The Journey of life

                              The journey of life

          Life is challenging many a times. The most disaster was my father's untimely death. I lost him in October 1967. He hanged on the ninth day of mahanavami. It was midnight when he left for his field and hanged himself from a tree. The other problem being mother's illness. She was a TB patient. I was a high school boy. I was innocent student Studying in ninth standard. One sister who married during father's life time was living at her in-laws’ home. My mother was too weak to work. My grandmother was now the head of our ruined family. Uncle Nagappa, my father's younger brother and aunt Nagamma and their children were other dependents of our common undivided family system. By the time I joined to tenth standard, I was asked to get married. I was hardly eighteen years old. It was mother's desire to support our family. Though I refused this idea, they forced me to marry in the summer, after my SSLC examination. Now my uncle and aunt were living separately with their children. I was ambitious to join collage to study for my degree. Mother did not agree on this issue as the financial situation was almost nil. I did so and dared to join collage at district headquarter Bidar. I was penniless, yet desired to continue my studies. It was planned that my wife be with her parents during this four years’ period. She was from a well to do family. We remained married bachelors until this four years’ period.

      I joined for science course at BVB college. I became roommate of my brother-in-law Shri Gundappa, who was a B.A. final student. It was very difficult to make the both ends meet. Financial problem was the immediate thing to be attended. However, I sold a gold ring which was offered in my marriage in order to join the science collage. There was no money to purchase books. The second term fee was arranged by Mr. Gundappa. He was employed in a sugar factory as office assistant on temporary basis. I am thankful to him.

              The financial problem immediately erupted no sooner than my father expired. All the cattle were sold. Nothing was available as a reserve. I had to face many humiliations in order to arrange a small amount of money for my SSLC examination fee. But I got first class grade in SSLC. My science teacher advised me to join for a science course. Mathematics impressed me very much. In seventh board examination, I could score 90% marks in mathematics. In my degree also I was a maths student. I could not understand basic chemistry principles.

There was akaal[famine] in 1972. No rains for continuous two years. Some-how, the life was going. I was given freeship(scholarship) on my economic and family conditions and the fees that I paid as tuition fee was refunded to me by the collage administration. I used this money to join for first year of three years B Sc. Course. During the year 1971-72 a loan scholarship was awarded by Karnataka state government for my B.Sc. Degree Course. Now the things were somewhat better, as I could purchase some medicines for my mother apart from managing my financial needs. I emerged as a science graduate in 1973. That changed the story for better life.

        However, there were problems with in-laws. My mother tried to call my wife to our village on some special occasions like festivals, but they [in-laws] did not send her to our village. They insulted my grandmother and others who went to get my wife to our village. Mother's illness was the reason that they did not send my wife, fearing the communicable disease. This upset the very purpose of my early marriage. Mothers expectations were upside down. She was helpless widow suffering very badly. She was simply weeping in need of support.

My father in law was a money lender and his sole aim was to earn more money. He was hard worker too. He refused to assist me for my college admission fee. He never supported me though he knew that I was orphaned due my father's death. It was an open secret that he was a greedy fellow. Expectation from his side was almost zero. When I was struggling for minimum need like food and shelter, they[the in-laws] were planning to purchase land property. They could have shone some mercy on their son-in-law. But I did not appear to them. It was a kind of cheating. My mother in law was unhappy over this marriage due to our poverty and ill health of my mother. She insulted anybody who went to her home to take my wife to my village. My mother was upset by this unfriendly treatment of in-laws.

However, the government scholarships helped me to continue my study until I finished my degree. It was a peculiar case. There was no money, I was penny less, yet I dared to take admission to science collage. During akaal(famine), when there was midterm vacation, I had to travel entirely by foot up to my village with my belongings on my head, all alone from Bidar to Hochaknalli. I was penny-less student. I could not afford a travel on a bus. It was about 40 kilometers’ journey. I started well in the morning and reached my native by evening, crossing Karanja river near Aurad village. Through all these four years I used to cook my food at rented house at Bidar.

