As we talked before, I went to Kelavani Mandal School from kindergarten to seventh grade and the Municipal High School from seventh grade to eleventh grade.  During this time many changes were happening in the country some of which affected the education system.  After independence a big discussion went on for years about what language to use.  The mogul emperors were not actual Mongolian, but a mixed race of Mongol, Tartar and Turks.  They had adopted the Persian (Farsi) language using Arabic alphabets as their court language.  The native language around Delhi was Hindi.   Hence a new language, Urdu (a mixture of Hindi, Persian and some Arabic in an Arabic script) developed.  The use of Sanskrit was limited to religion and rituals.  When the British took over they introduced English and Sanskrit or Persian would be taught as a second language from eight to eleventh grade.  Most Muslims would take Persian or Urdu and others would learn Sanskrit.

After independence, some wanted to eliminate English all together.  Others wanted to introduce Hindi and still others wanted to use local languages.  Since education is administered on the state level, each state went in their different way.  In Gujarat, for few years English would be taught as a second language from eighth grade.  The system was then reversed and English was introduced from fifth grade.  Sanskrit and/or Hindi would be taught from eighth grade.  Gujarati was the medium of instruction.  Of course, math and science would be partially taught in English for obvious reasons.  Pakistan would make Urdu its official language.

Besides school there were other activities that kept me busy.  I enjoyed going to the library and reading newspapers and magazines.  I also borrowed books to read.  Some of us, namely Kirti, Rajnikant and Jyotindra Parikh were into reading.  We read books by the most well known Gujarati authors, also all translations of Tagore and Sardchandra (Bengali), Nehru, Gandhi and some European authors like Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Shaw and others.  In the evening we would go to the park and in good weather also for a walk in the morning.  During spring the nicest thing to see in the morning was the sunrise.  Pavaghad, an isolated mountain in south east Gujarat about eighty miles from Kapadvanj, is in the direction of the sun and in the early morning one can see the mountain as the sun rose behind it.  (The old city of Champaner where some of our ancestors had come from is at the foot of Pavaghad.)  On weekends or during vacation, time was spent playing games in the street.  We played gilidanda, cricket, or badminton.  During the hot afternoons we played cards, carom, chess and vaypor (a game similar to monopoly).  Springtime was a time for kite flying.  I was also interested in photography.  Father had bought a box camera by Agfa (a German company) in his hay day and had since then left it in showcase.  I started to use it for few years, but stopped when money was in short supply.

In the municipal school because of pressure from town politicians upon teachers to pass friends and relatives not performing at the basic level, the education standard had gone down.  For example, once the time came for these students to take the state administered exam, the failure rate was quite high, particularly compared to Kelavani Mandal.  The new principal, Mr. C. K. Joshi, tried very hard to improve the situation.  Despite the interference from the municipal councilors, he did make considerable improvements.  He paid personal attention to the students of tenth and eleventh grade.  The top ten students in eleventh grade would get additional private tuition from him at his home.  The idea was to improve their ratings at the S.S.C. (Secondary School Certificate) Board examination.  This exam is a high school graduation exam given by the state education board that is a prerequisite for any kind of higher education.  In tenth and eleventh grade I was among the top ten and received Mr. Joshi’s attention.  I got still more attention since Chiman Kaka got elected as municipal councilor in 1952 (when I was in tenth grade) and become chairman of education board.

Up until the time I gave the board exam in May of 1953, Kapadvanj was not a center for the exam.  To take the exam, people had to go to Nadiad or Ahmedabad.  The next year Kapadvanj was made a center for the exam and Kokila and rest of my generation will give their board exam in Kapadvanj.  The exam lasted for one week, two papers each day for three hours each.  Indira had failed the previous year, so we both went to Ahmedabad together and stayed with one of Bhadra Kaki’s friends.  Between taking the exam and waiting for the results I was told to go to Mumbai to stay at Manu Kaka’s house and go to college.  Originally, I was told that I would go to America for college studies, but as I was completing the SSC exam, my father was in big financial difficulties.  For a long time I was not sure whether I would even go to college or have to find a job.  My father never spoke of his financial troubles or of my future studies, instead it was my mother who came to me and said that I needed to get a job as we didn’t have the money to send me to school.  A few days later, Manu Kaka came to me and said that I would be coming to Mumbai to live with him and that he would pay for my studies.  To this day I still do not know how this came about, if Manu Kaka approached my father with this plan or if my father went to him.

