Life on a farm by the train tracks

నాన్న (Nanna is dad in Telugu) worked for the Government of Andhra Pradesh as a veterinary doctor. His work took us to the Block Development Officers Training Center in Bapatla. It is called AMR-Andhra Pradesh Academy of Rural Development Training Center now. The Development Officers Training Centers were established in April 1954 by the Government of India’s Ministry of Community Development, and Panchayat Raj Corporation to train Block Development Officers to oversee and manage Community Development Projects in India. It changed names a few times and was handed over to the state government by the Government of India in 1967. In 1970, the institute was renamed as "State Institute of Community Development and Panchayat Raj". నాన్న (Nanna) started working there in 1972 when it was still referred to as the Block Development Officers (BDO) Training Center. He oversaw their dairy and poultry farm operations and taught dairy and poultry farm management courses.

These centers trained officers in various aspects of rural development. They trained them in agriculture and poultry farm management. All employees lived and worked on this large campus built in the middle of a forested area. The campus had teaching facilities, agricultural fields, dairy and poultry farms, and living quarters for employees and trainees. This campus was very close to the intersection of Howrah–Chennai main line train tracks and the Guntur-Bapatla-Chirala Road. If you are heading to Bapatla from Guntur, the road curves as it crosses the train tracks. There was a large మఱ్ఱిచెట్టు (marri chettu is Banyan tree in Telugu) on the right side of the road after crossing the train tracks and the BDO Training Center road was to the left of it. There is a జీడిమామిడి (jeedimamidi) Research Center as well on that road now. I don’t remember if it was there when I lived there. జీడిమామిడి (jeedimamidi is cashew in Telugu). The Agricultural Farm on the left side of the Guntur-Bapatla-Chirala Road before the train tracks was there as well. This farm was called Japan Farm back then. There is a beautiful Japanese style guest house that was built in the 1970s on this property. I just don’t remember visiting this farm.

The large మఱ్ఱిచెట్టు (marri chettu), well known as a ghost hangout and subject of several ghost stories was also an unofficial Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) bus stop for the BDO colony. We would request a special stop so we could avoid going all the way to Bapatla’s main bus station and then come all the way back.

As you walked along this road, you first saw the BDO’s main offices and teaching facilities. The road continued to the living quarters. The first level officers’ quarters for the Principal and Assistant Directors were located on a side road to the right of the main road. If you continue further down, the second level officers' quarters were set on a large oval shaped area. The main road split into three roads at the start of the oval. Two loop roads lead to the left and right of the oval to merge back with the main road at the other end of the oval. The houses sat on the outer sides of the oval all along the two loop roads with a large open space in the middle of the oval. The main road continued straight through the middle of the oval to the third level employees’ quarters.

The first house we lived in was immediately after turning right at the start of the oval closer to the entrance. I spent the majority of our stay at this house. We later moved to a bigger house for a year or so before moving to the next place నాన్న (Nanna) was transferred to.

నాన్న (Nanna) had a good friendship with one of his colleagues and his wife and అమ్మ (Amma) became good friends. Their son was my classmate at school. Our two families occasionally got together for dinners, and us kids played together more often. Our family friend’s house was on the opposite end of the oval right across our first house on the far end of the oval. We had a good line of sight to their veranda from ours and vice versa. The entire colony felt like a large community and an extended family. We all knew each other. Our second house was right next to theirs.

Ramu, our teenage neighbor, was much older to me. He was very friendly and used to help with my school work. Ramu was from a devout Brahmin family. Ramu’s mother, who I called Aunty, would take a purifying bath in the morning before she started cooking. She would take bath and carry water back with her in a ఇత్తడి (ettadi is brass in Telugu) కుండ (kunda).  కుండ (kunda) is a round pot with a narrow opening at the top used for carrying water in India. Women wear clean sarees and draw water from the well and pour it over themselves to purify themselves following the rules of madi. The word madi is used by Brahmins to indicate that a person is bodily pure. In order to practice madi, the Brahmin wears clothes which had been recently washed and dried, and these clothes should not be touched by anybody who was not in the state of madi. A person is in a state of madi only after taking a bath in cold water, and after wearing madi clothes.

When Ramu’s mother was in the state of madi, if a human or animal crossed her path, she had to do the ritual bathing all over again. We knew to stay away from getting close to her or walking across her path as she walked back to her kitchen in her wet saree to start cooking for the day. Stray dogs on the other hand couldn’t care less. It wasn’t uncommon for her to break the state of madi when a stray dog crossed her path and repeat the process of getting back into the state of madi all over again. She was a beautiful woman and she looked radiant in madi as she carried water to start her morning work. She did this every single morning even on very cold winter days. Ramu’s father practiced సంధ్యావందనం (Sandhyavandanam) and సూర్యనమస్కారం (Surya Namaskar) at dawn, mid-day, and dusk in a state of madi, following the Sun’s path across the sky.

