This piece is written just to recall the memories of old times and the long relationship between families and friends for seventy odd years. I thank my siblings, my wife, my sister-in-law, cousins and also our old tenants for sharing their past memories. This will hopefully serve as an eye opener for the millennial, Gen Z and Gen Alpha in terms of living style in earlier days.
My grandfather Sri Gopala Iyengar bought 'Srisailam' house on Dewan Seshadri Iyer Road, Lakshmipuram, Mysuru in 1954 and shifted from his original home in Halladakeri near Ashoka Road, Mysuru. Earlier his father Sri Sundararaja Iyengar had migrated from Srirangam, Tamilnadu in early 19th century for work under Madras Presidency. My great grandfather loved to live in a joint family with his nephews and cousins. He brought some of them to Mysuru to live with him and give them moral and financial support. We don’t see such camaraderie in the present times. He was supposedly in a very respectable occupation. Some client of his had gifted him an elephant in return for service. Of course the elephant was given away to a mahout for proper upbringing. After my great grandfather Sundararaja Iyengar’s demise, the joint family dispersed and each started living separately within Mysuru.
My grandfather Gopala Iyengar had two sons and one daughter. His eldest son was my father, Srinivasa Iyengar who grew to become an established advocate in Mysuru. My uncle shifted to Chennai after graduation and marriage. My aunt who was 21 years younger to my father, was almost like his daughter. She was good in arts like theatre and music. She graduated in Music from Maharani’s college.
The Srisailam house was on an approximately 150'x130' site (totally 22175 sq.ft.) with one outhouse about 1200 sq.ft, large kitchen shed of size 500 sq.ft, granary, cow shed, car shed, servant's room, toilets and a washing place. The main house had one open verandah and a drawing room inside, each of 16’x 9’ size. There were four rooms, each 12’x12’ size. The central hall was 20’x21’ with the ceiling at double the height of 20’. The dining room was 12’x15’ and kitchen 12’x14’. Kitchen also had a chajja for storing large cooking vessels used during marriages and other functions. There was a granite platform with two ovens for cooking by firing firewood and another oven with charcoal for slow heating of milk. My mother was cooking on these ovens. Later when the gas cylinder supply was started in Mysuru, a LPG gas stove replaced these old ovens. A concrete chimney up to the first floor (similar to the present day steel chimney with an exhaust fan) over the gas stove enabled the hot gases to escape into the atmosphere by natural draught. There was also an inbuilt stone grinder with a rolling stone (similar to present day motorised mixer grinder) embedded at the platform level to make spice powders, idli dosa batter and chutneys. Puja room was 6’x6’ with doors facing the hall as well as the dining room. There were two store rooms, one 12’x8’ and the other 6’x6’. Main bath room was 12’x14’ with one big handa for hot water for bathing and a chajja to store coconuts harvested from the coconut trees in our compound.
There was one attached toilet in one of the inside rooms which was specifically reserved for women during their menstrual periods or pre and post pregnancy times. Although there were four rooms, all of us (except my mother who slept in her room), slept in the central hall by laying out the beds on the floor side by side. In the morning, the beds would be rolled out and stacked on a wooden cot in the women’s room.
There was one additional common toilet under the staircase. The staircase led to the open terrace. The rear verandah was 20’ x 8’ leading to the well, the washing place and the toilets. There were many coconuts trees, jack fruit tree, mango tree, chicoo tree, gooseberry tree and different varieties of flower plants. There was one soapnut (Antuvalada kayi) tree at the gate which gave shade for us children to stand and chat or sit on the stone bench nearby. The drive way from compound gate to the porch of the main house was around an oval shaped green lawn.
Besides the house, everything else was also huge. We had a 6’ wide swing hung with 17’ chains in the central hall. There were two corner chests, one for small implements and the other for medicines. The hall was provided with a large ceiling fan hung from above with two lights with adjustable height. The inside rooms had huge dressing tables with mirrors. There was a 3’x4’ crockery cupboard in the dining room. My grandfather had a made-to-order office table 4’x3’ with drawers on both sides to store stationery, documents, etc. along with a revolving chair. There was even a wooden multi layered document holder and a Remington typewriter kept on the office table. These were kept in one of the rooms in front.
