My mother worked as a housemaid for a recently retired couple, Vimla and K.K.R. Rao, in Bangalore. The lady had been a professor of home science and her husband an Indian Railway Service official. My father was a factory worker by day. Since he also moonlighted as a watchman in the same apartment complex where Mother worked, my first home was a small room meant for the staff there. In the 1980s, as a little girl in school, I wanted someday to become “Dr Hemavathi,” wear a white coat and help a lot of sick people—an incredible dream for any child in my situation.
My mother’s employers, the Raos, were always concerned about us. I started calling them Appavru and Ammavru—a most respectful way of saying Father and Mother in Kannada. As I began to read, they bought me books and encouraged me. Appavru gave me Kannada lessons. Ammavru told me that my handwriting was beautiful. When my mother felt I should attend an English-medium school, just like the other kids in the complex, the Raos offered to pay the fees. They even gave me breakfast before I left for school. I had to work hard to keep up with my privileged, well-off classmates.
Life at home was always tense, since my father drowned much of his earnings in drink and cigarettes. Yet my mother struggled on bravely for me and Prashanth, my younger brother. One day our already miserable world suddenly turned upside-down. Father was found lying dead in a ditch by the road. To add to our woes, the managers of the apartment complex asked us to vacate our room. Mother pleaded for more time, but our water and electricity connections were shut off to force us out.
It was Ammavru and Appavru who came to our rescue. They both taught yoga at Bangalore’s Atma Darshan Yogashram. They asked the officials there to employ my mother as a cook so that we would also get accommodation in the campus. Even today, 22 years on, my mother works there.
“You keep studying hard,” Appavru advised me, after driving us there.
“Education will change everything,” Ammavru added, as my mother looked on with pride. Indeed, as I moved up in school, I met their high expectations, always topping my class. When I showed them my report card or won a prize for academic excellence, their faces would lit up. And then i climbed the ladder of my ambition to finish my mbbs and then my post graduation with the support of my mentors and the scholarships i won.
Yes education changed everything for me.
A man was walking along and fell into such a deep hole that he could not get out. So he began to shout very loud for help. A learned professor came along and found him. He looked down into the hole and began to scold him: "How could you be so careless as to fall down there? You should be more careful. If you ever get out again, watch your step." And with that he walked away. Then a holy man came along. He looked down into the hole and told the man, "I'll reach down as far as I can and you reach up as far as you can. If I can grab your hand, I'll pull you out." But it did not work: the hole was too deep. So the holy man said he was sorry, and left the trapped man to his fate. Then Christ came along. He saw the man's problem, and without asking him any questions, he jumped down into the hole. Then he let the man climb up onto his shoulders, and even onto his outstretched arms. And the man got out. Moral of the story - This is known as being persona...
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