My Story of Growth and Self-discovery: An Autobiography

By Vasudeva Rao Krishnan

Born in an orthodox family and having gone through struggles in life until a job assignment overseas, the author takes us through his life in stages until he reaches a position of strength, authority and comfort in his business life.

 

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Vasudeva Rao Krishnan
• Release date: Apr 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798218421649

Book preview

2

Those wonderful years are not coming back

I was born in an orthodox Brahmin family on July 31, 1948, at 6:45 a.m. in the village town of Theni, in Madurai District in Tamil Nadu. My father, Late V.R. Vasudeva Rao, was a teacher, a headmaster or principal in a high School named Nadar Sarasvati High School. My mom was a dedicated homemaker and a mother of eight children. I learned that two kids passed away. Medical Care was lacking during those years in the village. I was born as the eighth child and named Krishnan after Lord Krishna who was born to Vasudeva and Devaki as eighth child in the puranic story of Lord Krishna - an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.

We lived in a lane called S.S. Lane consisting of a row of houses. The house was small widthwise but quite long and deep extending to the kitchen and the backyard with a well. I remember my friends in the neighboring houses with common walls separating them. There used to be a big play area opposite. Another locality was at the opposite side and the play area separated the two.

I was born in a Christian Missionary hospital and was told later that I was losing blood in the umbilical area on birth which was noticed later and corrected to give me life. I started life with a problem. My mother used to breastfeed me even until the age of five on my insistence, I'm told later. We were a big family of seven children then. My younger brother was born when I was about six years old. My eldest brother was married then and was living in Chennai, known as Madras during those days.

My father was a strict schoolteacher and brought about a lot of discipline in the school, he was proud of. He developed the school with untiring efforts and worked hard to maintain high standards of discipline and education. He was the principal (known as Headmaster) in charge of the school. He would go around the classroom areas with a cane in his hand and I was told that all the classrooms would go totally silent during his such visits. He used to give his cane treatment even to us sometimes when we misbehaved or did not obey his instructions.

The village atmosphere was always clean and neighbor friendly. I had many childhood friends to play with in the play area. We even had a dog named the Mani to scare unknown visitors away. I was told that this dog put his front legs on my uncle, who was once visiting us, and pinned him to the area until help arrived to save him. My mother used to take good care of us. Weekly once, we had to drink castor oil when we got up in the morning to clean our intestines and an oil bath head to toe, believed to keep the body condition in order.

I joined the school, a convent attached to the Christian missionary and progressed doing very well in studies. My sister's marriage was fixed and the entire street in our colony was covered with thatched roofs. The marriage was conducted for five days as per Hindu traditions at that time with relatives and friends. The bridegroom, my brother-in-law, was from Chennai. She moved to Chennai to live with him after the marriage.

I remember that I cried so much on the day of marriage that I wanted to go to school. My father finally gave up and let me go. I liked the missionary school as there were regular classes below banyan trees on biblical stories told by mothers attached to the missionary. I even used to pray while going to bed, influenced by those narrations.

Every year for summer holidays, we used to travel to Chennai. The town, Theni, was only connected by a road. We had to wait on the road for a local bus to take us to Kodaikanal, from where we needed to take a train to Chennai. Kodaikanal is a famous hill resort and a good summer retreat. We used to take a hold-all, used for packing as well as a sleeping bag. Open and spread, the central part of the hold-all would be a sleeping area for kids like me.

At the end of summer, we would return to our village town, Theni to resume our routine activities. There was also a cinema called Lakshmi Theater, screening mostly Tamil movies during the weekdays and some English silent movies on Sunday mornings. We used to go as a family and be given special seating preference, father being the principal of the school.

The town had many Chettiars and Nadars as popular business communities, specializing in grocery and textiles. The school Nadar Sarasvati High School was started by one from the Nadar community which grew into a big school of reputation subsequently. My father retired from service around the age of fifty-five and we settled in Chennai to live with my eldest brother. The school management committee, after about 10 years, had a special occasion in the school premises to invite and honor my father in appreciation of his services and contribution to the growth of the school.

I was a mischievous kid during that period and once accidentally swallowed a small coin. My mother gave me castor oil and I was not sure for several days if it ultimately came out, though several tricks played by my brothers failed to convince me that I had gotten rid of it.

My eldest brother, Narayana Rao, was working for Southern Railways and we were living in a house owned by the Railways. My brother built a house in a place called kodambakkam in the heart of Chennai and we moved to live there after the housewarming ceremony called Grahapravesam was performed by my father and mother as per Hindu tradition. We were a big joint family, with all the brothers, two of them married by then, my mom and sisters-in -law taking care of the house.