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Editor’s Note:

In November of 2010, I asked Sula Kaki if she remembered how this plan came about and this is what she said (with allowances for translation)…

“I am not very sure who made the suggestion that your dad should come to Khar for studies, but to the best of my recollection it was Girdhardada who suggested it.  In fact he also sent college fees.  Also, later some money was borrowed from one M/s Ramanlal Chotalal (?) ni  Pedhi, Mumbai with whom Girdhardada had good business relations.  Manu Kaka was just establishing in his legal practice at this time.  In fact just a year or two earlier, some land was sold in Anghadi -originally purchased for GBS family by Naginbhai - and Manu Kaka had used the part of the money received by him for purchase of Morris Car.  In those days, Bombay had hardly any car show rooms and also all cars were imported.  On Sundays, in a lane near Reserve Bank of India HQ, imported cars used to be put on display.  On one day (it was Holi day) Keshu Fua and Manu Kaka had gone to see cars and that is where he bought this small beauty for Rs 4,400 with loan of Rs 400 from Keshu Fua.  The car was sold a decade later for the same amount!
 
I also remember that I had gone to receive Pravinbhai on arrival at Dadar station and then we travelled by Suburban train to Khar.  Lilu Bhen had also sent a letter along with Pravinbhai, one of the very few she wrote to me.  She had written that “Pravinbhai should be treated like a son and not a guest” and in a roundabout manner had conveyed that “not like Ramesh Kaka, who was (besides being the first born in the family) orphaned at birth and thus permitted to over indulge and never be scolded”.  This was the general attitude of everyone in the family, which made Ramesh Kaka a bit of a spoilt child.  He never drank milk without throwing tantrums, normally throwing away a glass of milk before having the second one. “ (Editor’s note: to Ramesha Kaka’s great credit – he never once forced me to do anything I did not want to do!)
 
“During Pravinbhai’s two years stay, Indu Foi had come to stay for about six months; she had moved out of Government Girls’ hostel at Charni Road, not being able to like it!.  It is the same hostel where Koki Foi stayed for two years and Meenafoi never got a chance.  In fact she could not even continue staying at Khar for more than a year even though Dilipkaka and Siddharth had pleaded with Chimankaka.  By the time she came to stay, they had grown up.  All this of course in “Bhogikunj” and not Sukhsagar which you had seen.  Bhogikunj had several Banana trees and a well.  It was a bungalow and Khar was not an urban jungle.  We could often see small snakes and Scorpios in the compound.  We had a maid called Parvati, (who died a few months after Rahul was born and who had seen you).  Pravin Bhai’s talk of becoming an engineer always amused her since she always thought that “Engineers” were the ones who drove Steam Locos (Engine Divers).  In those days, white shirts and trousers were part of typical attire and she was always worried that coal would make them dirty.!”

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In June of 1953 I went to Mumbai to begin college.  Kaka had rented a place in a bungalow in Khar.  Since I was interested in science, I opted for a science major (Arts, Science and Commerce were the three options).  I got admission to two colleges within Bombay University, Wilson College in the city at Chowpatty and National College in Bandra, which was closer to home.  India followed the British education model in which the government administered at the University level, and the colleges within the university were all independent and sometimes private.  Kaka wanted me to join the college nearer home to avoid transportation costs.  Although most of my friends and relatives from Kapadvanj were in the city proper, I complied with his instructions.  The first half of the college year started June 20th, almost exactly the time of monsoon breaks.  The route along Linking Road, where the college was located, was the shortest walking distance from home.  But at that time it was not even paved and almost impassable when it rained.  I had to walk to Ghodbunder Road (now S.V. Road)and walk or take the bus to Bandra and then walk on a side road leading to the college.  The entire route was dirty and the open storm sewer smelled.

My two years stay in Mumbai was not very pleasant for a number of reasons.  First off, in those days only the proper city (up to Mahim and Sion) had a sewage system.  All the suburbs beyond that, Bandra, Khar, Santa Cruz, Parla and Andheri had just been made a part of the city and had no underground sewage as yet.  I saw that system being built while I was in college.  Beyond Andheri there was no water supply, there were septic tanks and storm sewers were open.  The whole area looked very dirty.  In the city, many of our relatives and other people we knew from Kapadvanj lived in chawls and rooming houses with six to eight people in one or two rooms.  The toilet was common between ten to twelve families.  Mumbai’s smoke stack industries meant pollution.  Add to that Mumbai’s very hot and humid weather and compared to the clean, dry air and underground water and sewage systems of Kapadvanj it looked like I had come to a filthy city.  I avoided going to my fois’ homes and other relatives place’s in the city.  Kaka’s place was comparatively far better and he shared the toilet with only one neighbor.  Kaka was kind by heart but talked very little.  He also had strange fear of any mechanical or electrical equipments or gadgets, including even the bulbs.  Kaka was short tempered, just like my father and many of us in the family.  Dada on the other hand was not short tempered; so I guess maybe Bhogi Dada give us that temperament.  Dada’s habit of reading had come to Manu Kaka and some like myself, but surprisingly none of it passed on to his other sons.  I knew very little about kaki.  I had seen her only during her visits to Kapadvanj.  She was very nice and pretty soon I was very comfortable.  There were also two little kids, my cousins, Siddharth and Dilip and their nanny Parvati (a simple and hard working woman).

