Work, till retirement!

A group of children were playing at the foot of a small hill on the outskirts of the village. There was a small cave on the hill and the children were advised never to go near it.  While playing, the ball with which they were playing flew and fell near the entrance of the cave. One of the bold boys went near the cave to fetch the ball. He ventured to go near the mouth of the cave and stood there for sometime. Other kids too mustered courage and went near him. The group slowly went inside the cave. They did not find anything interesting there. While retreating, one of the boys saw a big egg lying in the corner of the cave. The children had never seen anything like that and decided to carry it to the village to find out what it actually was. The village headman saw it with other elders around, but nobody had seen such a big egg in their lifetime. It was kept on the stone slab in front of the big banyan tree. In a few minutes, it became the center of attraction in the village. A large crowd gathered around it and each one gave his own version about the egg.

One of the villagers suggested that they take it to the oldest man in the village and seek his opinion on it. The old man was now sick and bed ridden. The village headman carried the egg to his house as the old man could not come out on his own. The old man saw the egg and was excited. He said that he had heard about such a thing from his father, but he himself had never seen it. He suggested that the item be taken to the nearby village where his father stayed with his brother. His advice was duly carried out and the egg was taken there. No need to say that the entire village followed in a procession. When they went near the house and called out, the father came out to meet him. They were surprised when they saw the older man walk to them on his two feet clutching a stick for support. He was in much better health than his son. He examined the egg and said that his father had mentioned to him about such a thing when he was young. He said that it was not an egg, but possibly a corn. He was not very sure and advised the group to take it to his father who lived in another village, on the other side of the river. 

The headman and the group now proceeded to the village on the other side of the river. When they went to the house in which the grandfather lived, his great grand daughter told them that he had gone to the forest to bring firewood and forest fruits. The group waited for his arrival and found that he walked without any support and carried a big bundle of firewood on his head!  When the egg was shown to him, he was thrilled and danced holding the corn in his hands. He told the group that this was the type of corn his father grew in their farm and he grew up eating bread made from such corn in his childhood. He got the corn crushed and bread prepared out of it. A small piece was served to all the villagers.They found it extremely tasty and nice to eat. The grandfather told the gathering that due to bad practices in growing crops, the size of the corn has come down over generations and reached the present size. He also said that due to the loss of nutritious content in the corn, the food is never tastier now as it was when he was young. He mentioned that the strength humans derived from such corn is also not seen nowadays. The group which had seen the three generations of men that day did not require any more proof for what the old man opined!

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I have a colleague Professor who is a bundle of energy even at age sixty-three. The energy with which he gets into a class at 9 in the morning can be seen when he comes out of another class late in the evening.  While we were having lunch last week, he mentioned that he was availing leave next day as there was a cataract operation scheduled at the eye hospital. I wished him a "happy operation and get back quickly".  He smiled and said that the operation was not for him but for his father!  Wow!  He said his father is now 96 years old and has developed cataract problem and is being operated next day. I asked another foolish question. "Is it the first cataract operation?". He again smiled and confirmed it. At the age of 96 years his father travels alone in the train from their village to Bangalore, a journey of about four hours. He does not travel in autos in the city and comfortably moves around in the city buses. He does not like to waste money by hiring autos. He can squat on the floor and sit for hours. This is indeed something to learn from when people much younger give up trying and often say that they have become too old for many things.

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One of the leading Public Sector Banks recently celebrated its 108th "Foundation Day". A big function was arranged in the city to mark the occasion.  In the midst of various tastefully crafted cultural programs, an eminent educationalist was honored. The distinguished gentleman, Shri M N Raju, replied to the felicitations and his words deserved their weight in gold. Shri Raju started working at the age of 9 and never went to a school as a child. He worked as a helper to a carpenter and supported his family as a young boy. He later worked in a school for over 20 years and during this period availed only four days of leave. He later founded the first education institution on 15th August, 1974. MNR group today has 41 institutions in India and abroad in which more than 42,000 students study. The institutions impart skill-based education and has learning from "KG to PG".  Shri Raju works even today for the fraction of a salary paid to his professors in the institutions.

Shri Raju had a question for all the assembled audience in the function hall.  "What are you going to do after retirement?', he asked.  He also replied the question himself. "God has given us this wonderful tool called human body. It has enormous capacity. Use it to the fullest extent and pay back your mite to the society. Remember, there is nothing called retirement at 55, 60 or 65.  For a human being, there is only one retirement. That is the final retirement, from this world. So, it is "Work, till that retirement", he concluded. 

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The above two instances reminded me of the story of the big corn and the three generations. This was the story I had read as apart of my schooling in the seventh standard. Everybody may not able to preserve the agility of the body or the mind like the two veterans mentioned above.  But that need not preclude one from trying on those lines.  Try, we must.  As long as possible.......

