149, Big Street - where life started for us!

What is common between a Kamal Hassan and a Dr.Subramaniam Chandrasekar?  What thread binds together a W.V.Raman and an S.V.Ranga Rao?  What common platform could possibly a GNB and a Rt. Hon. Srinivasa Sastri have shared?  What magnetic legacy of 160 years could have been intertwined into the lives of  millions from Wichita to Washermanpet and Jacksonville to Jam Bazar? Proceed west straight from the Marina along Pycrofts Road, take a right turn into Big Street and to the left, the answer lies!  The Maha Vishnu of Triplicane, with the unassuming, staid nomenclature of Hindu High School.  

The red-brick edifice straddles history dating far back from what one can remember.  It has seen it all.  It has weathered it all.  It is older than the Indian National Congress, it predates the Mahatma's birth, it is living history.  All of 160 years and still going strong.  It was born when India did not have a single kilometer of railway line.  It was already thriving when trams were first  introduced in Madras.  It has magnificently  managed to survive the ravages of time, stood its ground despite the years and continues to gleam. It is Hindu High School.

It is more than a mere school, it was our life, larger than life.  The logic behind our current existence.  Our creator.  Our springboard to the magic called life.  Our alma mater!

I am privileged that I too am a part of that living history, however miniscule that part be.  I remember the main building in red that reminded many of the Andaman Cellular jail.  I remember the stage ground where the stage, which had hosted many a luminary, also doubled up as the lunch hall of the students. I remember also the Scout ground.  I marvel at the magic of the Hindu producing exceptional sportspersons without the luxury of a respectable play-ground.  I remember the big hall at the second floor where I was treated to film-shows once in six months, with RS exhorting us to 'rapt attention'.  I remember the crafts room with two big handlooms, where once a week we were herded to, to do but nothing but watch the man behind the handloom deftly alternating his left and right strokes.   I remember the gallery room where a diminutive bespectacled teacher took history classes for us in so absorbing a manner that convinced us that history is the greatest subject on earth.

And I do remember my teachers.  The lanky TG Rangachary, the Lord's 11th avatar himself in appearance , who descended on earth for teaching  Tamil.  TC Rangaswamy, class master of VI-D, cruel at times (he made me stand up on a bench for an offence I did not commit) but kind at heart (he, at times, also  made me class-leader).  The 'tincture' Subbarayan in class VII with whom too I had a violent one-way encounter (me, at the receiving end), the 'Gandhi Book centre' Arunachalam master who excelled in simplifying for us the working of  complex contraptions like the voltaic cell and ammeter, with the aid of the Tamil version  book, he always carried.  The gigantic ERS, who used to hold us by the scruff of our necks and bent us forward to slap our backs with the full force of his mega-palm. The affable STP, who introduced the abomination called calculus into our simple lives, in Class XI.   TRR and his elucidation of quantum mechanics with the allegory of sambar rice packets. And Seshan, always ready with his never-failing cure for insomnia in the form a drug called Botany...

And of course DR, the greatest of'em all.  Teaching the queen's English for us in Class XII. Cricket, we all love.  Cricket, we all have played with varying degrees of skill, in our lives.  But DR brought Neville Cardus straight to our classrooms.  "Cricket is a capricious blend of elements, static and dynamic, sensational and somnolent...." Profound, but eminently forgettable words, but they have stuck to my memory only  because of DR, who probably did not hold a bat in his hands ever in his life.  Such was his magic with English-teaching.  The magic that even the government apparatus had to take cognizance of - no wonder DR was awarded the best teacher in year 78, I believe.

The Hindu High School never aspired to be  the preferred destination for the high street folks and the well-heeled kids of Triplicane (not that there were many in theTriplicane of those years).  It never probably got 100% results in X and XII throughout its history.  It never ever bore any pretension of being the best school around.   It was a plain, unassuming, chalega type of school for those who did not have many monetary options or the inclination  to look for other better choices when it came to selecting a school. It was all very simple for us - if you are hungry, you have to eat, if it is 10 p.m. you have to hit the sack, if you are out of the montessary and maladhasary, you have to head straight to the Hindu, for class VI, as simple and natural as that.

At a personal level, it is only my stint in the Hindu that has shaped my identity, for whatever it is worth.  I still  retain the 'Webster English dictionary' I got as a prize from the school in class VII  and that tome has particularly served me well over a span of more than three decades. I still, with pride, leaf through the 'Purananootru chorpozhivugal', my first prize from the Hindu, though I have never managed to go through it in entirety, till day.  I still wonder why on that humid August evening, just after I collected my prize and exited the stage, a teacher came running back after me and admonished as to why I ignored the extended hand of the chief guest after he handed over the prize to me, did not shake it and just walked out.  I have tried to recollect that scene a hundred times but still do not remember seeing any proferred hand.  Me being sick with high fever that day notwithstanding!

Reminiscences spanning seven years cannot be capsuled into a seven para narrative.  It would be sacrilege to even try to do so.  I would attempt a separate series on the wonder that is Hindu perhaps at some later stage.  Before that, I would ensure I deserve to do so - like by attending the next annual day, for a start; like  by resolving (only resolving!) at least  to pay my mite back to the institution that has shaped me.  Like by marking my diary to be present at the stage ground 15 years hence (If I am still around) when my school would celebrate its 175th birthday.

Had my father had the influence and the moolah in 1976, I would have donated my way into a more hep school.  Had I had felt the necessity, I would have explored better schooling options.  I had neither.  And I am glad for that.  For destiny took me to the Hindu and I am none the worse for it. I opted for the Hindu or rather the Hindu was magnanimous to take me.  Whatever! Thanks the Hindu, thanks my alma mater!