BE--- The First Year ( 1966-67)

The first year classes started in July 1966.

Classes were from 7.30 AM to 11.30 AM followed by lunch and then again from 12.30 PM to 4.30 PM.

At that time, there were no girls and so it was an all-boys college.

Hassan is in the Malnad area and is called the poor man's Ooty.The monsoon was on in full swing and it rained continously.

I now came across a new set of boys here and they were completely different from my overwhelmingly Anglo-Indian friends that I had in KGF.

Many were from South Kanara and I was hearing Tulu and Konkani being spoken for the first time.It took me some time even to distinguish between these two languages.

My roommates Murali and Bhashyam were both from Bangalore. Murali was very fond of Hindi films and Hindi film songs and was usually found humming the popular tune of the day.

I had brought my table tennis bat and tennis racquet along and soon got busy playing TT in the evenings.I was always habituated to playing sports and couldn't imagine anyone not being on the playground in the evenings.

I was also prone to walking quite fast and soon earned the nickname " Fast Express" which was also the evening bus from Bangalore to Hassan.

We had two messes--- V Mess and NV Mess and I naturally joined the V Mess.

The standard routine was to get up at 6 AM, go to the basement for brushing and the loo, come back to the room and then take the towel and go to the bathroom.There were only around 8 cubicles, so we had to stand outside the cubicle, knock on it and say "Bucket".The occupant would hand over the aluminium bucket from the top of the door.Then, we had to keep the bucket in a queue for hot water and wait for a cubicle to get empty. Some of the more intrepid boys would bathe in cold water but I was not used to this (even now).

We used to come back, get dressed and then go the mess for our breakfast ---- idli, dosa, uthappam, upma-- and coffee.

The college was about 5 minutes away from the hostel.Around 10.30 AM there would be a small break and all of us would go the canteen for coffee ( 15P).

Lunch would be a sambar, rasam and buttermilk. Afternoons were usually reserved for drawing or labs--- attending a class was a sureshot recipe for dozing off.

In the evenings, we used to play and then go the canteen again for kali dosa ( 15p), sada dosa( 25p) or masala dosa( 50p).

I used to come back around 6.30 PM, have a wash ( no bath, since there was no hot water)and then sit down to do my assignment. One of the favourite exercises was to see whose room had the lights on first, since that meant they were usually studying.These boys were called "kudumis" for being unduly bookish.

The more adventurous boys would go to "town"--- Hassan downtown which was around 3 km away, roam around and come back in time for dinner.

Usually we had other boys coming to our room or I would go to their room and then we would have "class" which was nothing but a gossip session.

There were one or two boys with transistor radios and their rooms would be full on Wednesday nights 8PM to 9PM for the Binaca Geet Mala with the incomparable Ameen Sayani.

No matter how many boys bunked classes on the other days, there would be almost full attendance on Thursdays.This was the day when the girls from A V Kanthamma College for Women came to our college for Chemistry Lab.We would watch from the balconies when they trooped in, attend our classes and watch from the balcony again when they trooped out and then wait for the next Thursday.Poor, poor us!!!!

NCC was 3 days a week with Lance Corporal Padavattan making us go through our drills.Our NCC Camp was at Bangalore somewhere near Jalahalli and the 1st Year and 2nd Year boys attended this camp.There were a few boys who sneaked out every single night for the 2nd show."Teesri Manzil" had just released and was a hot favourite.

I took time off on one of the days to visit Chubbadi Uncle and Indira Aunty and see Anil who was around 5 months old.

In August 1966, I had promised Prabhakara and Premila that I would visit Chitradurga for the Ganesh Habba.At the last minute, homesickness overtook me and I took the train to Bangalore on my way to KGF.

Premila Aunty ribbed me about this for many years saying that she had made lots of kadabu and had prepared a hande of hot water for my oil bath.Anyway, that was not right on my part.

Meanwhile, M.A.Ravindra ( my KGF friend)who was also underage had also joined Hassan and K.B.Ravi joined us as late as Nov for the 1st year.Ravi had these thick glasses and was instantly called Lloyd ( after Clive Lloyd who was touring India with the West Indies cricket team).

I remember one more thing--- I had bought a new drawing board and "T" Square and proudly painted at the back of the board--- A.H.Kesari Prasad, 1st B.E "B" Section, MCE,Hassan.

When I took the drawing board home, T.B.Venkatesh( my uncle) asked me whether I planned to be in 1st B.E"B" Section permanently.

The board passed from me to Bhaskara to Satish( Kamalakshi's son) to Tejaswi to I don't know how many other people.

I came to KGF again for the Dasara and Christmas Holidays.

The route from KGF to Hassan involved catching the 5.30 PM evening train from Oorgaum to Bangarpet and then catching the 6.45 PM Bangalore Express coming in from Chennai. We would reach Bangalore at 8.30 PM, have dinner at the station and then board the Talguppaa coach of the Miraj Mail leaving
Bangalore at 10.30 PM.At Arsikere, the Talguppa coach would be detached and attached to the Arsikere-Talguppa train at around 3AM and we would reach Hassan at around 5.30 AM and then take the jutka to the hostel.
All this when I was around 15, so I can say I've really roughed it out.

Now comes the surprise. After joining class, we had all forgotten about the High Court judgement, not knowing that we had all got admission as an interim measure subject to the final judgement.

In December, the Mysore High Court ruled that the age rules were valid, which in effect meant that our admission was cancelled.

Murali, M.A.Ravindra,K.B.Ravi and I started packing our bags to go home and we even bid farewell to our friends. Within the next two days came the Government announcement that all those who had got admission could stay and the new rules would apply only from 1967. We had got a new lease of life again.

In Feb 1967, dodda Papacchi's wedding was fixed up and I travelled to Bangalore for the wedding which was held at Ubhaya Vedanta Kalyana Mantapa in Malleswaram. I had always been very close to the Saraswathi family and there was no question of missing the wedding.I remember I had purchased a handbag for Papacchi as a wedding gift.The groom was K.S.N.Swamy who was related on my dad's side so the beegaru were well known to us.

The rest of the academic year passed off uneventfully and I pushed off to KGF after the 1st year exams.

In my next blog, I'll write a bit more about hostel life --- not all of it but a bit more.