The House and Family

Namaste, my name is Andal Sharma and I am a resident of Malleswaram. I was born in Malleswaram in 1940 in a house adjacent to this one—the house my maternal grandfather built in 1929. It has retained its original form and stands just as it was. I was born there. It was a home delivery in those days. The midwife would come and do the delivery at home.

My father was a lawyer and my mother a homemaker. We stayed with my grandparents because my father also lived in this house with them. I had one aunt, my mother's younger sister, and an uncle older to my mother, but unfortunately he passed away at a very young age. So, we were my grandparents, my parents, my aunt, myself and my younger brother.

Life in Those Days

Life was very simple in those days. We had practically no furniture in our house. We slept on the floor on mats and mattresses, and we sat on the floor to eat. I don't think there was a wood stove when I was born—by that time they had graduated to coal. They had cement stoves fixed to the floor and there was a chimney to exhaust the smoke. My grandmother and my mother would do the cooking. Water for bathing was boiled with firewood in a special stove. We would all take bath in that hot water. The toilets were outside the house because in those days there was an impression that having the toilet inside the home was not hygienic.

The Garden

We had a big site, 50 feet by 100 feet and our house occupied only the front portion. The backyard was all full of plants and trees. We had all kinds of roses, jasmine and spatika plants. We had a sitapal tree and a rampal tree, pomegranate, curry leaf and pomelo. And there was a tree whose fruit I have not come across in all these years. It used to be called lakot. They used to be small fruits like guavas.

There was place all around the house to run around and play. In the front also there was a lot of place to play. This was the pattern in almost all the houses on the road—all independent houses with big compounds and a lots of play area. That was the norm in those days. No apartments or anything like that.

Learning from Grandmother

I grew up here. I was a very sick child because I used to have bronchial asthma. Every month I used to have an asthmatic attack. It went on till seven years. Then afterwards I was free of that. But I managed to learn things from my grandmother. My grandmother used to teach me arithmetic and some English alphabets.

She went to school but had studied only up to what was called Kannada Lower Secondary. Once you passed that level you progressed to the English Lower Secondary level. She never got to the next level as she married early (as was the norm in those days). But she was able to teach me Kannada, arithmetic and alphabets.

The Navratri Dolls

Another thing - for about twelve years after her marriage she was not able to have children. So, she developed an interest in making and getting dolls to display during Navratri. I don't know how many boxes of dolls she had collected. She made some of the dolls herself. She would also invite a carpenter home and get him to make what was called fretwork in those days—very light wood used to make small furniture pieces. Small cots, tables and chairs. And she used to make sets - a school set, a hospital set, a railway station set, a police station set, a temple set and so on.

Half of the things are with my daughter in USA. But I have some of them here with me. These days I find that the idols are made on such a big scale—big statues of gods, goddesses and scenes from Ramayana, Mahabharata. But the ones she had were all miniature. That was the beauty of it. Nowadays I hear people say, we can't make things like that anymore.

Festivals and Family Life

We used to celebrate so many festivals. Gokulashtami was the main festival. My grandmother used to make lots of goodies to eat and distribute amongst the neighbours. My mother and my grandfather would help her with the cooking. He had time on his hands as he had retired by the time I was born.

My Mother's Story

My mother studied only up to high school. But she studied in Bombay for a couple of years. She was with her aunt—my grandmother's sister. My grandmother's sister's husband came from very humble means but rose to be the chief engineer for the Tatas in the '30s and '40s. He had a big house in Juhu. He was sent to General Electric for training in Schenectady and was instrumental in the hydroelectric projects at Shivansamudra. My grandmother's sister had her own children but wanted my mother also to spend some time there. So, she took her there and admitted her in St. Joseph's Convent in Bandra. When she was just 17 or so her marriage was fixed and she came back here. My father wanted her to study. He admitted her to London Mission School near the Town hall. She went for a few months but she did not want to continue. She said, No, I don't want to study. So that was that!

