Shouting And Cajoling At The Same Time!

This episode took place in the year 1972 when I had joined college.

There were many streams so as many students in each stream. It was an all girls' college with a strength of about 2000.

I would always walk off with the first prize for singing in college. So I was a familiar with the girls and the lecturers. I used to sing many songs but ‘Bole Re Papeeharaa’ from Guddi was a crowd puller with the audience chanting 'once more'.

In the 2nd year any student could take part in the union elections. I watched from afar how the rich and famous girls got together to fight out the posts of president, secretary, treasurer, office bearers, etc. They formed groups and divided the posts amongst themselves and were spending such huge amounts on fancy, colorful, big-sized banners and posters to announce themselves. They also went around the college premises in an open jeep with speakers. The fever had caught on. There were new entrants in the fray in a matter of days.

We sisters would always share news of college events and things. My elder sister told me that I could also stand for the President's post and take a chance, if I wished. I was shocked at the suggestion but with time, I got used to the idea. Before the deadline I filed my application for the President's post as nothing less would do for me!

I had to make myself visible to net those precious votes from all the students. I did not have much money to spend on those grand advertisements, banners, screen-printed posters, jeep tours, etc. My sister asked me to make some posters on my own and canvas for myself in all the classes just before the class hour started.

So my humble posters were stuck here and there. There were objections from some girls about me competing against them for the post. Some girls openly told me I stood no chance at all and ordered me to withdraw from the contest. All this made me more determined to fight it out, whether I was a winner or a loser.

I would go early in the mornings. Classes would begin at 9.15am so I would start doing the rounds of as many classrooms as I could from 9am. I would briefly introduce myself with my name and ask them to tick my name for the post of the President. I would also tell them not to tick any other name as that would be treated as an invalid vote. I would quickly move from class to class to announce myself. Many would laugh at me. This went on for about a week.
Then just a day before the election date, all the candidates were to go on stage, talk for 5 minutes about themselves, before an audience of about 2000 girls and then the campaigning would have to be stopped as that was the last day one could canvas for votes.

My name was called out. I went up on the stage. Stood before the mike and was about to begin my prepared speech of, "Good evening everybody..." But a section of girls who were opposing me, would boo me each time I uttered one sentence. This went on thrice and the crowd got restless and everyone seemed to be having fun at my expense. My principal got up and asked the girls to keep quiet but it had no effect on the wild crowd. It was my turn to get wild with anger and I used my entire lung power to shout through the mike, "Shut up" so loudly that the noisy, fully packed hall fell absolutely silent! Then I quickly grabbed the opportunity to modulate my voice to a calmer tone and just continued to introduce myself as if nothing took place moments ago!! The crowd listened to me in silence. I could not make out anything of their silence, neither did I care much, once I was done with my speech.

The election day arrived. I cast my vote so did many girls. Counting of votes began the next day. I was there watching as the vote count against our names began appearing on the black board. If one was to win she had to get 1001 votes but that seemed doubtful as there were 4 contestants for the president's post. So the votes would get divided. Midway through, my senses got numb as I saw the numbers increasing rapidly against my name on the board. At one stage it had surpassed the magic number of majority. I knew I had won hands down with the maximum votes ever. When the counting would be through, our principal would announce the successful candidates. I was mentally and physically drained by then, not waiting for the official announcement and left the venue knowing full well that I had won.

I came home and told my sisters of the good news. Those were such happy moments. I learnt that simple strategies work better than complicated and costly ones. My opponents had spent in thousands while I could hardly afford Rs.100 for the posters and the color sketch pens. All posters were hand written by me, in phrases like, 'east or west rama is best' etc.

I laugh to myself at the loud ‘shut up’ one minute and the humble and sweet voiced ‘Good evening everybody…’!
Being the President of the Students' Union in a college did change my life forever in many ways. I got closer to the lecturers and the principal. Would organize events. Would get an opportunity to read out the Presidentail address at every college 'do'. Above all, I enjoyed the power which came with it. The recognition wherever I went around college. These were some of the highs I experienced at a young age of 18 or 19.

Cheers!

Mahalakshmi

Rural Wisdom

My husband's family had a large house at Chennai till about 2003. with 7 mango trees, 11 coconut trees, 2 of sapota, 3 jackfruit, 2 guava, 1 badam, 1 lime and a host of flower plants and creepers. It was a garden which was always blooming with something or the other everyday.

Each tree would be of a different variety. Like the 7 mango trees bore 7 different varieties of mangoes. Each would have a different seasonal flowering pattern. So there would be mangoes from one tree or the other through the year at home. Some would bear fruits in 1000s and some very rarely and that too only under a dozen like the malgoa variety.

Since our backyard was always evergreen with fruits, raw and ripe, all round the year, there were visitors like the squirrels, crows, insects, birds - all of them getting to taste them first! At first I would wonder when was the best time to harvest the fruits straight from the trees instead of picking dropped ones. It was difficult to guess as the outer color of the skin would have barely changed. It could as well be raw inside and not yet ripe! But my husband would know. He told me to observe. What I found was whenever the fruits were ripe enough, squirrels and crows would start pecking at them. They would never touch a raw mango, jackfruit or guava. When they pecked at it a few times, the stem would give way and it would fall down. Then we knew it was time to harvest the lot from that tree. And then there would be tresspassers who would just jump over to pluck whatever was in sight and within hand's reach. Humans never waited like the birds and bees did. They would tear down even very small ones without a thought.

There was a man who supplied us milk from a distant village. He would cycle all the way each day before dawn. He also had a lot of wisdom about these things since he came from a rural area called Kellambakkam, way beyond Chennai in those days. (Now Kelambakkam is more urban than Chennai! It is the new destination for the hundreds of IT companies and Engineering colleges dotting the Old Mahabalipuram Road, aka Rajiv Gandhi Salai).

What the milkman said made such a lot of sense to me. He said in the villages, any produce is mentally divided into 3 portions or parts. The farmer or owner would know he would get only a third of the produce. The other 2 portions had to be written off for the birds and bees and those trespassing human beings!! I liked his philosphy and it makes the acceptance of such things so much more easier on the mind, instead of worrying who stole our fruits and how to get back at them when we chance to spy them in the act of stealing. Its simply not worth the trouble at all to lose sleep over. The Law of Nature at work.

Chao!
Mahalakshmi.