The central hall, drawing room and dining room were adorned with portraits of our great grandfather and great grandmother, big oil paintings of mythology and the then Mysuru maharaja Sri Jayachamaraja Wodeyar. This included a huge 5’x3’ painting of Sri Ram, Sita, Lakshman and Hanuman with gold foils like in Tanjore paintings and a similar one of smaller size. All these paintings were done by our grandmother’s brother who was talented in that art. He is believed to have done paintings on the walls in the Mysuru Palace too.
There was a cupboard under Sri Ram’s photo frame which was filled with several mini ivory idols, beautiful models of household items, ceramic figurines and sandalwood artefacts. I wonder how he could collect such beautiful, precious and rare items. My grandmother with mother’s help would make pickles, appalas (rice, urad and hurali), sandiges and hurigalu during summer time that would last for the whole year. These were shared with relatives and friends. My father had a Hillman car (MYS 594) which he drove to the Law college in the mornings, to Mysore court in the daytime and to his own personal office in the evenings. My father was always wearing white dhoti in kache style and a kurta type top along with Mysore turban whenever he went to law college and Mysore court. He would wear a simple black topi while going to his personal office in the evenings. He had established a good clientele which included owners of a coffee plantation, jewellery shop, wrist watch shop, furniture shop, etc. One client even had a chariot pulled by two horses which he occasionally brought to our house when he came to meet my father.
Probably, some poor Brahmin boys were visiting Halladakeri house for their free weekly lunch (varada voota). Same ritual continued even in Srisailam house when some poor young Brahmin boys would come for their lunch on specified days. Such charity rituals are absent in present times. My grandfather had acquired some dry lands near Mysuru where the farmers grew paddy. He also had bought a betel leaf garden near the foot of Chamundi Hills. He had purchased two shops in a busy area near Chikka Market (Small market) which were given out on rent. His cousin assisted my grandfather in looking after the affairs of these assets. The farmers were bringing cart loads of paddy from the fields every sankranti in January. This paddy was measured and the farmers were paid accordingly. Paddy was stored in our granary next to the outhouse. It was milled to rice in rice mills as and when required. Looking at all these, life during my grandfather’s time and my father’s time must have been very prosperous.
We had one outhouse for which Sri Nanjappa came as a tenant in 1954 for the first time, the same year when the house was occupied by my grandfather. My aunt got married after her graduation in 1956 in this house. Her marriage was performed in the vast open land next to the present Srisailam house within the same compound. Later my father arranged and performed grandfather’s cousin’s son’s marriage at Melkote.
My grandfather bequeathed this house to my father just before his death in 1956. We are proud that we lived in the neighbourhood of Urs’ families related to then Maharaja Sri Jayachamaraja Wodeyar. There were also Celebrity Politician cum Actress Jayalalitha’s father Jayaram (Jayalalitha had already left for Bengaluru and Chennai, after her father’s death, with her mother Sandhya, a Tamil actress at that time), RK Narayan, Scientist Chandrasekar of CFTRI (credited with developing Baby milk powder now marketed under brand name ‘Amul’). Every evening I would see RK Narayan going on his legendary walk wearing his coat and umbrella in hand. Chandrasekhar initially was cycling to his CFTRI mansion to attend to his work and later bought a car to drive down. My aunt in her younger days before marriage was friendly with RK Narayan’s daughter and also Maharaja’s relative Gopal Raje Urs’ wife who lived at the end of our road. Their nephew is the present royal scion of Wodeyar dynasty and MP Sri Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar.
