Appa and summer holidays

Appa was a teacher. So summer holidays meant he would get correction of answer papers from the university. Our regular postman was a burly fellow with a huge hat. He would come home with large  packets in the rear carrier of his cycle. It would have a ghada cloth as covering, with lac sealing on all the four sides and neatly stitched together with a thread. He would be happy to deliver, as he believed he is doing a very important job and appa would give him some small amount as baksheesh.
(amma would remove the stitching neatly and the ghada cloth would be given to the dhobi for bleaching. They would be stitched together and used as first level pillow cover for the cotton pillows we used to make at home, or as duster cloth or napkin)

We had a good balcony which was quite airy with a neem tree just outside it.So summer was not as scorching as it is now. Appa would sit there in his bug proof chair and do the corrections. Correction work was turned into a cottage industry at home. He would do the corrections. After a bunch of it was over, he would ask one of us to tabulate the marks in the first page and do the totalling. We were also to check whether he has omitted any answer without giving any marks. We would do it with great excitement as we would compare, if our bunch of answer papers had good students or not.We would also read the  pleading footnotes that some students would write asking for appa's grace to make them pass.
I was not too comfortable in totalling, so used to stick to tabulation and my siblings used to be good at totalling.The totals has to be checked by another person at home and then appa will take it up for tabulating in a huge sheet the university would have sent with the roll numbers printed.  Then it will be amma's and appa's job to put it in a nice cover, again do the covering with a ghada cloth. I have helped in the sewing together of the parcel many a time. The final job of sealing with wax used to be very exciting.A candle used to be lit and wax sticks used to be held over the flame and had to be affixed when they are hot and gooey.If I remember right, appa would have a seal which has to be placed on them. Invariably appa would write the address of the university and the job is complete. He would carry it in his cycle to the post office in the campus and despatch it to the university. He would not delegate this job to anybody else.

Correction work would continue for over two months of summer,; different courses and different universities both undergraduate and post graduate exams papers would find their way home.

There would be a steady stream in the initial years of students who have taken the exam with their parents, coming home and giving their role number to appa, asking for appa's benevolence in making their ward pass the exam.Appa will receive them nicely and when they reach out with a slip of paper, he would tell them, if they are in the borderline, not to worry, he would himself give them grace marks to make them pass. But if they are not, sorry he would not be able to help them. They will linger for a while, some of them giving sad stories. But appa would repeat what he said.Then they would leave.

Later years, everyone knew about appa, so at best it used to be a trickle. We were taking board exams then, and believed the roll numbers are secret and were shocked that people are able to get the name and address of the examiner from the university.

Appa took his job as a teacher very dutifully. He would tell me, being a brahmin, teaching is my basic dharma and I am not to be paid for that. But times are different and I am a teacher and have to run my family with the salary they pay me.And the paper corrections are part and parcel of my responsibility as a teacher in this college. So I cannot refuse the monthly salary nor the remuneration for the correction work. But when students used to come for tuitions,he would tell them, I dont conduct tuitions, you can ask me any doubts in class or in the staff room. You can even come home to clarify any doubts, but I dont take tuitons. A few of his collegues in the college and elsewhere have looked at him as a 'pozhaika teriyadavan".
He would refuse any offer at any remuneration. We have seen many a student after learning some extra classses at home, bring a few apples and prostrate before him and seek his blessings. He would then tell us, my father would have refused even these apples, but I feel a few fruits as a token of thanksgiving is okay.

His father never used to tell the children why he is refusing even a few fruits. He thought this is how one should live. Times change and  appa thought it necessary to tell me why he does not give tuitions nor entertain people who seek his intervention in increasing the marks in the papers sent for .correction. Times have changed drastically now. My children see the way we live and also hear these stories of their thatha and kollu thatha. This is the continuity and family heirloom that we pass on.