What major historical events do you remember?
There are still pockets of my hometown where you may stumble on this bygone architectural wonder – the independent house. I spent most of my life living in independent houses. Typically, these houses are built on 40X60 plots of land with a vague space around the construction that is labeled a yard. These structures faced a road or street and are very similar to the numerous townhouses or villas structured in gated communities today. back in the day, the gates were outside each house, and the entire community was never gated or fenced. As kids, we used to jump in and off the brick compound walls that were built around the houses as we played on the streets. But these were only on holidays as during school days, all of us were signed into one of the many after-school activities or sports or music classes and had very little time to while away on the streets. Summer vacations were the only time we got to explore the neighborhood, much to the horror and angst of the stay-at-home moms and caretakers employed to house-sit in those days. Typically, summer vacations for most schools in Bangalore start at the end of March, when you complete the last paper of the final examinations. While a few of my classmates often traveled to their hometowns, I was always in town. I spent my vacations playing on the streets with the other neighborhood kids who never traveled to their hometowns.
Hide and seek, cycling races, cycle-tire races, blind man’s bluff, badminton, cricket, football with a tennis ball, running races, running and catching were the games we played. Usually, we would start off playing after the parents left for work, around 10:30 am, and the games and screaming and shouting only ended in the evening when it became dark or when the street lights came on. During the day, apart from the stay-at-home moms who would try to squeeze in a nap, we had no one to stop us or curb our enthusiastic games. Anyone in the age group of 4 -15 joined in the games. Our rules were often simple and extremely inclusive to ensure even the little ones got to play the game, but never got out until they decided to sit and watch when they were tired. In those days, schools used to assign holiday homework to students that they used to evaluate. It was the only way the school could ensure that the students did not while away the entire time and would keep in touch with their studies. While we never had any rules to playing games, Mum had only one rule: finish the holiday homework – the one assigned by the school which she would glance at, and the one assigned by her which she would peruse with great interest.
I took my summer vacations seriously. On the last day of the examination, when I came back home with the holiday homework from school, I would sit down and count the number of days the vacation lasted. Mum’s homework was simple, one page of handwriting in all the languages we learned at school, one page each in English, Kannada, and Hindi, followed by times tables – tables 2-10 and 11-20 every alternate week, and reading a chapter in each subject of science and social studies every day. I counted the days and then negotiated so I could have a couple of weeks off at the end of the vacation without any homework so I could play the entire day when my friends returned from their hometowns. Mum always agreed to let me off a couple of weeks early. All she required was that there was at least 40 days of handwriting completed. I used my language textbooks to copy the lessons into the homework books Mum had created with the unused sheets from the used notebooks we would discard. It took me a maximum of three days to complete it all and an extra day to ensure that my younger sibling was also done with the assigned homework. Now we were free to play nonstop for the rest of the summer.
Usually, we planned games for the week at the start of the week, and they were based on the games telecast on TV and the number of kids floating on the streets at that time. While most of us never took a monthlong trip to our hometowns, there were times when we would take a couple of days to visit a relative or go to a visiting carnival or circus, and our game schedules were flexible to accommodate all these last-minute plans. Vacations were fun, although they were stiflingly hot. We never tired of running up and down, jumping across compound walls, and screaming encouragement to our teammates as we played. Some years, these games were interrupted by the autorickshaws campaigning for the local elections. The campaigning team would often thrust a fistful of pamphlets in our hands and instruct us to drop them off in all the houses. Sometimes, we took a break to do this, and sometimes, we used pamphlets to create rockets and boats that we would strategically use in our games. The year I was to turn 13, we had the same chaos during the vacations, but we also had these campaigners floating around the locality. We took breaks and hid when they were on our street, so our games were only briefly interrupted by their visits.
We were a bunch of kids, and while we were not too interested in politics, we had heard rumors of this charismatic politician. We never discussed politics at home, but I had heard Mum mention his name on a few occasions, so he was familiar. As a teenager, I had heard a few speeches on the TV during the news and often cracked jokes about his speech technique of wanting to constantly build something for the nation. We never discussed the news or politics while playing, but this leader would creep up in our conversation, especially on days when the autorickshaw campaigning for him would drop off pamphlets on the street. That week, I clearly remember that it was Tuesday evening, and we had finished a wonderful day of running around the streets and playing a boisterous game of cricket and had scheduled a rematch for the following day. Mum and Dad had returned from work and were watching the news on TV while we finished dinner and went to bed as usual.
The following morning, 21st May 1991, the charismatic politician everyone was talking about and even more had been admiring had been assassinated. The worst part of this was the location of the assassination; it was roughly 6 hours from our city. This information was broadcast on all news channels on TV and radio, and a day of mourning was declared. I remember waking up to Mum wondering what to plan for the day. Usually, both Dad and Mum headed to work on Wednesday, and we were left on our own. But, that day, both Dad and Mum were hovering around the house, as were the older siblings. No one went anywhere. We got ready as usual because the maid would come in around 10 am to wash the clothes. A normal vacation day always had one of the random kids from the street knocking on the door to get us out to play. We were always aware of the parents who stepped out to work and would often invite the kids who had parents staying back to play outdoors. That was the kid’s code to rescue kids from getting bored when parents stayed back. That day, most of the parents stayed back. There were no kids who could step out to do the knocking. And it took us almost an hour to figure out the reason both Dad and Mum were at home on a random weekday. Along with the frequent updates on the actual assassination, there were rumors that the perpetrators of the crime had entered and hidden in our city.
The neighbors stood at the gates, hushed discussions were held across compound walls, and almost everyone was frowning. The stress and worry was palpable and very real. I tried sneaking out to knock on a door and get the kids out when Mum told me to go back indoors, stating there would be no games or playing today. angry and irritated, I went back indoors to see if I could at least listen to some songs on the radio, only to realize that even the radio was only playing mournful music. Mum came in and turned off the radio that I had left on in the hope that something interesting would play. She then sat us down and explained what had happened in kid-friendly words. We were instructed not to go out to play and to only speak in Kannada when we did go out. The next few days were tense as a massive manhunt was launched. The campaigning autos stopped driving through the streets, and there was a deafening silence. Apart from the trilling of crickets or the rustling of leaves as a gentle wind blew, there was no noise outside. Bangalore shut down. The city stood still and waited with bated breath.
Neighborhoods closed down and everyone went on high alert. Every time a vehicle moved on the street, heads would silently pop at the windows to see who was up and about. We spent that first week indoors, never going out to play, but we did spend time talking and discussing whatever information we could gather from various sources. We got to see some gory images – a bloodied arm or a roughly decapitated foot or a random collage of decapitated body parts staring at us in every newspaper. The paragraphs describing the horror were just as brutal as the visuals they described at the scene of the tragedy. It took the authorities almost a month to identify and apprehend the culprits from an independent house on the outskirts of our city.
While this may not be a major historical event, it affected and modified the political landscape in India. It affected us as kids as it not only cut short our vacations but also forced us to face the blood, gore, and reality of the brutal side of politics. It changed us forever. We stopped jumping through random compounds; we only played in and around homes we knew who the occupants were. In our kiddie version of the neighborhood watch, we grilled new tenants moving into homes in the neighborhood to keep track of our safety. Strangely, the only tenants we welcomed with a smile were the ones who moved in with kids because kids we could grill mercilessly to our safety and satisfaction.
Just a little more 