My aunt studied B.Sc. from Maharaja's College with botany and zoology as her subjects. Then she started working – first for BTS—that is now called BMTC, our bus service. Later she joined the Department of Electronics. My father practiced as a civil lawyer and he had his office in Balepet.

Starting School

What do I remember most from my childhood? School, mostly! My grandmother taught me when I was very young before I joined primary school. In those days, there was primary school for 4 years, middle school for 4 years, high school for 3 years, and then college. Most of us went to government schools in those times. Very few private schools existed. One was called Parimala and the other was Malleswaram Ladies Association.

I joined the primary school which was on 4th Main Road between 9th and 10th cross. It was called Normal School. The funny thing is that neither my father nor my mother came to admit me to the school! There were two girls in the neighborhood who knew me and attended this school. One of them was quite senior to me so she admitted me to the school. I don't think they asked anything. Maybe she gave them my father's name. I have no idea as I was only 6 years old. This must have been in 1946. Then I started going to school, but after 6 months I quit because I realized that I knew most of the things they were teaching.

The Cow Dung School

There was a private school on 7th cross and 7th Main with a big compound. It had the main house of the owner and then small houses around it, and also a big hall. It used to be called a vatara in Kannada—like a courtyard with many houses inside. The owners even had cows and buffalos in that courtyard.

There was one gentleman who used to stay in one of those small houses. His name was Mr. Anant Shastri. He used to run a private school in that hall. I joined that school. Maybe my parents or my grandparents made that decision—they all knew him. He was a very nice gentleman. I must have been 7 when I joined that school.

Because it was right next to cows and buffalos, it used to stink of cow dung, and so it was disparagingly called ‘Chana Gundi’(cow dung in Kannada) school. But quite a few children used to come there. He was the only teacher, but he was very good. He used to teach us all the subjects. I think I went there for one year.

Middle School

After that I shifted to the proper government middle school which was on 4th Main Road between 7th and 8th cross. Arena Multimedia is there now—that was our school. It was a stone building that extended up to 8th cross with a lot of open space for us to play. I spent 4 years there. In the last 2 years, we had to choose an optional subject—either music or tailoring or cooking. I chose music because right from my childhood I was interested in singing.

At the end of middle school we had a board exam which we had to clear before getting admitted to high school. In high school, the third year was called SSLC and once more, we had an board exam. Only after passing it you could join a college.

What We Wore

There was no uniform. We would wear skirt and blouse in cotton with flowered patterns. The material was called chint (chintz) - in Kannada, chinti langa. Most of us came from lower middle class or middle-class families. So, there was no silk - and no showing off! The tailor would come from the city and take measurements at our home. After stitching, he would even bring them home.

Games at School

In the evenings we used to play in the grounds at school. My favourite sport was throwball. I don't think girls play it these days because I hear the name very rarely. Then, we used to play tennikoit. There were two courts for that. And then behind the school there was a court for badminton. We used to play it with a ball and it was called ball badminton, not the kind played with a shuttlecock. Once a year we would have a School day with cultural programs like drama and singing songs and kolata. I used to take part in all those things.

Games at Home

My neighbour and I, we were both in high school at that time, so we were the seniors. We would get all the children of 5th Main Road together and we had an informal club. We used to call it Sangha. We would meet after school and we would play in these compounds, mostly in our compound because it was so big. We could run in and out of those compounds also and the roads were free of traffic. Only once in a way a jatka or cycle would pass on the road. No cars, no autos, nothing. And people did not mind us running in and out of their compounds because we were not destructive. We would never go inside the houses and disturb the residents!

One of my classmates used to come from 11th cross on Sampige Road where you find Reliance now —that used to be her house. Another girl also used to come from 11th cross but on 4th Main Road, opposite from where Vasa Scientific now stands. That used to be an old house in a big compound, and its name was Mala. I heard that it belonged to (famous film actor) Vyjayanthimala's family.

The Games We Played

We would play blind man's buff, then something called Mala vandu gili po. To play this game, we needed two teams. One girl would be chosen from one team and the other team had to keep their eyes closed. She would go up to one of the other team’s members and pinch them. They had to find out who had pinched them. Then we played Hopscotch, of course, and Catch me if you can.

