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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 committ
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Machilipatnam Charithra

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One of the readers of this blog, Mr.Deepak, kindly complimented me for giving a detailed information on the town and wondered where i get all this from....Actually very easy to say.....Sir, i am, fortunately armed with a 600+page book called Machilipatnam Charithra and most of the authentic information like dates and events come from this source.... It has been said that a previous charithra written by the duo of Sri. Mamidi Sarangapani, and Sri.Mathukumalli Krishna Sasthry,as far back as 1889,...and yet another one by Chitta Balakrishna Sasthry--vice-principal, Hindu college,(1923)- did exist at one time but are not available anymore.....Incidentally, Bandar--proudly our own--is considered to be the first place in Andhra Pradesh to have got written a history book of it"s own.....No doubt we get dubbed as Bandaru pichollu by others for our pre-occupation with the place..:)...and utterly hilarious scenes are picturised on us...Shhhh.Gup Chup.... Wikepedia names another book calle
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Noble College

During my Lady Ampthill days, as we ran around the school play grounds at the backside, the huge buildings of the Noble college used to be visible quite clearly.....There used to be a swamplike wasteland at the back of the school and a Dharma sathram used to exist, slightly to the left of that area ...I do not know if it is there still... ...a road runs between this wasteland and Noble College....The Govt hospital buildings were on extreme right,while the vast grounds and the stately , high roofed buildings of Noble college,teeming with it"s energetic scholars, stood looking like a proud,but weather beaten old campaigner ....... That was in early seventies of the last century..(my god...Has it come to that?...Last century')...and it already looked a bit time-worn even then...Heaven knows how it looks like now....None the worse , i hope....Once , we were taken there for an essay competition and i had a chance to see some of it"s big, galleried class rooms--the wood,smo
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Koneru Center

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Admittedly i did "nt travel much and could hardly be called an expert on that sort of thing, but i will still go and say that i had never seen anything like it....Sure there are centers at all places, squares and even water fountains....but never all the three combined in one.....For,...Koneru center is actually a center of four roads,...made to look like a square with four blocks of shopping complexes,... the KONERU in the middle of it all, encircled by a barricade and a water fountain in it's midst......In my time,....when i was a child, the fountain started playing as soon as it became dusk and for our childish eyes, it looked like a heaven on earth...Sooo thrilling to see the strong water jets sparkling and dancing in the lights of the brightly illuminated,little stretch of park around and the surrounding shops....That was in sixties....not the world of today....we were young, innocent , rather country-bred for the know-alls of today"s kids and it used to be an awesom
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Deepavali Ladaai

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From August to January or February is kaluvapoola season for Bandar and it is quite customary for it"s denizens, on every festival day that comes in between, to wake up to the calls of the cycled hawkers , pedalling along the streets at 5"o" clock it self, singing "kalepoolu, kalepoolu"....well....almost singing...... Though on Vinayaka Chavithi these flowers are mandatory, people do tend to buy them other days as well.....So,..one gets up at the ungodly hour and peers out of the windows at the sky to ascertain how the weather is faring......For diwali time is always a stormy season for the east coast and many times it plays spoil sport.....throwing cold water on the celebrations literally......Ofcource, Bandar darkly remembers how it"s blackest day happens to be on Deepavali....Well....one wonders how the sea could have tided on an amavasya.....Thank heavens the storm was not timed on a full moon day.... In our childhood, elders tended to gather the kids
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Krishnavarihaaram

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1957,...june,.....Machilipatnam.. An old fisher woman, clad in a tattered sari that reached down only a little lower than her knees, was ambling through a wide enough street,...sucking on a peter"s pasand-----A kind of naatu variety mango-----with a middling sized basket,full of fish on her head....It was a predominantly brahmin street and one wondered what a fish vendor could have to do over there....But to make matters more fishy?..:)...an apparently brahmin family party came out on to the Arugulu of their house, clapped and beckoned the old hag to come near.....A small harangue over the price of the basket was amicably settled at an Arthana..--.3 paise--...and the basket of fish was now officially theirs... A daughter of the house was pregnant with her first baby, and on this happy occasion, the patriarch was going to give away Krishnavarihaaram because it was deemed to be auspicious to feed fish to the Krishnavars---a species of eagles....well...not quite the usual kind of ea
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The Flag Flies High At Lady Ampthill"s

My father worked as a judicial officer and consequently , we had to stay at some of the remotest and quite non-decrepit villages for most of the time, as he got transferred or kicked from one end of the state to other like a football...Sometimes we would not stay even for the stipulated three years period and were told to pack up midterm ...If it was Alur in kurnool Dt for a while, then it would be Ongole for just 15 days and later Warangal in Telangana..(it was a town, god be praised)....And all this running hither and thither took it"s toll on my education...(my schooling, i should say...Education? ...sounds too intellectual)...Always an indifferent student, i acquired the reputation of a shirker and must admit never cared to study...To add to this, most of my schools were all small, government-run affairs..(there were no private schools).. and till i came to Lady Ampthill, i never sat on a proper bench and desk in a class.... That should speak for the state of affairs my school
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