My father had an illustrious career as an advocate although he was a gold medallist in B.Sc. Physics. He is supposed to have even cleared the ICS exam. He could have become a bureaucrat in the government. But he did LLB course in Mumbai as per his father’s wishes and pursued law so that he could continue in Mysuru to look after the lands, betel nut garden and other properties his father had acquired. He had his own office on Asoka road near to his old home in Halladakeri. He also taught in Sarada Vilas Law College.
We were a family of six children, three boys and three girls living with our father, mother and grandmother. My grandmother’s and mother’s sarees were washed separately and spread to dry on the overhead bamboo poles in our dining room to maintain purity and sanctity. We were all living happily and comfortably.
Sri Ramanuja Iyengar was my maternal grandmother’s sister’s husband. He was well educated and rose to become the District Education Officer (DEO) in the state. It is reported that he was also a cousin of Sri Chakravarthy Rajagopalachari who later became the last Governor General of British India. Both went through the thread ceremony together at their prime age. While Rajagopalachari got involved in the freedom struggle and chose politics as his life’s mission, Ramanuja Iyengar chose the field of education and a respected government job. He was a class mate of the then Mysuru maharaja and was close to him as well. He was financial wizard too and had made good money by holding shares in many companies. When he came to Mysuru in late 1930’s on transfer before retirement, he bought the big bungalow on Vani Vilas Road (now renamed Mahatma Gandhi Road) near double water tank and church in the posh Lakshmipuram area. At that time, new Mysore palace had been built and a few families were living inside the huge compound of the palace. Dewan Purniah suggested that these families be shifted outside the palace. Lakshmipuram locality was selected as the place for some of these families. That is how a number of families who were relatives of the maharaja came to reside in houses built on huge sites in our neighbourhood. That was also the reason my grandfather bought Srisailam house in Lakshmipuram so he could stay close to them. His wife (Periamma)’s sister fondly called Chinnamma was also married and had five daughters. Eldest daughter died early of physical weakness. But her husband left home when she was pregnant with her fifth daughter, my mother, for, God knows, what reason, probably incompatibility. He left his assets under Chinnamma’s care and just disappeared. Chinnamma with her four young daughters could not manage on her own with prying eyes from neighbours. So, she pleaded with her elder sister to give her shelter. With Ramanuja Iyengar’s consent, Chinnamma and her daughters came to their home.
The youngest of Chinnamma’s daughters, Jayamma, is my mother. So Chinnamma happens to be my maternal grandmother. Periamma also ensured that all child deliveries (about eighteen in all I suppose) of all the four daughters were taken care of in her house. The delivery and post delivery care of my sisters were carried out in our Srisailam house itself as we stayed closeby in Mysuru.
My father had a terrible life earlier prior to marrying my mother. His first wife died of some illness. He then married his wife’s sister. She gave birth to a girl. They were living happily for a couple of years perhaps but fate took her and her daughter away too early. My grandfather didn’t lose hope and wanted his son to settle down in life. I believe one day they visited a saree shop owned by a known family on Sayyaji Rao road. The same time, another Iyengar family were also visiting the shop for buying silk sarees. My grandfather’s eyes fell on a little girl sitting opposite. After they left, grandfather got to know from the shop owner that the other family was one of Ramanuja Iyengar and the girl was his wife’s sister’s youngest daughter. Later my father was learning veena and that little girl, named Jayamma, was learning to play violin from the same teacher. My father, I believe, once had a private conversation with the girl and told her that he was married twice earlier but lost his wives and he wished to marry again to carry on legacy as per his father’s wish.
That is how my grandfather got my father married to my mother Jayamma. As this was going to be third marriage for my father, he was asked to tie the sacred knot to a banana tree first and then get married to my mother Jayamma. It is believed that Ramanuja Iyengar had earlier shown my mother’s horoscope to an astrologer who had already predicted that hers would be a second marriage. So Ramanuja Iyengar or his wife or my grandmother did not mind for this marriage. The marriage was performed at Ramanuja Iyengar’s house itself.