Another game that we used to play—I have never heard that name again, I don't know how we got that name and I don't know its origin—we used to call it Gultoria. One person would become the thief and she had to go around this neighborhood and pluck a leaf or a flower from a plant and bring it to us. The rest of us would wait inside the compound. Then we all had search and identify the plant from where the leaf or flower was plucked

Our Cultural Shows

Once a year our Sangha used to put up a cultural show with dance, drama and kolata—that is like the dandiya of Gujarat. There was one gentleman, he was I think in the NCC, and he had learnt some folk songs for this kolata. He used to teach kolata in the Gandhi Seva Sangha hall. Gandhi Seva Sangha was already there, that hall was there, not upstairs, the downstairs.

The smaller children would recite nursery rhymes or small poems. The stage was formed by joining two cots together and we would tie a rope on the top of two doors. Our mother's sarees were the curtains! We used to put up these shows and all the parents would come and watch the program.

We also used to have some competitions for the younger children—running race, high jump, long jump. We would even distribute prizes on that day - one pencil or a couple of colored chalks or something like that! That was all we could afford because there was nothing like pocket money in those days. At the end, kadala puri, that is puffed rice, would be distributed to everybody in paper cones. So that was our cultural show!

We did this for two years, once in our house and once in our neighbor's house. By that time I had come to the tenth standard, and I had to study for the public exam. I had to concentrate on my studies and my neighbor also had to study, so the club was closed.

High School Years

Then I had to shift to the high school. The high school is still there on 13th cross and 4th Main Road. I studied in the old building that was H.V. Nanjundaiah’s house. I think he donated it to the government to run it as a school. In the entire compound, there was only one building, lots of trees and lots of place for us to run around and play. Now it has been built up. I feel very bad when I see how congested it is now.

The funny thing is it had both English medium and Kannada medium. You had to pass a test in English to get admitted to the English medium sections. Sections A and B were English medium. C and D were Kannada medium. If you could not pass the test, you were put in the Kannada medium section.

Everything in Malleswaram

We hardly went to the city because we used to get everything here in Malleswaram. Fortunately, we are situated in a place which is accessible to everything—the grocery stores, market, everything. The cooperative society on 8th cross, which is now called Souharda Bhavan, used to be called the Malleswaram Cooperative Society. It used to sell everything—groceries like rice and dal, fabrics like chinti, bed sheets, even stationery—notebooks and pencils. There was no need to go to the pete or the city unless you wanted something very special that was not available here.

We hardly went to the Cantonment. Occasionally, my father used to take us to Cubbon Park bandstand. He bought a two-door Austin. We had to bend the seat to get into the back seat. car. I think I was almost in college by then. Later he sold that car and bought a Morris 10 - that was a bigger car. Then he was gifted a Morris Minor by one of his clients—the owner of some cinema theatres in Majestic - Geeta Talkies, Super and Shree. Otherwise, there was not much going out. The only times we would go out is to attend functions in our relatives' homes.

My uncle, my father's elder brother, used to stay in Srirampuram. He was a doctor. So that was one place where we used to go. My grandfather's brothers were all in Seshadripuram, and that was another place that we went to. Otherwise, this neighborhood was our playground and we were quite happy being here!

College Years

In 1954 I passed SSLC and joined Maharani's College, that is opposite Freedom Park. I was barely 14 when I joined and possibly younger than most of my classmates. I studied Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, PCM, as it was called. We had English as our first language and we had to select a second language which was either Sanskrit or Kannada or French. We had a French woman who taught French at the college!

I went to college by route number 11 and the bus stop was on 8th cross, Margosa Road. We would get dropped off very near the college. There were very few buses in those times, but we had no choice. On our way back we hardly used to get seats, the buses were so crowded, so sometimes we would walk up to KR Circle and catch the bus from there. It was quite a long way off.

Sometimes three, four of us who would go from Malleswaram and we would walk back from there. It used to take us about 40 to 45 minutes. We had to cross the railway line at Seshadripuram. Now there is an underpass, but it was not there earlier. We never found it difficult walking back. We would be gossiping and chatting!

