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Wedding Festivities

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  “Upma is being served on badam (Indian almond) leaves… you all go and have it!” Mom said. We immediately stopped playing and ran over. The cooks were making hot, fresh upma in a small cauldron placed on an earthen fireplace. Firewood was burning underneath, and since we went too close, we could really feel the heat on our skin. Just then, one of the cooks snapped, “Hey kids! Don’t come so close to the fireplace … you’ll burn your skin. Be careful!” “My mom said they’re serving upma,” one of my friends said. “It’s not ready yet. It will take about ten minutes—go, play for a while and come back,” he replied. That whole scene is still so clear in my memory. Most of the cooks were men, with just one or two women. I remember my grandmother proudly saying that they were all cooking in a state of Madi (physical purity after a bath). I already knew a bit about madi back then. I had been hearing about it since childhood. Basically, madi means wearing wet clothes, or clothes that have been...
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Govinda … Govinda

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  In front of the Lord’s Sanctum Sanctorum at Tirumala Venkateswara Swamy Temple, the Dhwajastambham (flagstaff) gleamed with a golden radiance. Devotees, filled with longing to have a darshan were eagerly waiting - “When will we behold the Lord with our own eyes?” That intense yearning was leading to pushing and jostling in the crowd. Yet, those immersed in devotional ecstasy hardly felt the discomfort. As we neared the Dhwajastambham, my wife Smt. Sridevi suddenly collapsed, saying that she couldn’t walk anymore. Seeing her suffering, a security guard moved both of us out of the crowded main queue. Even in such pain, she did not stop chanting “Govinda.” Sitting on the ground and dragging herself forward, she kept trying to move ahead. In that condition, would she be able to have Darshan? Still, inch by inch, she crawled across the Dhwajastambham. Just then, two young volunteers arrived, “Amma, you will definitely have Darshan. If you’re okay with it, we will carry you.” “What tro...
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The Landlord who Bit his Tenant

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  Some incidents are really surprising. One such strange episode was an owner biting a tenant. So far, we’ve moved through eleven rented houses, and every landlord has had a different style. Just as there are good and kind owners and landladies, sometimes you also come across extremely troublesome ones. Not only that, some rented houses too seem to put you through all kinds of difficulties. At times you even feel like you’re living in a haunted house. In this section, I’d like to share a few such experiences with you. Those were the days when I was working at the Andhra Prabha office in Vijayawada. It was around 7 p.m. Another hour and my duty would be over. I was busy working on the page that had been assigned to me. Just then, the office attendant Rama Rao came up to me and said, “Sir, there’s a phone call for you from home.” I quickly told the paginator what the next item was and exactly where it should go on the page, and hurried over to the phone at the news desk. “Hello…” “It...
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Dhana ‘Dhan’

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  “Come on, let’s go, Raju, let’s go watch a love movie, come on, let’s go, Raju…” In Nandigama, my relatives and close friends call me Nagaraju. Humming a parody of a movie song, Vijaya Babu signalled to me. I immediately picked up another tune and sang back: “Come, come, little boy, flying like a ‘time-pass’ bird, without even looking at your book, come on, come on…” and I gestured back at him. “They say it’s a really good love movie. Let’s go watch it,” he said. That’s the term he used for romantic films. It was a tiny room on the terrace of a house in the Sixth Lane, Arundalpet, Guntur. The owners rented it out to bachelors and students. My elder brother knew about this, so he spoke to the owner, rented the room for a month, and put the three of us, (Parthasarathy, Vijaya Babu and me) there — basically dumped us into that room. Out of the three of us, Parthasarathy,  was the serious type — always with a book in his hand, deeply absorbed in studying. He had come along with ...
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Chapter 22:The Lion and Me

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  The lion laughed! How could it not, when a mouse comes hopping about? When someone tries to impress by parading the skills they do not truly possess—and when such a spectacle has been witnessed time and again—wouldn’t a lion laugh? The lion sat upon a throne-like chair! The mouse, knowing neither fear nor reverence, pushed the door open and slipped inside. Its tiny eyes darted about, scanning the room. Then it saw a majestic figure. It was said that even the mightiest and the most powerful people trembled at the sight of that form, moreover, in that awesome ambience! But the mouse had no idea that such fear was meant to be felt… after all. As if singing to itself, “What a great chance I’ve got!” it rushed boldly inside. It wanted to impress by showing off its intelligence and greatness. Seeing this innocence, the lion then smiled. But that smile was neither pompous nor sarcastic. It was a smile of a peculiar kind. In fact, no one could tell what kind of smile it was. Nor could an...
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Chapter 21 Miracles of the Shirdi Foot Pilgrimage

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   Life never moves smoothly just the way we want it to. Unexpected troubles and obstacles keep coming. They suffocate us. We can’t see a path forward. It feels like a journey without a destination. “In the darkness, in pitch darkness, in the ocean called time, in the boat called sorrow, to which shore, in which direction…” (Cheekatilo, kaaru cheekatilo, Kaalamane kadalilo …) From far away, I could hear Sri Sri’s song in Ghantasala’s voice. When I think about it, that song seemed exactly like my own situation. The job I have is hanging by a thread. My children are doing their higher studies. The place is new to us. The relatives I thought would support me have drifted away. How do I come out of this crisis? How do I escape from this? I was working in Andhra Prabha at that time and the management changed unexpectedly. I didn’t like the ways of the new management at all. On top of that, for some reason, my superior didn’t like me. That same superior told me, “If you stop talking...
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