The correspondent of Madras Sanskrit College at Chennai asked my father to start a secondary school in their premises for the development and promotion of Sanskrit, an old and ancient Indian language. All the Vedic texts and holy scriptures of Hinduism were centuries back written in Sanskrit, which was even a language of communication once. Starting from sixth grade, Sanskrit was a major subject, and my father was teaching English and social studies (history and geography).

My other elder brother, Guru Rao, third from eldest, was working in the Telephones department in a town called Arani near Vellore in Tamil Nadu and I was living with him and went to the school there for some months in fifth grade. I joined the school started by my father in Sanskrit college in 6th grade, skipping the 5th grade. I was scoring the highest marks in the class in all subjects including Sanskrit and was the favorite student for all the teachers. The Sanskrit college had a nice backyard with many coconut trees and we used to play cricket in that area during lunch time.

I used to travel by bus from Kodambakkam, where we lived, to Mylapore, our school area, along with my father every day. The family tree was growing and children were getting added, bringing more joy and fun in the family. My father used to train me to be an eloquent speaker in school celebrations like school day with extracts of speeches from reputed statesmen like Gandhi and Nehru. I remember one Sanskrit grammar competition in the Sanskrit college, attended by well-known Sanskrit Scholars, and there were other students from other schools also participating in the competition. Ten questions were asked and most of them answered nine, I was told later. The tenth question was the toughest of them and I was the only one who answered all correctly and won the first prize.

My father was so happy that he took me to a restaurant on the way back home and fed me with sweets and whatever I wanted to eat. I got reminded of this incident when I had a meeting with my college friends last year in the same restaurant, which has not changed very much from what it was except the name. My father was diagnosed to be a diabetic then and he started on his medication with timely and organized eating habits. He had complaints of constipation also and was taking laxatives as required. We went one evening to the beach in Chennai and were returning by bus. I was under pressure to defecate and I practically ran home from the bus stop and relieved myself. I learned that the chocolate I ate before leaving was in fact a laxative used by my father. I was given strict warning not to eat anything without checking with my father.

During the end of the school year, exams were normally conducted at school. My father prepared the question papers for the subjects he taught. Being his student also and to score maximum, I once got up in the middle of the night and stole the question papers he had in his shirt pocket but I could not keep them back on time. Next morning my father called me and asked for the question papers and I returned back to him. He told me that I was the first in the class and advised me not to do such a thing again. He made another set of question papers.

I studied in that school, Savithri Ammal oriental secondary school by name, until 8th grade and then moved to a local high school in Kodambakkam, when English medium sections were started in that school from that year onwards. Also my father for reasons of health resigned from the job of Headmaster from that school. The new school was nearby at walkable distance and the class had coeducation with both boys and girls from the same locality.

I was always shy of talking to girls. Even in Theni, when a girl from the opposite colony, Sheila by name, a doctor's daughter, used to come to our house asking for some books or notes, I used to run away to the backyard hiding and refusing to talk to her. I got rid of this shyness gradually but would always avoid getting into conversation with girls. My father would not give up training me to speak in competitions. I used to win prizes in school competitions in English and once my uncle helped me to win a prize in another language, Hindi. I had a good memory power then.

Training under my father was tough. He would emphasize on proper pronunciation, where to start and where to stop, voice up or down, standing on a stool or sometimes on the road for a simulation of the atmosphere when the speech was to be delivered.

But I was second in the class, no more first and this continued until school final year when government examinations would be held. I was good at table tennis and badminton, playing in matches, but had a weak physique and was lacking in stamina for other sports activities.

My sister, Rukmani, who was also living in Chennai had some personal issues with her husband’s family and came to live at our house. All efforts to pacify and get my sister and her husband to live together were in vain initially with arguments going back and forth.

She decided to go into the teaching profession and joined Montessori training school. She also started writing stories and novels and her stories started getting published in local magazines. She was also good at music and was teaching music to some children early in the morning, almost waking us up early in the process.

My school final exams were getting closer, and I was preparing myself to be the first in the school, working very hard. I used to give myself exams and practice. Unfortunately, my mother passed away a week before my final examinations began. She was having hypertension, and the doctor was treating her for that. She collapsed all of a sudden and there was no time even to get medical help. Maybe she had other issues also. She had some neurological problems and would ask me to stand and press on her calf muscles now and then.

The house was full of grief-stricken relatives, and we were consoling each other. Once the cremation was over, the rest of the rituals began. My immediate elder brother and I did not have our thread ceremony called upanayanam done and so we were not part of the rituals for the next 13 days, done by my other elder brothers.