My personal problems were two fold.   The humid air of Mumbai bothered me.  I would catch cold often and had a runny nose most of the time.  It would stop when I went back to Kapadvanj during vacation and would start again as soon as I was back in Mumbai.  My poor English was also a very big problem.  Up until now I had studied in Gujarati.  Bombay University and all of its colleges had English as the medium of instruction.  Most of my professors were from the South or Sindh (wealthy Sindhi merchants who had moved from Karachi, Pakistan had established National College) and I had difficulty with their accents.  The net result was I fell behind in my studies.  Many students were also from the South or the East and did not understand Hindi or Gujarati.  I could not converse in English and so I only made a few friends. 

The entire first semester of the year I tried to keep up with the classes but the test results were poor.  The grading system in India had seven levels; Distinction (100 - 75), High First Class (74 - 66), First Class (65 - 60), Second Class (59 - 50), Third Class (49 - 45), Passing (44 - 40) and Failure (39 and below).  Distinction is equivalent to the American “A+”, High First Call to “A”, First Class to “A-”, Second Class to “B”, Third Class to “C” and Passing to “D”.  For science and math studies, there was no Passing and anything under 44 was considered failure.  There were six subjects, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, English and Gujarati.  I got Second Class marks in Physics and Math, Third Class in Chemistry and Gujarati, Passing in Biology and I failed English.  In school I had maintained High First Class and First Class marks throughout.  I was ashamed and upset over my new marks and decided to improve my English.  I went to Kapadvanj for Diwali vacation and did two things, I started reading only English daily newspapers and magazines and I also found the English versions of the books I had already read, starting with Nehru.  Back in Mumbai, I devoted all time possible in the college library.  I was afraid if I failed and had to repeat the year it was sure to be an end to my education as my tuition and personal expenses were all being paid for by Manu Kaka and he may not want to continue supporting me if I failed.  Besides helping Kaki to get vegetables and groceries, I did nothing but study.  Kaka even remarked that I had become bookish.  By the end of the semester and the yearly exam, I was more confident in myself.  My results were better; I got an “A” in Physics, “B+” in Math, “B” in Chemistry and Gujarati and a “C” in Biology and English.  Even though I passed and would go on to second year science, I knew it was not enough.  Back in Kapadvanj for the summer vacation, I continued my reading.  At the beginning of the second year we had to decide on a specialty for future study.  In those days those in the science program had three choices, take the biology option for medical, pharmacy, veterinary or agriculture and forest science (most will think in terms of the more prestigious medicine and pharmacy), the math option for engineering and technology or go for higher studies in pure science.  I was week in biology and also did not like the subject so it was out for me.  You could pursue a physics major with a math option.  I decided on the math option and back in Mumbai enrolled in the math option. 

The bungalow that Kaka had rented the apartment in had two floors and two apartments per floor.  One of the tenants on the lower floor was a Jewish gentleman and migrated to Israel.  Kaka took the opportunity and rented that place also.  It had only two rooms, the front room became Kaka’s office and the back room was converted into my bedroom cum study room.  It was a small room about 7’ x 11’, but I was happy to have my own room.  Now in the second year we had two Physics classes, Algebraic Geometry and Calculus, Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, English and Gujarati.  It was very intensive study and I could feel the pressure.  During the first semester I debated over the option of going to Advance Physics (my first choice) and Engineering (my second choice).   Finally I decided on Engineering.  I had read that pure science majors were in surplus and had a hard time finding jobs.  Jobs in engineering were plentiful.  Looking at my financial situation, getting a job was top priority.  Also pure science needed two years for undergraduate and two or three more for graduate study, in total, four or five years after the basic two years of science.  Engineering was four years and due to the shortage of engineers a crash course of three years was introduced by the central government.  Thus in a shorter period you could get into a better financial situation.  Due to the shortage, the medical track was also shortened by about six months; the five-year program was reduced to four and one half years.  The same workloads were now to be completed in a shorter timeframe.  Both programs remained the most difficult to gain admission to and maintained the highest standards for passing.

Finally, in May of 1955, I completed the second year (or as it was known then, intermediate science) with higher first class marks.  Kaka, father and I were all happy and I applied for engineering college admission and went to Kapadvanj for summer vacation.  Mom was happy too, but she had something else on her mind.  Some people in the Kapadvanj Jain community had pursued her to get their daughter engaged to me and she was very happy about that.  Most Jain girls were getting engaged or married as soon as they were in the final year of high school.  To my mom, a high school diploma was a great education for girls.  If one had also graduated from Jain Pathshala (religious instruction) it was another great achievement.  She was thinking that getting her son married to a religious minded girl would bring her son back from his non-religious mindset.  I had to push her ideas aside and tell her that until I graduated and started earning she should not talk about an engagement and wedding.  She was very unhappy but realizing that that was the way it was going to be, she left me alone.  I was soon busy with the struggle to get admission to engineering college and it was some trouble.