       Sometimes I used to think, if my father lived, it would be different world for me! We lost him, as someone from our village cheated him in a land purchase case. He lost all his earned money in this land deal and the land was not registered in his name. The story goes like this. Our family members decided to purchase a piece of land. The relewent money was paid to the concerned person in instalments over a period of two years. The document to this effect was written by the land seller himself. There was no witness for the payment made. The land seller and my father were of similar age group. They believed each other. The party concerned gave the physical ownership of the land to my father. And we started cultivating the new land. The registration work was pending for want of additional money needed to be spent for registration. Because of the problems of our house hold, the days passed for more than two years. By this time the land rates escalated and increased considerably, almost to double the sale value. Some of the vicious people guided the land seller to take this opportunity to cheat my father. The seller Mr. Kallappa Koli deliberately transferred the land in the name of his miner son secretly. My father was not aware of these developments. Over the days, the matter leaked and my father went to tahsildar's office to get confirmation of this illegal transfer of his land to a third person that too a miner. Now he[father] was helpless. He could not plead before anybody, as there was no witnessed document. The seller deliberately transferred the rights in the name of his miner son. That way he lost all the earned money in this effort to earn a piece of land. A poor potter was heartbroken. Now he was speechless and worried and there was nobody to solace him. He was weeping before his friends. He was not sleeping during night hours. He started behaving like a mad person. And thus, he decided to end his life making us orphans for none of our fault. The hard working and able, 40 years old person, my father sacrificed his life for none of his fault. He was mentally humiliated. And we were orphaned. Cheating is very dangerous social evil that exists in the society. These "black-fellows" the cheaters exist in all areas. One must keep vigilant to escape of such cheaters. After we lost him[father], the concerned land was transferred in my name through the collective efforts of village elders.

  My village Hochaknalli is near Mannaekhelli. It is about ten kilometers away from Mannaekhelli. Prior to 1964-65, there was no direct road link between Bidar and Humnabad. Also, there was no link road between Mannaekhelli and Bidar. The only way to Bidar was through Zahirabad. A bus used to run to Bidar from Humnabad via Zahirabad. Once my father sent me to Bidar on this route to get medicines to my mother. There was half ticket for my bus journey as I was miner at that time. I was very comfortable when my father was alive. I was the only son to him. I used to assist him in his day to day pottery work and marketing of pots in neighboring villages. In summer days, we used to go for weekly market-place at Hallikhed to sell our earthen pots. There was lot of demand for earthen pots in summer season.

              Paramma was my little sister. She was very lovely. We both used to ply and quarrel. I used to tease her deliberately. But by the time she was nine years old, we lost her due to jaundice. We took her to Zahirabad hospital, but it was too late and she expired. She was buried at Zahirabad itself. My mother's elder sister used to live at Zahirabad. Man, proposes, god disposes.

                The freedom came to us in september1948. Razakers looted our home. My mother was just newly married and she was in our home alone when these local so called razakers entered our home and one of them asked my mother to get out of the home. She went into backyard weeping. The razakers looted two hundred silver coins from our residence. My grandmother Narasamma returned in the evening from her farm work to see her home looted and she was heartbroken. She lost all her legitimely earned wealth. My mother informed me about this incident when I was a school boy.

 See the plight of a poor potter family being destroyed deliberately by the people in power, the nizams of Hyderabad, and their atrocity against local Hindu population. This part of Karnataka was at its best when the Basavanna of Kaylan propagated the method of dharma. But alas! The looters destroyed the very existence of Dharma. From 1300 to 1948 the local people were under the suppression of these outsiders. The poor were the victims of these atrocities. These outsiders became lords in almost all villages of this area, suppressing the mejority population of their local culture. It is said "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

            human history has many illustrations of greed and lust and intolerance. The people were deprived of their way of life. Foreign culture was imposed deliberately. We were treated as slaves in our own land. Might is right was the formula they used against innocent peasants. The rights of property were with the local Kulkarni, and Patels. They manipulated them deliberately to accumulate in their names. And that was anarchy.