CHAPTER 4 - Education, Education & More Education…
After Anitha, I wanted to spend my life dreaming about the sweet time which we had and writing my heart out to her in the hope that we would move closer to each other someday. However, that was not the case. I finished high school and was in PUC (Pre University College), think it is similar to year 11 in the UK. I took Math, Physics and Chemistry as the major and I totally hated it! In order to get into computer engineering, we had to compulsory take those subjects! Subjects were really difficult and added to that, I absolutely had no interest in them. This made it even more difficult to clear the exams. But with great difficulty, extra hours of tuitions, I managed to clear them in First Class.
Now, I need to talk about our religion and believes. My parents are quite religious. We used to go to temple at least once every week, my parents used to go more if time permitted but for any special occasions like birthdays, festivals, it was compulsory. For each festival, we pray to a certain god, and there are loads of temples, each dedicated to a particular god. Besides this, we have these holy places, which were very famous as it was believed that great saints and gods lived in these places. India is a very big country compared to the UK and we have to take over-night trains to go to these places. It used to take us 18-20 hours to get there. Most of these were small places which were connected via rail and didn’t have airports close by. Even if some really popular holy places had airports close by, air travel was very expensive back then. A single air ticket would cost about 10 to 15 times more than train tickets for a family of 3. So, the first air journey which I did was when I came over to the UK.
I was religious, thanks to the belief of my parents, but I don’t think that is a bad thing. Our religion teaches peace, unity and helping the less fortunate ones. So nothing bad there, plus even hardcore religion fanatics in Hinduism aren’t that extreme. They never let others in, but they keep to themselves and are peaceful. Now, even though my family was religious, my dad and mom were quite modern in their thoughts. We enjoyed English movies, ate non-vegan dishes (not red meat, mainly chicken, mutton and fish) and my dad loved drinking alcohol, beer was his favourite. So, considering all this, it is not bad at all, we were extremely religious when in difficult or happy situations and then also had a modern outlook towards everything else.
My mom used to be more dedicated, she used to perform puja (prayer) regularly, also used to observe fasting to appraise the gods and every festival, she made sure that it was performed grandly, in the right procedure.
Mostly, the popular beliefs of Hinduism are something like this - the lord is the supreme leader, everything happens according to his command. Every god is the same, every religion teaches the same thing, which is to love everybody and never cause any harm to other. We believe all the joys and troubles in our lives are due to our Karma – the deeds which we did in our past lives have to be accounted for in this life! We believe in rebirths and the soul reaches salvation and gets free from these rebirths when the account is settles off! i.e. when our bad actions become negligible and our good deeds surpass the bad. That state is only possible when we ourselves have attained high state of self-realisation and detach ourselves from worldly pleasures and live the life of ascetic.
Now, that high level of religious achievement is not something on our to-do list but right from our childhood, we are taught to be helpful, true and most importantly, never cause any harm to others. In a way, I am quite proud about that as it helped me to be a sincere dedicated person.
Coming back to education, I always used to be extremely religious before examinations, used to pray my heart out to secure passing marks, especially in certain subjects. Somehow, I always felt it worked!!
PUC was for 2 years and it was the most difficult time of my life. I wasn’t really good at Math and equally hated Physics and Chemistry, but with great effort, help from extra tutors and constant motivation/nagging from parents, I managed to clear it in First Class (Guess, its similar to getting an A in the UK).
The next step was to get a Bachelors degree in Engineering. We had to write an entrance exam for this and the higher you score the better chances there are of getting into the major of your choice. All the majors are ranked accordingly, so if you score top most marks, you get into Computer Science, then the list goes on in declining order – Electronics and Communication, Electronics and Electrical, Mechanical, Civil, Instrumentation and a few more.
Computer Science Engineering was the hot-cake! Every family has someone, some elder who did computer science and settled brilliantly in the America or the UK. When I say brilliantly, it means having a nice house with pool and a good car, have a property back in India and work for some big company. Even my family has this member, my uncle who went to the United States when I was around 10 years old and ever since, my parents always used to take his example and say what I could achieve if I studied hard.