My father used to take us to zoo, Mysuru palace, Lalitha Mahal, Chamundi hill and temple, Sri Hanuman and Ganesh temples at the palace gate and the KRS dam. We even witnessed the grand and spectacular Vijaya dashami procession from the balcony of father’s client’s shop on Sayyaji Rao road. I remember my father taking us all in his car to KRS when the Cauvery river had flooded to the brim (a very rare occurrence) and was overflowing. For any of our illnesses, father used to take us to our family physician Dr Venkatasubbaiah’s clinic on Dhanavantri road in Devaraja market (Big market) building. In those days, besides medicines and lotions prescribed by the doctor, he was also advising us what to eat, what to avoid and what home remedies we had to do. Nowadays, doctors don’t talk about home remedies and diet restrictions we have to follow to hasten recovery. As we lived close by, my mother made frequent visits to meet her mother, periamma and periappa in their Vani Vilas road house.
The events in earlier periods must have taken a toll on my father’s life. He suffered from high blood pressure probably due to stress he acquired in his life. There were no proper medical treatments those days for heart ailments. My father had collapsed in the court room while arguing for a case. But he died of brain haemorrhage the very next day at the ripe age of 52. As long as my father lived, we were a prosperous family but remained humble and respectful. My eldest brother was hardly 20 years old while my second brother was just 17 years old.
The extended family members frequently visited our house as a mark of respect to my grandmother Kanakamma and my mother Jayamma and reverence and affection they all had for our grandfather and my father. As my grandmother was the eldest woman among the extended family members, they addressed her as Akka. We, siblings and cousins, also addressed her as Akka. Akka, though short in stature, was quite commanding with our mother and all other women from the extended family. However she earned respect among all the members of the family. Our house remained the headquarters of Vashisht family. All of them kept in touch with our family at Srisailam for many decades.
My mother was left alone to manage the big family's responsibilities after my father’s death in 1964. This is the problem with a single parent income. My father had not planned well enough for future times. Surprisingly he had not taken any life insurance policy also. As my father was not in any government job, he did not qualify for any family pension too. My elder brothers had not yet finished their graduation. As they did not know driving, they sold our father’s Hillman car. Our life crumbled without any steady income.
After Nanjappa got transferred to KR Nagar; his elder brother Venkatasubbiah came to stay in the outhouse. In 1964 he also left on transfer. His younger brother Venkatakrishnaiah got married in Feb 1964. From then onwards he continued to stay there.
As we didn't have much income from other sources, my brother decided to convert the large kitchen shed into a one room home for a small family. This came to be occupied by RK Belur and his family in Aug 1964 when daughter Anjana was hardly 1 or 2 years old. We lived on meagre rents from these outhouses and the shops. When aunt got pregnant again in 1965, she came to Mysuru for delivery. That is when her son Gopal was born. Then she went to Bhopal with her children to join her husband. Aunty again came back to Mysuru for delivery of her third child. That is when Gayatri was born on the last day of the year in 1967. When she went back to Bhopal, she left her eldest daughter Gita with us for safe upbringing. Gita was well taken care of by my mother along with all her children during her stay with us during 1967-68. Gita attended play school as well as kindergarten while she was in Mysuru.
We had a cow named Lakshmi whose fresh milk we enjoyed for several years. Gardner Eeraiah used to take care of the cow Lakshmi and its calf Gowri and also trees and plants. If I remember right, this is the third generation cow in our house. We continued to get milk from the cow which was shared with our tenants. Eeriah’s wife worked as maid in our house to do house cleaning, dish washing and clothes washing. There were no machines for these chores at that time.