Ramu and his family lived two houses over to the right of ours. There was an empty house between our house and Ramu’s. We used this empty house's veranda as a school house when our teacher came to teach us. Our teacher’s name was రత్నం (Ratnam). We addressed him as రత్నం మాస్టారు (Ratnam Mastaru) according to the tradition to address teachers as masters.  Mastaru was a Telugu form of its original word “Master" in English. Our teacher was my classmate, Nirmala’s  grandfather. He insisted that we use our right hand to write. Our colony Doctor’s daughter joined us for lessons. She was left-handed and took the brunt of our teacher’s admonitions about writing with her left hand. He was a good teacher and taught us well.

Our house was a small three room house with a veranda in the front. As you climbed up the steps onto the veranda, you entered the house through the front door. The front door led to the first room in the middle of the house. This middle room had doors connecting it to all other parts of the house, two rooms on either side of it, a small kitchen with a small window, and a small backyard. The middle room served as our dining room. We had a dining table there. The room to its left had a window facing the front yard and another facing the backyard. This room had a door to the veranda. The room to the right of the dining room had one window to the front and another on its right side. The kitchen was right behind the dining room. The door at the back of the dining room led to a small backyard enclosed in a boundary wall with a door that led to the wilderness at the back of the house. The backyard had a hand pump, a bathroom, and a squat style latrine. Water from the human powered hand pump was used for cooking, bathing, washing dishes and clothes. 

నాన్నమ్మ (Nanamma is paternal grandmother in Telugu) lived with us during our Bapatla years. నాన్నమ్మ (Nanamma), my little sister, and I shared the room to the left with door to the veranda. The room we shared with నాన్నమ్మ (Nanamma) was also our pooja room. అమ్మ (Amma) and నాన్న (Nanna) used the room on the right side.

All the houses had mulberry hedge including ours. Our hedge was crawling with snakes and so was our sandy front yard. Snakes crawled along the walls and rested on the iron grill on our windows. They also crawled under tables on our veranda to snooze. We enjoyed picking and eating mulberries and I don’t recall being bothered by snakes even though we could see them crawling in the branches. I saw a king cobra just once from a distance during the entire time I lived there.

Living in this colony was like living on a farm. Fresh milk and eggs were delivered to every house in the morning. Fresh vegetables followed just in time for cooking lunch. Fresh roses were brought home in large clay pots full of cold water to keep them fresh. అమ్మ (Amma) would pick beautiful pink roses floating in water for pooja and she would put them in my hair. The rose petals were so fresh and they tasted delicious. Being an avid gardener నాన్నమ్మ (Nanamma) enjoyed growing flowers in our front yard. Our garden was full of మల్లెపువ్వులు (mallepuvvu is jasmine in Telugu), బంతిపువ్వులు (banthipuvvu is marigold in Telugu), and చామంతిపువ్వులు (chamanthipuvvu is chrysanthemum in Telugu). In addition to gardening, she kept herself busy teaching us English and talking to locals about the ghosts she saw at night when we slept outside during summer. She believed the హస్తనక్షత్రం (Hasta nakshatra) she was born under gave her the ability to see ghosts. She used to talk about sighting a woman dressed in a white saree walking along the road. It turned out there was a woman who died a while back that fit the description.

నాన్న (Nanna) would ride his bicycle to his office on the dairy and poultry farm. I used to walk to his office to chill in his office chair reading books. It was a lot of  fun to watch chickens and help pick eggs in the chicken coops. On the way back from the office, I would pick juicy and delicious నేరేడుపళ్ళు (Neredu is Indian blackberry fruit) that fell from the tree fending off wasps that wanted their share. We used to ride a rickshaw to school. Nanna hired a rickshaw driver to take my sister and I to school. Our driver showed up promptly every single morning to take us to school and brought us back home after school. Our first school run by my grandmother’s friend, Kamalamma, was on the other end of Bapatla and it was a long rickshaw ride.

Once we were a bit older, we started going to school in a BDO bullock cart that took the colony kids to school and brought them back. There was healthy competition between the Japan Farm and the BDO communities. The Japan Farm had a very nice covered bullock cart to take their colony kids to school and bring them back. The cart was painted green with a green canopy covering the cart and green benches for kids to sit on as they rode to school. Our BDO Colony bullock cart wasn’t covered and we all sat in the cart on a bed of hay. We used to watch the snooty nosed Japan Farm kids in their nicer and faster cart as they zipped past leaving us in their dust every single morning. We all went to the same school and sat in two separate areas at lunch time eating lunches we brought from home. I don’t recall if the Japan Farm kid’s had nicer lunch boxes.