I was therefore able to write the school final examinations with whatever efforts I put in earlier but could still come second in school ranking with 74% average, behind the first by a very narrow margin of 10 marks in the aggregate. It took some months for normalcy to return to the house in the meanwhile.

I used to think and feel bad during later years that I could not take care of my mother due to my young age. I was missing her on every occasion as time passed on.

Number of children increased gradually and we enjoyed playing with the kids of my elder brothers, one to two years old. We used to toss them up in the air, from one end to another end, me and my immediate elder brother holding on to each end. Dinner used to be fun, with children first to eat, elders to follow and the ladies of the house last to share between them whatever was left. Modern gadgets were not there for cooking but the food in typical South Indian vegetarian style, would always be tasty and healthy.

My immediate elder brother, Cheenu, also passed the school final earlier and my father could not get him admitted to any college. My brother was trying to get him employed with a job in the government sector.

My father used to teach me and my brother English grammar from the famous book 'Wren and Martin. He would insist that we sit and read and understand every bit of what it says. My brother, Cheenu, once asked me to skip the afternoon class and join him to a movie show in the nearby theater. I refused at first, then got tempted to see the English movie Samson and Delilah". I wanted to know how Samson got his strength in his hair. After the movie, when we returned back home, I had butterflies in my stomach. My brother's friend told my father about our theater visit. My brother guessed what would follow and jumped the fence and fled. I was the one to receive the treatment.

My father was disciplined in every way including the timing of every meal but was very affectionate. He was keen that we got a very good education and exposure and had very high hopes on me. Living was tough and practically hand to mouth. Expenses were mounting and my brothers, though on government jobs, were finding it difficult to sustain a comfortable living for the family. My eldest brother could then get my other brother a job with the railways.

The family then decided to have a shop, a kind of kiosk, selling whatever was needed like cosmetics, stationery, newspapers and magazines and seasonal marketing like schoolbooks and crackers during Diwali times. One of my elder brothers, Venguttu, who was handicapped with a deficiency in hearing and speech, was put in charge of the shop with my father to help him whenever required.

One of my elder brothers used to get newspapers and magazines every day from the distributor at about 4 a.m. in the morning. Once brought home, the job of delivering to the customers in the locality would be done by my other two brothers and myself. I delivered the papers to nearby two or three streets and my brothers used the cycle to deliver to other areas. The income was meager, but I believe that was done to retain and also to establish new customers. The Shop named Rao and Sons became popular and doing well in business.

I used to first read the sports page on cricket test matches before delivery to homes. The only thing I didn't like was getting up early in the morning. I used to help in the shop with schoolbooks according to the grades and also visit book publishing houses with my brother to pick up schoolbooks.

Diwali season would start at least two weeks earlier. Our shop would be decorated and all the crackers and fireworks displayed. The sale would go on until midnight before Diwali and my father would distribute whatever was left unsold to all of us from the eldest to the youngest. It was great fun during those times - getting up early in the morning, and after bath, bursting crackers. My father would start with the first big size cracker bursting for 5 minutes at least.

He would then give new clothes to all at home, starting from the youngest. Breakfast and lunch would be special, with sweets and snacks in between and exchanged between friends and relatives coming home to greet us. We were having this kind of celebration for at least fifteen years.

My sister and brother-in-law settled to live in a house of their own in a nearby locality. We used to visit them quite often. My third brother, Guru Rao, also got married. My immediate elder brother Cheenu and I got our thread ceremony done at Tirupati, a temple town in nearby Andhra Pradesh. We used to visit that temple frequently as a whole family. The town is on top of a hill and known as Thirumala and it used to be fun, walking the hilly terrain of about 10 miles. The walking path was of course made suitable and comfortable for such walkers. I used to walk with my friends during my college days to that temple.

I continued my studies joining nearby Loyola College in pre university or pre degree. We had an educational system of 11 years of schooling, one year pre degree and 5 years of degree for professional courses like engineering or medicine under the University of Madras. I studied in pre degree Math, physical sciences (physics and chemistry) and elements of commerce and accountancy.

There were political disturbances and riots during that year and with students joining the agitation, the academic progress in the college was frequently disrupted. However, examinations were conducted, and I passed but not with the marks I normally would get, I got distinction in math and physical sciences though.

I applied to all the engineering colleges in the state and outside the state too but could not get admitted to any college. It was difficult during those times to get admitted on merit alone, as influence was playing a major role in admission. My friend Ganesh Babu got admitted in the local engineering college at Chennai and some other friends on caste-based selection.

Though I attended the interview for the engineering college admission, I was getting rejected on medical grounds. My weight was below the required weight of 90 lbs. My father gave me six bananas to eat and a jug of Horlicks, an energy drink to consume before the interview, to make up the three pounds shortfall but that did not help anyway.

