My grandfather’s home where I was born and brought up. This picture was taken recently in Dec 2015 with my cousin Ram’s family who live there

As a young boy I grew up with my maternal grand parents in Mysore. It was a large house hold consisting of grand parents and my maternal aunts. Two of my older brothers were there too. My parents were away in a temple in Kerala seeking cure for my older sister Vijayam who unfortunately was suffering from epilepsy following a bout of high fever which she got after watching something scary as per my understanding at that time. To our misfortune Vijayam did not survive.

I went to a near by Government primary school two streets away from our home. The board on the school read Govt Mixed Primary school. Only in later years I under stood that word “mixed” denoted co- ed …