We were all walking to our school or college unless it was distant when we had to take a local bus or cycle down. There were no school buses to pick up and drop us like the present days. After school/college, our neighbours and friends would congregate at our house and we would play games on our own. We played Cricket, Tennis, badminton, Kunte bille, Gilli dandu, marbles, bugaris and several other games in the open site. There were no TV or cell phones too to keep us engaged
All the wet kitchen wastes (kalagacchu) were fed to the cow and calf. We were also feeding the cow with paddy husk (bhattada hottu) and cotton seeds. We got ample cow dung. The maid used to make cow dung cakes by solar drying it for use in our bathroom to heat water in the handa. I was also sent sometimes to buy a quintal of firewood for use in the bathroom. The other coconut and plant dry wastes were also used in the bathroom for heating water for bath. There were practically no surplus dry wastes at that time. Whatever little was there, it was thrown at the garbage pit in the corner of our compound near the gate. It was getting decomposed by nature itself. There was no accumulation of dry wastes and no problem of their disposal. So there was no waste collection system as it is in the present days. One sanitary lady used to come for cleaning our toilets outside at the back of our house every week.
We along with our tenants, living in three separate homes, within the same compound lived like one big joint family. We played together, enjoyed festivities and shared our happiness and difficulties for around 15 years. We used to play 'I spy', blindfold, chowkabara, aluguli mane, Scrabble and such other indoor games in our central hall inside the house. Girls danced to latest film tunes.
We used to celebrate Shree Krishna Janmashtami on a big scale with decorations and hangings. We had a huge puja mantap in our puja room where our grandfather and father were doing elaborate puja every day. My mother used to prepare thirty and odd sweets and savouries to distribute to neighbours, friends and relatives. Some of these savouries were displayed in front of Sri Krishna’s idol by hanging them in rows (torana).
When I was a young boy, I was basically doing odd jobs and errands. I was going on long walks on desolate roads in Mysuru with friends. We would walk up to the Devaraja Market and gossip or ogle at passers-by. Eldest brother took up a job after graduation to remain in Mysuru itself. He bought a Jawa motor cycle (that was manufactured in Mysuru those days). Another went away after his engineering to Tamilnadu. I left Mysuru to join IIT Chennai in 1968. Ramanuja Iyengar passed away in January 1970. His house was sold and Periamma and Chinnamma came to stay in our house. Sister was asked to take care of three grandmothers for some time. Eldest Sister got married in February 1971 in Mysuru to Krishna Prasad, youngest son of distinguished Professor of Philosophy Sri Yamunacharya who stayed at Veda Griham on Jhansi Laxmi Bai Road opposite to Hardwicke High School close to our house. She came to Mysuru for delivery in 1972 when her first daughter was born. I finished my graduation at IIT in 1973. Sister also finished her graduation at the same time.
Aunt living in Hyderabad in 1973, left Gita (who was 12 years old by that time) again in our house in Mysuru so that her schooling was not disturbed.
Mangala, our tenant Venkatakrishnaiah’s daughter, used to come to sister to get her hair combed and plaited before going to school. She was also taking care of our grandmother Kanakamma and her physical needs. Chinnamma continued to stay with us. When aunt shifted to Mumbai in 1975, Gita was taken back to their home. Eldest Sister came to Mysuru for her second delivery. Her second daughter was born in Mysuru in October 1975.
My brother got married in May 1976. After marriage, he occupied my mother’s room and mother shifted to the women’s room. Second sister was also married in May 1976 My grandmother passed away in Jan 1977 due to old age. Second sister came to Mysuru in 1977 for her first delivery.
Second brother got married in Bengaluru in 1978. Then I got married in Bengaluru in 1980. Later I came to know that the saree shop in Mysuru where my father first met my mother in late 1930’s happened to belong to be my wife’s grandfather’s family. My nephew’s first birthday was also celebrated at Mysuru in the year 1980. In June 1982, my second sister-in-law came to Mysuru for delivery of her second child. My daughter’s first birthday was celebrated with all the extended family members at this Srisailam house in November 1982. Later youngest sister got married at Tirupati in January 1983. We continued to maintain good relationships with the families of in-laws of all of us irrespective of our financial status.
Then it was my first sister-in-law’s turn to deliver her second son in April 1983 in Mysuru. My sister also came to Mysuru for delivery of her first child in November 1983. This meant my mother handled totally eight deliveries at Mysuru including aunt’s children during 1965-86. Mother was preparing a special herbal paste, Lehya, at home to be given to women post delivery for restoring energy and health. Even we used to love that lehya. It tasted so good. Nowadays it is marketed in the market at a huge price.
