grass eater’! So, I decided to try an egg yesterday for breakfast. It was an omelette stuffed with plenty of onions and chillies. It looked and tasted a bit like masala dosa but I quite enjoyed it. Don’t tell Amma about my eating omelette or she will immediately have a bath and sit in the puja room for an hour.

Our dormitory master came in this morning with the daily newspaper and announced that Ramanathan Krishnan lost to Neale Fraser in the semis at Wimbledon. We were all pretty cut up about it. The master pompously exclaimed, ‘So near and yet so far.’

We boarders have to attend chapel service every evening. There is a little black book called Manual of Worship and a brown book called Hymns Ancient and Modern. Don’t worry, nobody is trying to convert us and again, don’t show this to Amma or she will throw a fit. Actually, some of the hymns are quite nice.

Till next week then.

Yours lovingly,

Suresh.

P.S. In case you are wondering, I first spelt omelette as ‘omlet’ till my house master, who was walking around the classroom (from where we are to write letters on a Sunday) to ensure silence, peered at my letter and gave me a smack on the back of my head while dictating the correct spelling. Nobody taught him that he is not supposed to read other people’s personal letters. I could have told him but I feared for the back of my head.

Undated, 1960

My dear Appa,

How are you and Amma? Ramesh and I are doing fine. Daily classes are quite boring. I am enjoying the English language periods but Maths is hell, particularly Geometry. Our class master asked us to treat riders like solving puzzles. I just found riders puzzling.

 Today, I started playing hockey for the first time. The school supplied us with hockey sticks with which you have to dribble and hit a white ball into the opponent’s goal. It’s a bit like football, only instead of feet and head, we use sticks. A good hockey player must display good stick work. The first day I played was a disaster.

There is a foul called ‘sticks,’ which means you are not allowed to raise your hockey stick above shoulder height when you hit the ball. Not knowing this, I took an almighty wind-up swing way above my shoulder and the chap standing behind me, Ashok, caught my stick on the downswing plumb on his mouth. He broke three of his front teeth, bled a lot and was taken to sickroom needing several stitches. I had to go and apologise to him while he recovered. He said something nasty through his gap teeth I can’t write about, not even to you. I was suspended for three games after that and sent to detention class. I think hockey is a lousy game though India has won some gold medals in the Olympics. What is more, you can use only one side, the flat side, of the stick, else you are fouled for ‘backsticks.’ There is also a stupid foul called ‘legs.’ If the ball misses your stick and hits you on the leg, it is a foul and the opposition gets a free hit – altogether a foul game. Ha, ha! I did not like hockey.

I had vegetable cutlets and two cucumber sandwiches for dinner last evening. It was quite tasty, covered in tomato ketchup. The chap sitting next to me was tucking into beef steak. Please don’t tell Amma about this (the beef steak part) or she will again rush to have another bath and sit in the puja room for two hours.

We were told by our dormitory master that the Queen of England is soon going to visit India. And that we should all be ready. For what, I don’t know.

Till next week then.

Yours lovingly,

Suresh.

September 12, 1961

My dear Appa,

There’s a bunch of senior boys in school who are called Prefects. Why they are called that I don’t know but all they seem to do is to strut around bullying the junior boys. ‘Walk straight, don’t slouch,’ ‘Take your hands out of your pockets, stop playing pocket billiards,’ ‘Stand in the corner,’ ‘LANGUAGE!,’ ‘Fall in line or you’ll get one kattu from me.’ Kattu, which is a corruption of kuttu in Tamil means to give you a painful knock on the head with the knuckles. Who the hell do they think they are, anyway? One day I too will become a Prefect and give the same treatment to my juniors. Can’t do it to the seniors because they would have left school. Too bad.

I was selected to sing in the school choir. I am what they call an A singer. B singers are not bad, not as good as the A singers, but the C singers are gone cases, a dead loss. Can’t hold a note to save their lives. The music teacher asked me what song I knew. So, I started singing a Varnam in the raga Mohanam, which Amma had taught me.After one minute of this, he asked me to shut up.

Today is something called St. Peter’s Day. Don’t know what it is but we get special food through the day. For lunch, Mr. Rice asked us vegetarians to try fish and chips. ‘You will like it. It won’t taste like fish at all.’ Since I had never tasted fish, I had no means of telling. Anyway, I quite liked it with mayonnaise. They say it is good for the brain. Mr. Rice told us Jeeves eats a lot of fish, whoever Jeeves is or was. Please don’t tell Amma about all this fishy stuff, coming on top of the omelette and beef steak. She will take two baths and lock herself up in the puja room for the whole day and you might have to starve.

 Oh, I almost forgot. Somebody stole my Gibbons stamp album from my locker. The so-and-so used a compass or divider to open my stupid Klik lock. I am devastated. That triangular Monaco stamp was my favourite. I reported this to the House Master. He told me to change the lock. Big deal!

That’s all for now.

Yours lovingly,

Suresh.

Footnote: One of the letters records my maternal grandmother, Paati’s surprising visit to our school, escorted by our local guardian uncle and aunt. Paati was like the biblical Methuselah! To us kids, she might have been 90 or 900 years old. My brother and I felt awkward, I don’t know why, but our senior matron hollered at us to ‘Come and say hello to Granny.’ All Paati wanted to know was if we are getting enough to eat!