Hindu College

Sri Venkateswara Engeneering College, Machilipatnam

In a way,The Hindu College had been an answer to the challenge posed by The Noble college and it"s rather overt missionary ambitions.......The ordinary people, most of them predominantly Hindu at that time, felt threatened by the Christian onslaught and it has been said that some of them even refrained from sending their kids to school, though they genuinely wanted to educate them.........

It was in this scenario, that Sri.Amaravathi Seshayya sasthriar,who hailed from Kumbhakonam, and a sirasthar at the district collectorate, noticed the urgent need for setting up a modern educational institution for the Hindu children....He formed a committee with few like-minded people and acquired a small, already running elementary school at Bachupeta and announced the opening of The Hindu Anglo-Vernacular School on 1 St January, 1856. and it ran on rented quarters.....Sri.Phanihaaram Ramanujacharyulu was made the secretary of the committee...

This fledgeling school experienced many a teething trouble in the beginning......Firstly it's founder, Seshayya sathriar had to leave Bandar in 1862, just six years after it had been started,. as he got transferred to another place...Fortunately, Sri.Munganuri Narasimham Panthulu,originally a native of Nellore,who replaced him at the collectorate was as enthusiastic as his predecessor and attempted to continue the good work...but the school, bereft of good funding, and own infra-structure ran on the meager fees and donations it received from it"s students and led a near hand to mouth existence.....A former Headmaster Of Noble school, Mr.Taylor was appointed as the Headmaster in a desperate attempt to add to the prestige of the new school...

In 1863 , a grand dutch building at Bachupet, with almost 33 acres of land and fencing wall,had been bought by the management of the school at an auction for a sum of 9,150 Rs.. (a fortune in those days) and with that the pressing problem of housing had been solved...It had been stated that Narasimham Panthulu garu, who clinched the deal in a fit of bravado, raised the required moneys with some help from the local patrons and had a tough time later to pay them off...

But,very soon fortune started to smile on the school ,...Things started looking up as student body swelled and it could be said that it never again had to look back and grew so much and so rapidly that it even had to open branches at Ramanaidupeta,1871,(it is called R branch) and jawwarpeta..(J branch),( these were to conduct primary and lower secondary classes, hindu high school had exclusively higher secondary)),... became a graduate college in 1928,... a post-graduate one 1971,... started a separate women"s college in 1976 with the founding of PAdmavathi college for women,... an engineering college.(Sri Venkatewara), 1981,.... a law college in 1983,..a management school in 1985....and today could be called an university by it self... The only regret being the denial of a medical college as it could not show up the required multi-bed teaching hospital.....

The college prospered, acquired own buildings,
built some more,.... developed good laboratories,and libraries,...opened a 108 roomed hostel in 1956, a beautiful auditorium in 59....and you can bet one felt awesome looking at the stately college buildings, .... one heart-warming land mark being a lovely statue of goddess Saraswathi on the premises.....The lengthy single storied High school buildings have long sloping tiled verandas and looking at them i was always reminded of how my dad used to mimic Sri.Vempati Ramayya garu..striding along those corridors... (He used to be their Head-master at that time...In fact he was stated to have been one of the longest-serving Head-masters of the institute..)

He was a big, burly man,dad used to say....A seriously disposed gentleman with a surprisingly high -pitched voice, and all of six feet , clad in jari dhovathis, a black coat and jari turban, he used to march along the verandas,checking how the classes went on., with an orderly trailing in his wake.....The boys( it was an all male school, though the college was co-ed),just cowered and fell silent as he approached....If at all by mistake anyone spoke inadvertently , he would stop in the middle, serve a shot but,swift caning with a " enduku matladavu/?', in his booming voice and proceed on his way....


Two reasons could be cited for the tremendous success of the institute.... The first one would be the gritty,and enterprising management, the college had the good fortune to have........Many stalwart adminisrators and far-seeing academicians led it carefully through the years....Kumbhakonam Krishnamachary, who served the school so diligently for three decades,....Rao Bahadur Venkatappayya Panthulu, who had been the chairman of the managing commitee for twenty years.....Jandhyala Goureenatha Sasthry,in whose tenure, as the secretary, most of the construction works took place......The Rajah Of Challapally,.....Rao Bahadur Sidimbi Hanumantha Rao,who had been in the commitee for forty long years....Daitha Sriramulu, in whose time, the hostels and auditorium had been built,... and ...Kasinathuni Poorna Mallikarjundu and Daitha Madhusudana Sasthry.....under whose supervision the college grew up to it"s present stature.....

The second reason was it"s fantastic faculty....It always had ,over the long span of all it"s career, many illustrious personalities, teaching at.....It had been a regular practice of the management to invite giants in different fields to teach at the institute... There were instances when the college gave the visiting professors blank cheques to take whatever fees they liked....Raghupathi Venkataratnam Naidu, the first Indian vice-chancellor of Madras University worked here for sometime...Kumbhakonam Krishnamachary garu,whose English was stated to be excellent, both taught and administered the school as a head-master...He would wear a coat, a big turban and arrived at the institute in state,riding a bullock cart...

The sanskrit department received the services of Sri.Kasinathuni Brahmayya Lingam for almost forty years...We,people today might not know who he was, but it seems he was a great scholar who won accolades even from the vidwaans of that time....Orthodox as he was, it has been said that he used to arrive at the college shirtless according to the traditions....Too orthodox , i might say, even for that era..:)

Chellapilla Venkata Sasthry, a partner in the famous duo of THIRUPATHI KAVULU adorned the Telugu Department for some time ....So also did Did KAVI Samrat Viwanatha Satyanarayana, the jnanpeeth award winner...Yes... Who would not like to study at such an institute?...