The colleges reopened and I was frustrated that I could not get admitted in any engineering course. I joined the Bachelor of Science degree three-year course in Loyola College again. Disappointed that I could not join the engineering course, I spent more time in the college canteen and sports arena.

Luckily, after a month I got an interview call from Regional Engineering College, a newly started college by the central government with 50% admission for students from my state, Tamil Nadu and 50% from other states in India. I was underweight there also, but the principal, Prof.Manisundaram, who was popular with the students, condoned it as a special case, taking an assurance from me that I would put on more weight as early as possible. With the help of my eldest brother and his contractor friend who helped me with the admission and other formalities, I joined the college in the year 1965, my ambition achieved.

3

College days were fun

I was happy that I joined engineering in a premiere institute, started only a year back. That was in 1964 and mine was the second batch of students who joined in 1965.I joined the hostel and had two roommates. One was from Andhra Pradesh from the quota reserved for other states. Andhra Pradesh was the neighboring state to Tamil Nadu. It got recently separated into Hyderabad and Telangana. Senior students, only a year senior, were having a merry time, ragging us the juniors. First couple of months were tough, as I have never stayed away from home and was homesick.

Communication with home was only through letters and I used to wait for the post man every day. Back at home, going was tough and the business with the shop was not going well. My sister started living with her husband again. They moved to a nearby locality and built their own house. My elder brothers were of help to them in whatever way possible. Things were not looking great at home with hand to mouth living and my brothers were struggling to make both ends meet.

Money in those days used to be sent through a post called money order and I used to get some small amounts for my expenses in college from home. I used to take the train overnight and go home to spend the time with the family, whenever there was a stretch of holidays with the weekends.

The association in our locality called Trustpuram Residents association decided to give me a scholarship fund of Indian rupees 400/= every year, given to the best student of the locality for further studies. This was funded by the principal of a local college, by name Sundararajan. A meeting was organized for the award and my father prepared me for a speech thanking the association and the donor for the scholarship. Unfortunately, a couple of days before the occasion, I felt sick with dengue fever and I was not even able to stand on the day of the award. My father took the award on my behalf and also delivered the speech. I was getting this money every year until I completed my engineering degree in the year 1970.

The first year in engineering was mostly on math and science and was common to most of the engineering disciplines. The college had 50% of students from my state, Tamil Nadu and 50% from other states. There were groups of students more from the same state initially for more of language comforts and cultural background. As years passed on, friendship developed between all students irrespective of language, culture and food habits. Talking of food, there were vegetarian and non-vegetarian options available with dining halls and kitchens separated in different buildings.

First year examinations were over, and I was happy to travel back home for the holidays. I received a letter from the college at that time that I was given a merit cum means scholarship by the Government of India. The scholarship amount was Indian Rupees 1200/= every year, apart from free tuition fees. I was not required to pay money any further and I was getting refund of the unutilized amount every year as monthly food expenses were not much. I was thus recipient of two scholarships and bringing home some money every year, making my father proud during those moments. There was no financial further burden on the family too for my education.

My college, Regional Engineering college at Trichy in Tamil Nadu,about 200 miles from Chennai was affiliated to the University of Madras. There were other similar Regional Engineering Colleges in other states and all of them had been renamed later on as National Institute of Technology to become premier institutions with higher advanced learning centers and with research facilities.

When I joined, only mechanical, civil and electrical disciplines were available to students and other branches like chemical, electronics and telecommunication, computer sciences were added in subsequent years depending on the growing needs of the industry and developing technology. Students were grouped in the disciplines of their choice from the third year onwards. I joined Mechanical engineering, as I thought mechanical engineers would fit into all kinds of industry unlike civil and electrical engineers. We also got individual rooms in the hostel and everyone was happy about it.

I should mention here about our principal, Prof.P.S.Manisundaram, a well-known personality in the area of higher education, who was always student friendly and helped the students in whatever way possible and at times of their need. He was very popular with the students. When we had a reunion of our batch mates about 10 years back in Bengaluru, a popular city in south India, we had him grace the occasion. He was his usual self and impressed all with his usual witty talks of past memories of our college days.

Coming back to college life, we had a lot of freedom that attendance to the classes was not compulsory and not insisted upon and we chose to go to the classes on our choice and priority of the subjects taught. Whenever we had a holiday due to inclement weather on a stormy day, we used to play bridge card game. I enjoyed playing bridge with my friends. I also used to play table tennis, cricket, volleyball and ball badminton on sunny days whenever possible.