Indian Institute of Science

I graduated in 1958 after four years in college and I was only 18! After that, I joined the at the Indian Institute of Science (IISC). Only those four years when I studied at Maharani's College, I was out of Malleswaram. Otherwise, everything was in Malleswaram - primary school, middle school, high school, everything!

I studied Electrical Communication Engineering. It was a postgraduate course and dealt with all kinds of communication engineering like telephone, telegraphy, radar. It existed earlier too, but we were the first ones to get the degree certificate. Previously it used to be called DIISC - Diploma of the Indian Institute of Science. They were not awarding degrees. Ours was the first batch to be awarded degrees. So, I had a Bachelors of Engineering degree in ECE.

We were only 3 girls in the batch and there were about 15 or 16 men - it was a small batch. I was a day scholar, but the other girls were in the hostel. One had come from Mangalore and the other from Orissa. Though these were small batches, the boys used to come from all over India because this was a national institute.

I remember taking route number 1, which used to go to Yeshwantpur, from 8th cross, Margosa Road. It would drop me across the street from the institute at the Porcelain Factory, which is now called BHEL. Sometimes we had classes at 8 o'clock in the morning and I would be running on the road to make it in time.

Summer Internships

The first year covered all subjects - mechanical, civil and electrical engineering. We had to study construction materials, we had to do surveying, we had to go to the mechanical workshop, do carpentry fitting, work on the lathe and so much more. Then, every summer we had to do an internship for about 6 to 8 weeks. In the first year they sent us to ITI, Indian Telephone Industries, because it is connected with communication. When we were there, we had to study the telephone circuits in the telephone exchanges. That was the assignment for the first year. In our second year we were sent to what is now Rajaji Nagar—there is a power station there called Shivanhundi power station. That was purely electrical, not communication, and we had to study the circuits of transformers etc. in the third year we were sent to Bharat Electronics, and that was totally connected to communication. So, much of our holidays was spent in our internships.

The All India Tour

At the end of the course, during the last year, we went for an all-India tour. We went from Kanyakumari to Bhakra Dam, and the tour was sponsored by the institute. We had a railway compartment specially meant for us and that compartment used to be attached to different trains to go to different places. We had to visit many communication centres.

We started with a communication centre in Ernakulam, Kerala. Then we went to Kanyakumari, from there to Pune, which had an overseas communication centre. From there we went to Delhi, then to the Bhakra Dam in Punjab. And in between, we visited other places like Manmad. My parents were fine with sending me because all three of us girls went on the trip.

I did not feel any discrimination. There were a couple of boys who used to look down upon us because they thought - What are these girls doing in this course? Why did they come here to study engineering? One or two had that attitude, but most of them were very protective of us. They would take care of us. They were very nice.

One of them is still in touch with all of us. He is in the US in an assisted senior living home and his children stay nearby. He still keeps in touch with many of us, sending emails for everyone's birthday. He reminds us, this is this one's birthday, the month of August is this one, the month of September is this one's birthday!

Meeting My Husband

When I was in the second year of my studies at IISC, I met the person who would be my husband. He was from Hoshiarpur in Punjab and he was doing his PhD in Chemical engineering. There was a boy in our class who was also from there. They were both in the boys hostel and he knew my husband as they were both Punjabis from the same town. He introduced us to each other and we used to casually meet and talk. At some point, we decided to get married! That was the understanding but that was before I went abroad.

Working and Applying Abroad

From 1961, for about a year or so, I was working in my department as a lab assistant. Then I started applying to foreign universities. One of my professors in the institute guided me in this. It was something very unusual at that time. My father was very keen that I should study further. He himself wanted to be an engineer but unfortunately that was not to be, so instead, he made me an engineer. He was even ready to send me abroad to study further. In fact, many of his friends asked him, How are you sending such a girl abroad? Aren't you afraid to send her by herself? He said, No, she can manage. She will learn to look after herself. He was an extraordinary person!