Then again Nadendla Purushotham garu, who had been a famed Hindi pundit and poet headed the R branch......


There were many more, contributing to the success of the college....Only constraints of space are stopping me from mentioning all of them...

Munimanikyam Narasimha Rao garu, the famous humorist and author of the comic KANTHAM KADHALU taught at the high school and dad had been a student of his...An easy going man with his brandmark dry humor, dad says, his classes would be eagerly waited upon and used to be full of laughs for the boys...A few of them would even qualify as strictly meant for an all male company....." mana kishti gadi nalupu tho oka laabham undi ra", he would tell the boys amidst peals of laughter ...,"cheekatlo mundintiki vellina evariki ...kanipinchadu"...And he was quite dark complexioned himself....

Once dad was standing in the grounds, his collar rolled up and touching his ears , strictly according to the latest boyish fashion which itself borrowed heavily on the still latest style of a star..(Ashok Kumar....Must have been....I knew Dad saw Kismat too many times..)....Munimanikyam maastaru , who was going that way, stopped on seeing him, and personally straightened the collar with an easy "Don"t ever raise your collar lad...If the collar goes up, every thing goes up".....

A triumvirate of colleges existed at Bandar in those times......Noble college, Hindu college and the National college....----as a matter of fact, all of them do still exist--- and a kind of cold war ran among the loyal student community,of these eminent educational establishments,owing fierce allegiances to their own respective institutes....Along the lines of Madras colleges, i suppose.....Princes of Loyola, gentlemen of Christian college, and the plain rowdies of Pachayappa.....

Since most of the men and also an aunt from my family went to Hindu college , you can bet they pointed like gun dogs at the very mention of their favourite college.....Downright sneered at the mention of National College.....Noble college?....Yeah,they could tolerate since it was Grandpa"s school,....Not that they could not sneer at it too, but propriety prohibited you to criticise the school your father went to... But...National college?.....Oh.God....We, at the house were often treated to live shows where they imitated and enacted the college scenes....anecdotes,....pranks,...their moments of glory and disappointments....

Like, how dad used to write his biology exams and draw diagrams simultaneously...He used to so proud that he brought the only first class to the college in his intermediate...The principal called for him in his offiece to congratulate him personally and dad went there with paarani on his feet.....Because he was getting married in two days and he was just eighteen at that time....

Like the instance when Dad , quite naughtily stood up pointing out the vernacular name for ENUGU VElAGA tree and his Botany lecturer fended him off from uttering it...."yes...I know Ramanatham...But what you are going to say is not really right"...It seems that the tree had a pretty unprintable vernacular name and the lecturer was trying his best to stop him before saying it in the midst of a full class.......:)

Like the time when they had a foreign returned young lecturer who was overdoing the -teachers and students are friends - stuff a bit too much.....He would finish his class, come out, and ask the students "hey...Have you got the matches?", light a cigarette and go off....."cheap popularity"....Dad would say in disgust....

Like the complete show we had as Suri Babai gave us about the drama in the school where he played a double role...We must have seen that at least a dozen times...
.One was an inspector and another was the don....A rehash of chinatown, i should say....Shammi Kapoor used to be heart throb of both boys and girls then....

"Like the time Babai was fined for thumping on the desk in an argument with the lecturer...." you are fined ,Prakash", the lecturer said..."pay five rupees..."...To which Babai gave a ten note and thumped the desk a second time...

The N.C.C. camps they had....The cricket matches they played...Babai played for the college team, was it"s frontline medium pacer...and a fine swinger of the ball even in the heavy airs of Bandar...

Dad took up cricket rather late in his life...In his mid twenties...He was a rabbit with the bat but packed few lovely leg spinners and a vicious wrong"un in his armour......" " i dont know how good a spinner i was'", he would say modestly (which never suited him)...." but i COULD send at least four balls of an over on to a hand kerchief, if it was spread at the stumps"...

I do not know how the college, which mainly offered conventional cources till recently has been doing during these days of EAMCETs and ICETs.....Hope it is still carrying the bat unbeaten all through......

Some of the old boys who had done well for themselves and the college....


Mutnuri Krishna Rao Garu, Editor, Krishna Pathrika
Kopalle
Kota Sundararama Sarma, the linguist
Nyapathi Madhava Rao,
Kasinathuni Nageswara Rao,Desodharaka, Founder Of Andhra Pathrika
Zamindar of Challapalli, S.R.Y.Prasad
R.Narasimham, Chief Engeneer, P.W.D.(Tn)
Dr.Koka Ahobala Rao
Viswanatha Satyanarayana
Hari Nagabhooshanam,violinist
Lakkaraju Lakkaraju, former Dt.collector
Narla Thatha Rao, former Chairman, Board Of Electricity, A.P
Poet. Katoori
Maddali Venkata Lakshminarasimha Rao,Litteateur
justice.koka Ramachandra Rao
Narla Venkateswara Rao, Editor,Andhra Prabha
G.V.G.Krishnamurthy, Former Election Commissioner
Mandali Venkata Krishna Rao, former Minister, A.P
K.Gopalakrishna Murthy, Former chairman,Andhra Bank
Dr,S.P.Rao, Professor of Ecomomics, Lousiana


Ok...Why Not?...My father, Late V.V.Ramanatham, Retd.Distict Judge
My uncle, Late V.V.S.Prakasa Rao, former Addl.Public Prosecutor, Krishna Dt