I am a Telugu brought up in Chennai from my childhood , living in Hyderabad with a surname of Mysore!! I give the word 'oxymoron' a complex (for the uninitiated , that's a phrase that has two contrasting meanings..with a classic example being 'Military Intelligence"!! OK, i will dumb it down even further... Military is blindly following orders, while intelligence is independent thought process with clarity!..phew!!). So military and intelligence cannot coexist in this world where soldiers are still being sent to slaughter while looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction and Presidents who have promised change are still sending troops(double the amount now!!) to look for a terrorist that is easily accessible to all the news media and all heads of (terrorist friendly ) neighboring governments!!.There I go, digressing again..but then that could come as a relief to those readers who really dont give a rat's ass to the excruciatingly silly blog about my growing up years that is as dull as watching "an item girl trying to act sincere and really in love with the hero in a trashy, badly made masala film with an over the hill hero'!!
Coming back to the oxymoron..(friends call me a moron who is built like an ox!, ok, enough of self deprecating humor now!!) I realized that I hated my name from the very day i stepped into school!.Not the kindergarden where I escaped because boys my age where still struggling with control on their release of bodily functions in the middle of a class. That probably kept them too preoccupied from picking on me.I have a vague memory of a boy scooping his own brown matter and proudly showing it to the disgusted teacher who banished him with the maid to the toilets!.I didn't think much of it then, but wondering about it now, kinda casts some doubts on the brought up and the parenting dont you think??
School, was another story altogether! on sight i was picked on for being fair, scrawny and short!, but my story didn't end there...as soon as they realized my name in all it's hilarity, they started making fun of it and i went home and cried to my parents..(read that as aunt, as my father was constantly fighting his battles with career in other states and my mother had no clue what to do with these humongous issues like, 'her son being bullied' and such!) My aunt took it upon herself to come to school and somehow managed to eradicate the 'Seshaiah' from my name (which belonged to my grandfather, much to his consternation since he was still alive and kicking(himself!!, for still being alive and under the control of his oldest daughter, my aunt!!)
So I continued my studies till 3rd standard with the name Mysore Suresh Babu' in some school that I dont remember!(it could have been Ramakrishna Mission High School). I supposed to have excelled so much there that they thought (read that as my over bearing, extremely wise aunt!) put me in Oxford English School and there I was tried and tested and then double promoted to 5th standard.So in actual fact, I didn't know a 4th standard! ( I am sure some other factors came into play for this double promotion and I am not going to go into greased palms here!!) My father was overjoyed on hearing this news, my aunt was pleased as a punch at her achievement and my mother was extremely satisfied that her son got to surpass her in educational qualifications!! I was the only one 'quivering in my underwear' at the thought of going into a class much higher than I was supposed to !
That extremely intelligent act of my aunt sounded the death knell of my so called excellence in education and it became a daunting task to keep up with the idiots in class, never mind the intelligent or performing ones!!. On top of it this there was the issue of fitting in...since I was living in an economically challenged neighborhood, I picked up 'Madras Tamil' very early and was very comfortable and the feeble attempts by my mother and the caning by my grandfather to perfect Telugu fell into deaf ears and my derrière got used to my grandfather's waning strength with the cane!
Coming back to fitting in, it's strange how children form stereo types very early in their lives!! I couldn't mix with the local boys because I wasn't fair, I couldn't mix with the fair north Indians because I didn't speak their language, I couldn't mix with the one or two Telugus since they weren't from filmi backgrounds and ostracized me since I was!! The mallu boys didn't mix with anyone else.... My 'Persona non Grata' (Person who didn't matter or an invisible person!) status in school improved when word got out that i was acting in movies and curiosity got them to ask me questions and I was only too proud to answer since finally....somebody was talking to me! That too was short lived thanks to my dad!.And btw, I removed the 'Babu' from my name because it was fitting into a stereo type I wasn't comfortable with. (Hence my screen name being just 'Suresh' and am comfortable with it!) Couldn't help bringing out the 'Mysore' for my corporate job ( which I wanted to and have experienced!), since I had to have a last name, God knows why!!
There was a friend of mine in my street who had a brother with my name and was the epitome of mischief! He had a very curious mind ( to say the least!)and every second or third day his parents would take him to the hospital for shoving something in his face, nose, ass and every other orifice he would think of ...at that point in time! At 6 he was everything a mother didn't want in an offspring and I still wonder how she didn't have homicidal tendencies towards him for the amount of ruckus he did. Starting with charging at guests with a knife to calling the milkman, mailman obscenities to killing/maiming any bird, insect, animal that crossed his path, he was destruction personified! No amount of thrashing from his father rectified his ways and me playing cricket with his brother and some others in the street resulted in him running away with the ball (which might have been natural!) and throwing a dead, lifeless, punctured ball back to us (which isnt!) all the while running around in circles! Any body who tried to catch him failed because he was more agile than a mountain monkey! One such time, I tried to grab hold of him, not knowing what is in store for me and what trick he had learnt recently! When I caught him by the scruff of his neck,he grabbed hold of my family jewels and refused to let go...I saw hell, turned blue, was speechless since I knew my mouth was moving but no words were coming out and saw white light!..Finally when he let go after a while thanks to some boys dragging him (and me along !) to release me ,I saw stars and fainted!!
The friends got me home and imagine my aunt asking me questions for which there were no answers from me...I was banished form playing outside for a month and i was more than thankful! It was my first realization that any disturbance to my family jewelery could cause so much pain (though I found out later that it was to the contrary !!)
This was during this time that I got a letter promising a free gift if I filled in a questionnaire.I was so excited by the prospect of filling in something that had the answers on it and having to send it to a postage paid address that it took up, the most part of my 12 th year! I lied to my unsuspecting aunt and mother that it was school work and filled out what seemed to be a history lesson and finally sent off the last of the mail that promised riches beyond my imagination and I was busily dreaming of a brand new cricket bat, a box full of 5star and riches like that when the gift arrived in the mail!.
I, in my immense wisdom, pride of having achieved something in life and glee in my eyes took it to my grandfather and proudly announced that I had won this from answering quizzes and my grandfather was watching me with suspicion while I tore open the package to see......THE BIBLE !! (I had been answering questions from the Bible with answers in the back oif the same letter!) My grandfather asked me everything patiently and proceed to thrash me to the last inch of my 12 year old life asking me if I wanted to convert to which I had no clue, never mind a reply!. After my aunt pacifying a sobbing me, my grandfather promised to teach me 'our roots'... Thus began my education in Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavathgeetha!!.
Till this day I am thankful for filling in the questionnaire and understanding another religion and culture (maybe understanding is a stretch, 'exposed to' would be a better term!!) and to my grandfather for exposing me to my roots,faith and where I came from!! Because I still remember how I disliked my grandfather for banishing my exposure to other religions and still maintain that what we dont understand, we tend to be wary of , mistrust, misjudge and assume the worst and I didn't and don't ever want to be that!
Acceptance comes from understanding!! We are not given a chance by our upbringing to understand by exploring, which is the right of every growing up child!! We need to be exposed to everything and then make a choice...of religion, lifestyle choices and way of thinking...which in turn will determine our way of life!!................A path chosen by us with no one else to blame!!
