Ambi, the early days

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He was short, stocky and sturdy, a boy of eleven. He was dark, with dignity and calmness beyond his age. He rarely smiled but there was always the glint of a smile in his eyes.

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He spoke little but observed all around him. He was not an orphan but was forced to live like one.

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His father was a teacher in a mofussil school, his mother a housewife trying to manage a brood of children and a household on the little that her husband brought home.

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The father was a good husband and a good man too, but easy-going and standing too much on his dignity. His lands had been usurped by his younger brother and he refused to fight for it.

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As the headmaster of a small government school, he had a steady salary and the respect that goes with being a teacher. But that respect did not help to pay the bills. The schoolmaster was also a kind man who fell for any sob story and gave beyond what he could afford. He felt responsible to society but seemed to lack that for his family.

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Ambi was their eldest child and unlike his father took responsibility for the family. His mother depended on him and he became the man of the house early on. He did the chores around the house, helped her look after the children, fetched water from the well, scrounged for vegetables in the little patch of land they had.

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Even with all this, he had done well in school and his father wanted him to study further. There was no higher secondary school in the village so Ambi was brought to Virudhnagar by his father.

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There he was enrolled as a free student in the Kshatriya Vidyalaya, a school run by the Nadar community which offered free education to children of all castes and communities.

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Ambi was a brahmin, an Iyer from the Thirunelveli district. But unlike in the stories, his family had no land and they always had a hand to mouth existence. But they believed passionately in getting an education and would suffer anything to get one.

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His father introduced young Ambi to a friend an Iyer like them. Balu ran an Iyer hotel and took a liking to the young boy and promised to look after the lad.

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Ramaswamy, Ambi’s father, was satisfied he had done his job as a father and left for his village.

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Balu took Ambi to the Agraharam, the brahmin enclave and gave him a mat and a place to sleep on the “thinnai” the verandah outside the house.

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Thus began Ambi’s sojourn in the city. He had a couple of well washed shirts that were frayed and faded. A couple of dhotis which were also well worn and hand me downs from his father and nothing else. The school provided him with books and he scrounged around for old books which he could use to write.

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His daily routine was to get up before sunrise and fill water from the common well in all the small cement tanks in front of each house. The call of nature would have to be attended to in the nearby fields. There were no toilets in any of the houses. It was a communal affair with all the males gathered in the dim light of pre-dawn. There would be gossip and news exchanged as they emptied their bowels together.

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Ambi would then have his bath sitting on the stones around the common well. Most of the boys and men would also be there. During the monsoons, there would be water in the nearby stream and then they would splash around in it.

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Purified from their baths the others would go home. Ambi had no home to go to. But the people were kind and he could depend on one of the mamis to give him something to eat.

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The mamas, as brahmin ladies were called, would be up and drawing rangolis in front of the house. Ambi would quickly have his bath at the common well, wash his clothes and do whatever chores the mamis had for him.

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After eating whatever was given he would walk to school. He was a shy boy with no money, no relations and was often the butt of jokes and pranks.

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But after sometime, the others realised his innate dignity as well as his toughness. He also did well in his studies. They accepted him and school was a place for him to relax an place where he could be free.

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The afternoon break was long and he would go to Balu’s hotel and have his lunch there. He felt bad having his lunch and not paying for it or doing any work for it. But Balumama would not let him work in the kitchens or wait on the table. He was the son of a friend and Balu treated him well.

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After some time Balu noticed that the boy was good at adding up the sums and the waiters often took his help to total up a customers bill.

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There was no system of a printed or written bill. The customer ate and the waiters shouted out the amount owed when the customer came to the cash counter.

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Balu made Ambi sit at the cash counter and found he managed it properly. So he found a way to pay back for the food he had.

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He would manage the counter whenever Balu wanted to go out for a bit. Initially the customers and the wa iters took it as a joke seeing the small kid at the counter . But soon they became familiar with the silent boy who was polite, made few errors and was always pleasant no matter what happened.

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Ambi settled quickly into the new life. He had no choice but to accept and adjust to whatever life brought him.

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People thought him without emotions, a stoic rather dull but efficient person. But it was his circumstances that made him so.

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While other children were playing with their friends or being with family and celebrating occasions, Ambi was running errands, studying, trying to survive and helping his family survive.

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First Chapter

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He stood in the shadows, a small dark boy, holding his father’s hand tight.

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This was his first visit to the town on Virudhunagar and everything was chaos and confusion. The trip itself was an adventure, first in a bullock cart and then in a bus that wheezed and rattled its way to the town.

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They had gone only a few streets away from the bus stand when they came upon two groups facing each other.

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His father pulled him into the shadows. Ambi opened his mouth to ask what was happening. “Sshh, be silent” hissed his father. “And don’t move” he added.

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Ambi was an obedient child and also he knew better than to rouse his father’s anger.

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The people were shouting abuses at each other and there were policemen between the groups keeping them apart.

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Ambi saw that the groups had only men, no women or any children which was not normal in any protests he had seen.

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A stone came flying from nowhere and hit a policeman and it was the spark that set off the conflagration.

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Stones, soda water bottles, and hand made bombs were flying through the air. People were screaming and shouting, pain and anger mixed together. The men’s white veshtis were now dark and red with blood and gore.

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The Police tightened their grips and then were running batons raised towards the groups. Ambi could hear the thud of hard wood falling on soft flesh.

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The groups splintered and the men ran helter skelter. One man, blood running from his head and without his veshti came running towards them. Ambi flinched, the man had a machete in his hands and madness in his eyes.

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The man stared at them and Ambi’s father stared back at him, fearless and fierce. The man looked at Ambi holding his father’s hand tight, muttered something and fled.

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Within minutes the place was empty except for the police patrol. The child and father emerged from the shadows, walking carefully to avoid the gore and the chaos. There was blood on the street, veshtis, flags, shirts and the debris of failure all around. The police were attending to their wounded ignoring the cries and pleas of the injured from the mob.

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Ambi’s father looked down at him, and Ambi stared back. He had never felt so close to his father before. His father smiled back at him “I am proud of you my son, you showed no fear. There is nothing to fear in life, face it bravely like you did today and it will go away. We live,but, one life, live it free and fearless. Believe in yourself. Our ancestor Garga Rishi was well versed in astrology, Vedas as well as in the use of arms. He was a Brahmin of Kshytriya descent. We are not just Brahmins but Kshytriyas too. We are warriors wielding both Shastras as well as Shshtras. That is knowledge and arms.”

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Ambi nodded but all he understood was his father was happy with him and he should be brave and face the world fearlessly. It was a thought that would guide him all his life.

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He loosened his grip on his father’s hand, straightened and tried to match his father’s stride.

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