An Un Written Page from My Dad's Dairy - 1968

Written By: My Beloved Father, Written from: Edmonton, Canada..

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PATNAMLO SHALI BUNDA

PISAL PISAL BUNDA

PATNAMLO............

I am an arts graduate, with English literature as an optional subject. I was twenty eight, according to the records available. And I have three years of service as a school teacher. I was working in a high school, as a school assistant, located 50 km from the city Warangal.

The schools were closed for summer vacation a day before. I could work till the last working day. When I reached home the following day, I saw a couple of persons from Nizamabad furnished with a car. They are close relatives to Mr & Mrs Bandari Laxmikantha Rao. One of them was their elder son - in - law, Mr.Gangadhar; the other was the only son of their brother, Mr. Gangaram, the retired school master.

On the invitation of Sri & Smt Bandari Laxmikantha Rao, I made my first visit to their home at Nizamabad accompanying one of my close friends. He is not only a friend, he is our close relative.we got down the bus, after six and half hour of our journey. In those days phones were not much in use or not with in the reach of us. We could not make any phone call to them before we started. Simply we could exchange letters by means of postal department.

We took a rickshaw and asked him to drop us in front of Jama Mazid, Town No 2 police station. I took out the paper, given to me by my elder brother from my shirt pocket and saw the door number in front of us. It tallied with one on the door.

But my companion suspected the home for a school, as large number of boys and girls were playing in their school uniforms. However he made an inquiry. He was not correct. That was not a school but the residence of Mr and Mrs Bandari Laxmi Kantha Rao.

Before we entered in to their first gate, I just had a glance at the children playing "Char Patter". There were few girls playing char patter, all in their 18s, or 20 years. And others were quite younger to them. Perhaps they are encouraging them by participating in the game, we don`t know? Later we came to know that the girl wearing that Green sari with white blouse was no one but the girl to whom we went there from Warangal to meet and greet. Her name is Vijaylakshmi.

We could confirm this only after the meet organized by her beloved parents and her beloved brothers. A couple of their close family friends also were there in the meet, who were more active than the others. Any how, we could exchange all our news and views. Initially there was much talk on the growing summer, and drinking water problems prevailing all over the district in specific and Andhra Pradesh in general.

In fact they have no drinking water problem. There was a water well, inside their home and a tap above the ground level. In Warangal we could find only a few places with taps above the level of the ground. Almost all others were below the ground.

We had been very much impressed by the girl, Vijayalakshmi and her family. And we could exchange our willingness to marry in the next month. However I had clear instructions not to tell them the result, before. I was expected to speak with my elder brother and other family members, and then, then only we need to intimate our acceptance with the post card.

You people all know, about my nature. I cannot hide my feelings and thoughts much.

In our return journey by bus, we had much talk on the Japan Transistor which we saw in their hands and about a baby girl always exchanged from one person to another person. We came to know that baby was the first grand - daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bandari Laxmikanth Rao, named Anuradha, people calling her ANU .. ANU... My companion also described their game Char Patter again and again in the bus.

On 3rd May 1968, I started to nizamabad accompanying few relatives after our dinner. That was May 4th early in the morning. The mike started singing… patnamlo shali bunda ... Pisal pisal bunda ...patnamlo ........

That was my marriage day! Ours is not an ideal marriage. It was a traditional one. But however we have an ideal for our marriage.

Siddaiah - Shantha, Siddaiah - Baleshwari, Ramaiah - Yashoda, Satya Narayana - Savitri, Mallesham - Yashoda came to Nizamabad from Hyderabad. Abbu Kistaiah, Dhubbaka Rajaiah along with couple other people came there next. Ramakrishna Reddy came with one of his friends via Hyderabad. Finally our people came with near and dear people from Warangal.

The marriage took place all day. And there was a procession in the evening in the city, at their neighborhood.

Everybody went back their homes after the marriage. On may 5th , we the newly wedded couple started to Warangal in the morning after our breakfast, taking leave from them all. Siddaiah - Shantha were with us, giving company in the journey.

January 7, is the birthday of my loving life-partner vijayalakshmi, your beloved mummy. Infact I wanted to write about her in this email. But i could not do it now. I shall write about her in my next mail...Vinod nana needs my attention now ...

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A PAGE FROM MY UNWRITTEN DIARY - CONCLUSION

Be Proud Of The Place In Which You Live. And Live in it, so that Your Place be Proud of You !

OUR SWEET HOME at Nizamabad was, is and will be an ideal place for our holidays for my wife Vijayalakshmi, for our sweet Three and for me too. After 1990 we could not spend much in vacations as our children had grown up, had to conceentrate more in their accademics.

But before that we were regularly getting a post card inviting all of us to spend vacattions in Nizamabad since 1968. Our children liked most the place, where they could enjoy total holidays. And from there they could visit other places where their uncles live and work.

Our children feel very proud of place Nizamabad, where they were born and even brought up mostly in their childhood. And So do we their loving parents felt re-freshed living in our holidays.

I am sure that place, GOLLA MALKU be very proud of them too.

SOMAYYA KASANI