So, the dream was to go to America and be a Computer Science engineer. For me, even if you woke me up at 3AM in the morning and ask me what I would want to become, Computer Science engineering would probably be at the bottom of the list. I was soo much interested in films, that as far as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer or film-maker. I think now, after 30 years, I can fulfil my dreams. This write-up is my first stab at my actual dreams, now that I have time and also have no reason to worry about money. If I could time travel, I would tell my younger self to “endure”, keep it all together for few years and then say that in a couple of years, I would get everything I ever dreamt of and even more!!
Coming back to my education, after constant struggle, I just about managed to secure a seat in Computer Science. That is also not in Hyderabad but in a different state. So, this new place was going to be my home for the next four years. I was both sad and happy at the same time about this – sad, as I was leaving the comfort for my home and happy because I will be left on my own without the constant nagging, comparisons, etc. etc.
And yes, it did get better. I moved to this new city called “Chennai”, you will probably know this as “Madras” as it used to be called that before our Indian Government decided to do away with the names set during British colonization and stick to the original forms. So “Madras” became “Chennai”, “Bombay” became “Mumbai”, etc.
Actually, things were hell for the first year!! We had to adjust to this new place, do most of the chores ourselves where back home, it was done by parents or maids plus the huge issue of ragging from our seniors. Raging is similar to “Hazing”. It is torturous, humiliating and sexually degrading! I had to strip naked and wear my underwear over my trousers (like Superman) in front of about 10 seniors. Now, it was all for fun as they cheered, gave me treats once I complied. But that was a way of welcoming juniors into adulthood. And what a welcome it was, everything we never used to talk openly suddenly became hot topics, which were discussed regularly. Adult magazines were widely exchanged and every room had a stash hidden under mattresses. Oh by the way, I used to live in a dorm which hosted about 30 students, two students per room, close-by to my university.
Going to the cinemas was the constant source of entertainment and if there was an adult film, it was packed with college students on the opening night. The first time I saw an adult movie in cinema hall was during this period and I still clearly remember it, it was the soft-porn flick with Shanon Dorthey called “A Woman Scorned”. After that, the hits kept on rolling, Basic Instinct, Sliver, Emma, Peeping Tom, Emmanuel, Show Girls, Two Shades of Blue, etc.
It was in a different city so we never had the fear of running into some elder whom we know. Plus everyone from my college wanted to be there on the opening night, so it was all fun!
India is not open about sex as I mentioned before, so these film usually played in seedy theatres in the back alley. They were heavily censored as well. To quote an example, there was this famous movie called “Kama Sutra – A Tale of Love” directed by Mira Nair. It was quite popular and made rounds into various film festivals as well. When we first saw it at cinemas in Chennai, it felt quite erotic and we were amazed at the sequences filled with sexual activity. However, few years later I bought the DVD of the same film in UK and there was soo much more. They almost cut out half of the erotic scenes, especially the ones where complete nudity was shown. So despite it being the land where the famous Kama Sutra book was written, sex was still the subject of heavy censorship in India.
Coming back to education, Engineering was not as bad as PUC. The subjects were interesting and it didn’t feel as taxing as PUC. Living on my own, without the interference of parents was a good thing and it paid off as I managed to complete the course on time, again in First Class.
That was the first time I was away from home and it did teach me a lot. How to be independent and responsible but financial support was still provided by my parents. Working part-time while doing Engineering is not a common thing in India and parents usually pay and provide all what we need. So they used to send me set amount monthly that used to cover my accommodation and food bills and also had extra for social activities. Plus, my mom and grandmother used to send a little extra as treats. So, unlike kids attending college in the UK, all we had to do was study and not worry much about money. Again, I am not generalising as there are people who struggle or leave education because their parents cannot afford it and start working. All this boils down to the social and economical status of your family. Every country has differences between the rich and the poor and in India, I feel the difference in this gap is very substantial! Take Mumbai (Bombay) for example, one of the richest man on earth and the poorest on the Earth live in the same place.
The four years of education went by, it was a long time but didn’t feel that bad. Every year was divided into two semesters and we had to pass examinations at the end of each semester. In our university, getting 70 percent and above means First Class and everything below that was considered as second class. Subjects which we couldn’t clear off in the first sitting of examination were called “back-logs” or “arrears”. We could advance to the next semester only if we cleared at least half of the subjects and in order to get first class, we had to clear all subjects in the four year term.