Post Cards and "England Letters"

A post card was the most popular medium of communication between two places in the country some five or six decades ago.  An area of about 20 square inches on one side and half of it on the other side was for messages.  The remaining one fourth was reserved for writing the address for delivery by the post man at the destination.  If more space was required for writing the message, one could use the "England Letter".  Its actual name was and is "Inland letter", but it was referred to popularly as the "England Letter", especially in the rural areas.  One reason probably was because the England bosses ruled the country for a long time and the other was due to the two words sounding similar.  The third brother of the family, envelope, was considered expensive and reserved for official communications and rare occasions when sheets of paper were used for writing or to enclose some document etc.  There was a fourth brother of the family available for sale at larger post offices; special envelopes for carrying letters abroad, popularly known as "Foreign letters".  All of them are still in use, but have been replaced to a large extent by electronic communication medium like e-mails.

As a young boy I was fascinated to find that such cards and letters reached the addressee in a distant place.  Whenever the post man came to our street, we children would go behind him till the end of the street to find out which houses received letters that day.  One other thing that pleased us most was when the post man brought money orders.  My mother received two money orders (MO) every year; her two younger brothers always sent a M. O. to her a week before the Gowri-Ganesha festival.  The message part of the MO given to her with the money by the post man contained the usual request for utilizing the money for purchasing pooja items for the festivals.  The earliest MO amount as I remember were five rupees and increased to ten rupees in due course.  This sending and receiving of MO, however small the amounts were, was given high importance by both the senders and receivers and was a symbol of the bond between brothers and sisters.  One of our neighbors was working in a far away city and his wife would wait for the arrival of the post man in the first week of the month, bringing the MO sent by her husband for household expenses.  The post man would come promptly and deliver the money.  She used to keep a four Anna coin (quarter of a rupee) ready and gave it to him after receiving the money.  For quite some time I believed that it was part of the postal procedure.  It was much later that I learnt that this coin was actually a tip and it meant "To Impart Prompt Service"!

Those were the days of very low literacy and many villagers used to come to see my father and seek his help in writing letters for them.  My father would purchase postal stationery during his visits to the nearest big town and keep a stock of post cards, inland letters and envelopes to meet the requirement of the villagers.  Sunday mornings were busy times with many illiterate people from nearby villages coming for getting their letters written by him.  Some of them brought inward letters (letters received by them) and ask him to read them over.  Then the reply was to be decided and written by him.  As the letter for one villager was being written, others would sit below the tree in the front yard and patiently wait for their turn.  The process of writing a letter would start with inquiry about the addressee and contents of the message to be written.  There was no particular order in their answers and it was left to him to bring it into an acceptable form of communication.  He would write the letters, read them over to them and then mail them.

Whenever my father sat down near his small desk for writing cards or letters, I would take my place next to him and keenly observe how he went about it.  When I was in primary school, I was not allowed to touch any of those things; the desk, cards and envelopes or the pens.  As I moved to middle school, I was permitted to help him with placing the desk in its place, filling the pen with ink, pasting the inland letters with gum and finally going up to the post box to mail those cards and letters.  When I was sent to post the letters for the first time I was told to put the letters in the box and salute the post box so that the letters were delivered promptly.  I did this faithfully for sometime until I realized that the instructions were in jest.  During my first year at High School I was assigned to write the letters for the villagers under his watchful eye.  He would then scrutinize them and approve their mailing.  Once he was satisfied that I could do a good job of it, he delegated all the writing to me.  Literacy level improved by that time and the number of villagers coming for such errands also declined.

My father always wrote the address on the cards and inland letters first and thereafter went about inking the messages on them.  After observing this system, once I asked him why he did so.  In response to my question, he told me a fine story.

Those were the days of early marriages.  One village boy was married immediately after he finished his metric examination.  He was about sixteen years of age and his wife was studying in middle school.  He was sent to a city for pursuing his college education.  His father had instructed him to write a letter every week to inform the progress in his studies.  He had to comply with the instructions of his father.  The boy himself wanted to write to his young wife.  (He was probably reading "Mysooru Mallige" of the famous poet K S Narasimha Swamy!).  He bought two inland letters from the post office and wrote to his father as well as his wife.  The contents of letter to father conveyed that he was fully concentrating on his studies and his mind was occupied by only this and nothing else.  The letter to his wife had the opposite message: he was always thinking of her and had no interest in the studies.  He even expressed annoyance with the father for not allowing him to stay with the newly wed wife and forcing to go away to a distant place for studies.  Both the letters were fine in their own place.

He had no habit of writing the addresses on the inland letters before writing the contents.  The letters were sealed with gum before the address part was completed.  While writing the addresses on the two inland letters, he wrote the address of his father on the letter written for his wife.  The letter meant for his father was mailed with his wife's address on it!