I don’t think anyone in the extended family or otherwise knew about our real financial status but for the bungalow in which we stayed. Even I was oblivious to the state of affairs in my own family. It was only when my brothers sent me letters requesting for some payments to get the jewellery or fixed deposits released, did I realise the gravity of the situation. Living in a big ancestral home did not necessarily mean the family was in good shape. All of us except my eldest brother living outside Mysuru, visited our Srisailam home whenever opportunity arose for, we loved our home so much. We also kept in touch with our extended families and we always visited them whenever we were in Mysuru.
Two film shootings for Kannada films 'Chakra Teertha' and 'Phoenix' were also done within the compound of Srisailam in 1967 and 1976 respectively. For the first one Dr Rajkumar had graced the occasion.
Eldest brother continued to live in Srisailam house after marriage with our mother, his wife and his two sons. Tenant’s daughters used to come to our house in the morning to get their plaits done by my sister-in-law before going to school. Belur’s eldest daughter’s engagement was also performed in the central hall in our house. There were absolutely no inhibitions between our three families at that time.
The farmers continued to bring paddy every year until the state government brought ‘Tiller is the owner scheme’ for farmers. The government took over all our dry lands and gave us a meagre compensation as fixed by them. This step stopped the supply of paddy to our house. Same fate probably fell on the betel leaf garden too. To meet the household expenses and lessen the burden of debts, brothers offered to sell the relevant portions of their homes in 1984 to the two tenants which they agreed. Venkatakrishnaiah continued to live with his wife, son and two daughters. Belur also lived with his wife and daughters in their portion of the house. It is surprising to see that the same tenants had lived in their outhouses for twenty odd years before they bought their respective portions without any complaints of status of accommodation, repair or rent. Both families also did not engage any maid for cleaning services for all the time they stayed here. Our standard of living in Mysuru city was also stagnant for all these years. Otherwise, the tenants would have shifted out of their outhouses for better accommodation long back. Although this ended the owner-tenant relationship, we continued to live as friends and neighbours and have remained so till date.
My father had accumulated a cupboard full of law books and encyclopedias. These were donated to the Law College. All the oil paintings might have been donated to some temple. The proceeds from the sale of the house were shared amicably between our mother and all six siblings as per the prevailing laws at that time. That brought an end to ownership of all our properties and assets. I did not realise that my brothers had to pledge the gold and silver articles to get all our marriages performed or meet day-to-day expenses of the family. Although we all moved out of Srisailam home, we continued to be in touch with each other and our past tenants for the past sixty years.
We all greatly appreciate our mother’s resilience to withstand so many turmoils in her life. First of all, she happened to be the third wife of my father. Then she lost her husband in 1964 when she was hardly 41 and her own sons and daughters were still young. Then she saw deaths of her sons-in-law, her own son and eldest daughter-in-law while she still lived. She maintained her poise and she never displayed her depression or misery in front of her sons or daughters any time till she lived. We had never seen our mother shedding tears for any reason. Fortunately, she had good health physically.
The Srisailam house along with granary, cow shed, car garage and servant's room has now been completely demolished and all trees and plants have been cut to make a vast open site by the present owner. We are yet to see what comes up in this open site.
It is very unfortunate that this ‘Srisailam’ house that nurtured our families for many decades stands completely razed to the ground today by the present owners. Probably we will see a multi-storeyed residential complex coming up in its premises soon. None of us will be there to see it happening.
After going through this tough life of sixty years since my father’s death, I have learnt many lessons which I would like to list for posterity:
- Whatever may be the situation in life, remain humble
- Maintain good relationships with relatives, neighbours and friends
- Make a decent plan for future of the family
- Maintain good health with proper exercise
- Have faith in God or any higher spirit and always hope for a better future.