Saturday, October 6, 2012

Blog EntryOct 31, '07 9:48 AM
by Thimmappa for everyone
Autobiography -  2. Birth.
Born on 14th November 1942 at a village, Manchale, near Sagar, some ten kilometers to Sagar off the road to Shimoga, but only officially at Manchale, the actual birth took place at mother's mother place, Kanale, a village some fifteen kilometers to Sagar off the road to Jog Falls as the practice is to go for delivery to parent's house, especially if it was the first delivery, as mine was. I was born at midnight on a Saturday. Lord Krishna was supposed to have born on a similar day, they named me as Krishnamurthy, although it is the prerogative of the Father to do so in a naming ceremony based on a standard practice. The practice was to name by father's father name and that was Thimmappa. That became my official name and as is the practice, my name had to become M.S.Thimmappa, M standing for Manchale, S for my father's name, M.T.Suryanarayanarao( his T stands for his father's name, Thimmappa). Yet, even to this day places from my mother's side know and call me as Krishnamurthy only. Those days there was no practice of celebrating birth day, it was considered as Western practice that is picked up here too much later. Some thirty years later, when on job where knowing and celebrating birthday in vogue, I was made to realise it was the birth day of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime Minister of independent India(1947), a very cultured, urbane, visionary statesman. The birthday is celebrated nationally and mine is drowned in it always.
I was born to a rural agricultural joint family. Two cousin brothers, who were no more when I was born, had two male children each and all the four brothers  lived together with their families. There must have been too much of a tension in the family, two brothers belonging to one parent, my father and his brother, and the other two of another parentage decided to part and separated when I as very young, may be three/four years old. They became poorer too with this, their status in the village being devalued a bit as well. There was a struggle to regain the wealth and status, they were toiling hard and I had a feeling that it was telling on my care too. It was permeate with new kind of tension, new kind of hardship.   

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