The BDO Training Center provided lodging for its employees and lodging and boarding for their trainees. There was a fully staffed mess hall on the premises. The BDO Training Center cook కన్నప్ప (Kannppa) was a thinly built man who looked too thin for a cook. He was very strong though, it was mesmerizing to watch him lift heavy pots full of food. He made delicious sweets. అమ్మ (Amma) would hire him to make sweets at our home for special occasions or for no reason at all. She would buy large quantities of milk for కన్నప్ప (Kannppa) to make khova enough for two large marriage parties. Needless to say, I had more than my share of the yummy sweets and was rather chunky back then.

Our life on the campus was very relaxed. All four of us used to go for long walks in the morning and evenings. నాన్న (Nanna) did not own a camera even though he loved taking family pictures. He would borrow a camera from a relative or a friend for a few days. I still have a few pictures from our Bapatla days taken with a borrowed camera. Our backyard had a beautiful బూరుగుదూది చెట్టు (buruga dudi chettu is silk cotton tree in Telugu). During its flowering season, the tree was covered with beautiful flowers and రామచిలకలు (rama chilakalu) on every single branch of the tree. It was beautiful sight to see the flowers and రామచిలకలు (rama chilakalu) hopping from branch to branch as they talked to each other. It was magical to listen to their calls. రామచిలక (rama chilaka), the rose-ringed parakeet or ring-necked parakeet is the state bird of Andhra Pradesh. This bird is beautiful with its green color and a rich red colored beak. I loved watching this tree in the early winter mornings when it was in full bloom with flower petals covered in మంచు (manchu is dew in Telugu).

అమ్మ (Amma) harvested silk cotton from the tree and used it to make pillows and quilts. It was a major project which involved breaking the pods, extracting the fine silk cotton, separating the seeds from it, and fluffing up the silk cotton. She picked a spare room or the empty house next door for this project. We had a large mound of cotton sitting in a corner of the room when we were done and the cotton was ready to be stuffed into pillows and quilts. అమ్మ (Amma) stitched pillow cases and quilts on her prized Singer sewing machine her father gave her as a gift.

I have fond memories of my life in this colony in Bapatla. The BDO community was a very tight knit community. They celebrated happy events and helped each other during tough times. The entire community came together to help when a colleague’s wife was terminally ill with leukemia. Several community members including నాన్న (Nanna) rescued a teenager from her runaway expedition and talked her out of making risky decisions.

All of us kids in the community would go picnicking to a nearly జీడిమామిడి (jeedimamidi) grove. I think this area now falls under the జీడిమామిడి (jeedimamidi) Research Center. జీడిమామిడి (jeedimamidi) tree has a thick canopy with lot of shade. It is hard for the light to penetrate this canopy. Sitting under the canopy feels like you are inside a house. We would pick a nice large tree to sit under to eat snacks and play games. These trees were laden with juicy జీడిమామిడి (jeedimamidi) fruits with జీడిపప్పు (jeedipappu - cashews) hanging from the bottom of the fruit. You can enjoy the fruits, but the cashews need to be roasted before eating. I don’t recall if we were allowed to pick fruits from these trees. I can still remember sitting under the tree looking up at the canopy and the juicy fruits as I enjoyed the snacks అమ్మ (Amma) and other aunties made.

I grew up surrounded by books. I used to read Bommarillu Tales avidly in Bapatla. The books were delivered by a guy who rode his bicycle from a Bapatla bookstore. He would bring the books that were released that month. My sister and I waited eagerly for the books. We got two books each month. Our book angel made sure to hand one book to my sister and the other to me as we raced towards him as he approached our house. I loved a story titled మృత్యులోయ (Mruthyu Loya means Ravine of death in Telugu). The story starts with a young prince and his friend falling thousands of feet down a cliff edge into a ravine and finding themselves in a strange world full of dangers. The story is all about their struggles to get back home navigating strange lands full of hostile people captivated me. The story ends with them victoriously emerging out of the మృత్యులోయ (Ravine of death) to meet their cheering families.

We left Bapatla soon after we moved to our much bigger and nicer second house very close to the train tracks. It had five large rooms, a large kitchen, large front and backyards. Late at night, when the Howrah-Chennai Mail train passed by, it cast shadows on our bedroom walls like a movie. I waited up to watch the show. We used to leave coins on the train tracks to be flattened. We would search for the flattened coins after the train went by. Sometimes goods trains stopped for a short time while waiting for the signal to change or for hours when their engines broke down.

Three schools, two houses, and three years later while I was struggling to learn Hindi alphabets in 7th grade, and in the midst of grieving losing నాన్నమ్మ (Nanamma), we moved to our next destination.