Preference to studies took a backseat in the company of friends. With my father around, I would have possibly spent a lot of time otherwise on studies. Looking at performance of other bright students in the class, I would only conclude in retrospection that I have not put in sufficient efforts to score or do well in studies. This should serve as a warning bell to students, who spend time on entertainments and on electronic gadgets nowadays. By the time they realize what they missed or failed to do, it might have become too late for them to catch up or recover.

What is important is to learn what is new and not known and not get stuck with books. We need to read, understand and put to practice what we learn. In my case, I have learnt a lot more about engineering during my working part of my life than when I was a student. The academic curriculum also was partly to be blamed for this, as it was not industry friendly at that time.

I enjoyed my college life with friends playing and going to movies late at night. Movies were the only entertainment available then and I used to ride a bicycle and used to go with friends to the movie hall, a couple of miles away in the nearby town. If a new movie was released in the Trichy town, I used to take the town bus to go there, watch the movie and return in the night after dinner at a local restaurant there in Trichy.

The college premises were in a village called Thuvakudi about 15 miles from the Trichy town. I used to visit home at Chennai whenever I get a couple of holidays or for the festival season like Diwali. Trains were not that frequent and the only Chennai mail at night would be crowded. Travel was tough and there would not be a place even to sit sometimes. But the attraction of spending the next two days at home was too much to resist.

There were educational tours arranged by the college almost every year either to the south or to the north of India. I fully enjoyed such tours in the company of friends and sightseeing in different parts of the country. Travelling by train was fun. In one place in the north of India near the capital Delhi, I was in the coach once with most of the other friends out for shopping or eating out. I noticed that the coach was moving and it was changing location to a different platform. Standing on the door, I was leaning out to see the platform when a stray wire supporting an electric pole hit me on the side of the head. The train was moving slow and it was not a serious injury but the impression on the head was there for many years. This injury possibly contributed to the subdural hematoma I had in the brain during the later years when I was in my late sixties. In the hill resort of Shimla, I bought a sweater for my father, who was happy to see me back at home after the tour. He was using it for a long time in the evenings.

There were changes in the political front in Tamil Nadu and a new party took over the reins of the Government. The then chief minister, Annadurai visited our campus and delivered a lecture. He was quite fluent in English and impressed all the students with his oratorical skills. As years passed, the campus grew with more and more students joining the college. The hostels also grew in number and were named after different gems.

During the holidays, when I was in Chennai, I fell sick and was diagnosed with para typhoid. I took a couple of months to recover fully and went to college thereafter. It took me some time to catch up with what I missed in class.

My friends once pushed me to stand in the election for mess secretary and I lost the election by a huge margin. The friend who won was certainly more suitable for the job. I could not digest the shock of defeat and cried when I was alone. That was an act of haste and one needed to assess the strengths and weakness before taking a decision. I did not and somehow learnt the lesson to accept whatever result came out in the right spirit.

Similar instances would happen in anybody’s life like a defeat in a game or a failure in an examination or in competitive sports. To take the negative result with a pinch of salt is tough but once experienced, life would become a lot easier to handle.

We had only annual examinations then and the semester system of study got introduced in the curriculum later on. This prompted me and many other students to start preparing for the examinations a couple of months before the start of the end of year examinations. I was enjoying myself with games cards and movies, ignoring the need to study. I was good at table tennis and took part in tournaments but came up to the semifinals stage only.

In the final year, I made efforts to compensate for what I missed. I had a project on gas turbines for the final year to be completed with two more classmates. Once this was done, I sat down to prepare for the examinations and realized soon what I missed so far in the classes never attended by me.

I took an oath to myself not to play any sports or watch movies and not even to climb stairs to go to the recreational areas upstairs. I was living in a room on the ground floor. My friends used to play all the tricks to make me climb the stairs but I never fell into their trap.

The examinations started and I did my best though not to the desired level of performance. I realized though a bit late how much time I wasted looking for immediate enjoyment and not serious enough to achieve the ultimate objective. There is no point in envying the bright students when the results were out and the grades they scored. A lesson I learned in the process is that only slow and steady wins the race.

I passed the final year examinations in first class though, with distinction in some subjects. Only grades were offered then and averaging the grades with marks I scored about 70 percent, not a very good achievement but certainly not bad either.

These certificates were received a couple of months after the results were announced. We took leave of everyone in the class. Some were keeping in touch and some were pursuing higher studies in Indian Institutes of Technology in India or in US Universities.

Our family situation was a restraint in me pursuing higher studies. To earn and support the family was what was expected of me at that time. I was also not keen to go for higher studies as there was rampant unemployment at that time. Engineers even with excellent track records were struggling to get good