thoughts on my primary/high school days

Karnatak high school in Dharwad is a nationalist school started in 1919 in response to Swadeshi call given by Mahatma Gandhi as part of Non-cooperation movement. I was fortunate to have studied in this school, which has had the previlege of having as its staff, dedicated and talented teachers. Many of these teachers were true Gandhians, who beleived in dedicated selfless work and were associated with RSS. The school has produced many rank holders in SSLC every year - as long as rank system existed. But more importantly it has procided good value based education to students coming from every strata of society at very little price. I remember to have pain Rs. 60/- as annual fees when the I was in 7th standard - while the missionary christian institutes claiming to have introduced "education system" in india used to charge Rs. 200/- per month apart from 'donation'.

Alas, our people have forgotten "gurukulas", universities at Nalanda, Takshashila, Kanchi and veerashaiva pathashalas, which gave both secular and spiritual education at free of cost. The society, especially the king and the vaishyas beleived that it is their dharmic duty to materially support those institutes. As shri Bhyrappa points out in his novel "sartha", though the university at Nalanda was a buddhist institute - its chief patrons were all hindu kindoms, chiefly the Guptas. This despite the fact that Guptas were followers of Vedic faith and Buddhists at Nalanda were zealous missionaries who had to present Buddhism as a superior and rational faith to Vedic faith. As the muslim invaders came and destroyed these buddhist institutes, the education system in ancient india did not collapse. Rather, the teachers started giving education at their home, giving food also to the students ! Something like positive-Raktabeeja, you destroy the Nalanda, and you get million nalandas in every village !

In this era, of capitation fees and payment seats, it appers hard to believe. But teachers then prayed for good students - "shama-dama-sampanna-brahmacharins". It was the students who approached the teachers to ask what should be their "Guru-dakshina", when they finished their study successfully as a sign of gratitudeness. The teachers on their part, thought of repaying their "guru-runa", by imarting the knowledge to successive generations. Acharyopanishad of Taittireeya Aranyaka presents a grand scene of the message of teachers to the students.

Swami Vivekananda went to west to spread the message of Vedanta to the West and to bring material welfare to help the masses of India. During those days in America, people used to pay and listen to him. But soon he discovered that he was being "socially caged" by wealthy and influential people. Many of these were not sincere students. Swamiji had to give talks on topics chosen by the contracting company - topics which were repeated and not-so-spiritual. Swamiji broke this contrct suffering financial losses and started giving lectures freely. This enabled sincere students to attend to his lectures. As the number of such students increased in leaps and bounds, Swamiji had to rent large halls. Seeing the plight of swamiji- a penniless monk - struggling for his students, somebody asked him the reason. Swamiji said, "In India, it is the DUTY of the teacher to meet the needs of his students and to provide for their welfare". Swamiji managed to earn money by giving a few lectures on secular topics, for which entrance fee was collected. That was the large heartedness of Swami Vivekananda, the teacher.

At KHS, teh assembly on weekdays used to be at 11.45 am and we used to sing the school song "Unnatiya margavanu toruvadu dhwajawu", penned by Shri Sali Ramachandra Raya, a noted kannada poet and ex-teacher of the school. Sali Ramachandra was one of the earliest 'modern kannada poets' and composed Ramayana's "Bala kandavu" and "Ayodhya KAndavu" in lucid kannada. This seemed to have became quite popular amongst the people and students. This song was followed by the national anthem "Jana-gana-mana adhinayaka jaya hey", penned by Gurudev Rabeendranath Tagore. A thousand students singing this in chorous quite zealously used to produce a great effect on the listners. On Saturdays, the classes used to be in the early morning hours and we used to sing devotionally "Vande Mataram", of Bankimchandra. Friday evenings' long prayers remined one of Gandhiji's evening prayer sessions. We, the students of all communities sang "Vaishnava janato", "Raghupati Raghava" and kannada translation of "Stitaprajnasya ka bhasha ?" from Geeta.

I often remember these prayers. Shri K G Joshi is, noted Gandhian in his advance age used to attend them without fail. In his spotless khadi dress, he used to sit throughout with erect back. He also used to take tuition classes for free to all the students of SSLC. Since i was young then, i can only say that the classes were sought after, seeing the number of students who attended them.

Not that the school did not have any defects. But all real systems have the defects, and they have to be respected as long as they show the spirit of correcting their defects.

I consider myself fortunate for having studied there. It was the time when Gokak movement was still green in the minds of the people. Many of the Kannada activists, poets and intelligentia who took active part in this, themselves sent their children to English 'convents'. My father took a conscious decision to send us to a kannada medium school for he believed that the primary education should be in mother tongue. I felt inferior abour myself during those days as my cuisines went to convents in auto-rikshwas, while i had to avail the service of "Tanga". While they wore polished leather black shoes and spoke in English, i kept writing on stone-sheet {kallu-pati}. Our servant, washer-woman herself sent her grand-childeren to English medium schools after paying 'donations'. I had to sit amongst my fellow classmates, who were children of tailors, farmers, etc. and from economically backward classes. Sometimes my tiffin boxes were stolen or just the food in it - as my classmates came from very poor families.

Now i understand what a great blessing it was to be taught by those dedicated teachers. How high the average IQ of the class was - which enabled us to excel due to competition and healthy sharing fo ideas amongst the friends. I am indebted to my father for having taken such a bold decision.

As my maternal uncles were educated at Shri Ramakrishna Vidyashala, a residential school in Mysore, my mother wanted me to study there and made sure that i joined it. SRKVS has had tremendous effect on my personality, about which i may keep on writing. It also helped me to critically look at KHS and understand the its relative strengths and weaknesses.