An Autobiography of Lessons Learned

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An Autobiography of Lessons Learned

iUniverse, Inc.

CHAPTER 1

Family Background

I was born on January 16, 1933, in a large village called Bharahopur, Mohalla Mathia, which was one of seven mohallas (subparts) of the big village in the Saran District of Bihar. There was no running water in the entire village. The only source of water was the village well; people used to pull water through buckets with rope.

A regular toilet and electricity were out of the question. In fact, even in 2006—when I last visited for a few hours—there was no electricity. The nearest train station, Ekma, was about two miles from my home. It was connected by a dirt road.

My father, Deo Dutta Giri, was the eldest of three brothers. The names of the other two brothers were Sheo Nandan Giri and Ram Sharan Giri. Sheo Nandan had a large family with three sons, a daughter, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—all of them living in one big house.

Ram Sharan Giri had two marriages but no issues of his own. He had studied until high school. He had been a wrestler until he was twenty-five. He had a fair complexion, an impressive physique, and a grand personality. Later on, he was appointed a government officer to collect revenues from the adjoining villages. My grandfather's name was Narayan Giri.

All three brothers had their own houses. Childhood marriage was common in those days—God only knows why, how, and when this practice started. Accordingly, my father married at an early age; the exact age is not on record with me. He had two daughters during this marriage, but his wife died when the two daughters were not more than ten.

For four or five years after the death of his wife, Narayan Giri tried his best to convince and force his eldest son to remarry. My father was adamant about not marrying again; he would not budge on the idea that the sole purpose of marriage was to help the generations continue. He already had two daughters and was not going to remarry.

My grandpa used to tell him that there would be nobody to look after him when he was old. When my father did not listen, my grandpa became so mad that he threw him out of his house, telling him that he was not going to give him his due share of property. For a couple of years, my father was practically starving. Finally, my grandfather gave an ultimatum to his son to marry or forfeit getting even one penny from the joint property. Grandpa forcibly got him married to a girl from a family he knew closely. Consequently, with no alternative left, my father had a second marriage. In this marriage, he had two sons, Ram Lakshan and Mewa Lal; two daughters, Ful Kuwari and Ram Pati; and me.

Grandpa was a Zamindar (landlord) with a large, inherited tract, and he bought cultivatable land in the Saran District, north of the famous Ganges River, as well as in the Shahabad District, south of the Ganges. There were also a couple of stations around Arrah—Sasaram Light (Narrow Gage) Railways.

When grandpa practically threw him out of the family, he pleaded to the Shahabad District tenants who managed the property, telling them how his father had thrown him out of the house and family without giving him his due share. They all supported him, wholeheartedly giving him his due share.

My father used to snack on samosas and pakoras in the Arrah railway station. Once per year, he used to go with four or five helpers and bodyguards on the train. They would cross the Ganges on a commercial steamer and bring produce. He would bring fifteen or twenty big sacks of paddy and rice for consumption back in Bharahopur. The sacks would be stacked in a large storeroom. I still remember climbing on them as a child.

During one of these trips, the four accompanying people saw a restaurant preparing fresh samosas, pakoras, and jalebi. They were tempted to eat them and expressed their desire to my father. Consequently, they all went to the restaurant and ordered what they wanted to eat. When the food arrived, everybody except my father started eating.

When they asked why he was not eating, my father said, "I do not feel like eating. You people go ahead."

That day, he took a vow not to eat in a restaurant or in anybody's home again—and he solemnly maintained that vow for life. He told me the reason was that, after ordering the samosas and pakoras, he saw a worker from the restaurant bringing water in a bucket from an open pond and using that water for preparing those items. He was disgusted by the extreme uncleanliness, and he never ate out again.

While talking about my father, I proudly claim not to have come across any parallel—or even approaching equal—saintly, truthful, honest, clean, or helping person. In fact, he used his own personal utensils, including tumbler and pitcher by cleaning himself. He maintained them like new for drinking water. He was a staunch and strict lifelong vegetarian and never even tried any drugs. He was very particular that every meal must be balanced, including dairy and green vegetables. If any villager would ask him for money, he would give it without keeping any record of it. He used to tell the guy to return the money when he could afford to.

Once I asked my father why he did not keep a record and how he could believe they would return it in full.

He said, "To my knowledge, nobody has cheated me so far. And if somebody does, he would not take away my fortune."

He always emphasized eating a balanced diet and living a pure, honest, and decent life. He was very particular that no one should waste anything—simply because a lot of people cannot eat two proper meals per day. He emphasized maintaining very good character. He said, "It has been my nature since childhood always to see only one of three forms of female—grown-ups as my mother or sister and young ones as my daughter."

In a nutshell, two personalities had immense influence in shaping my life. One was my father, and the second was D. L. Deshpande, the director of the Bihar Institute of Technology (BIT) Sindri, where Iearned my engineering degree. Deshpande was an aristocratic person of great and impressive personality. He was educated in England. Bihar State Chief Minister Shree Krishna Sinha picked him as director of BIT Sindri. When the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) started in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India government offered the directorship to Deshpande. Deshpande declined the offer because he had a dream of making BIT Sindri as renowned and famous as MIT in the United States.

My mother, Jagdipa, was a pious, simple, honest, and helpfullady. She used to smoke hukka, a sort of cigar connected with a long pipe to the pot with tambaku and fire in a pot. As a child, I used to like the sound she used to make with the hukka. My mother's menopause started about a year and a half after I was born. She had tremendous problems because of that. Most villages did not have an easy cure for those problems. She held the misconception that my birth was an ominous sign—and her menopause-connected problems were because of my birth. Due to this wrong notion, she would not like me to be present at any auspicious occasion.

When I was five, I planted potato, mustard, and spinach seeds at the start of spring. As a young child, I was naturally excited. Before anybody else could start, I picked up some cut potato seeds and put them in line where they were to be planted. My mother came hurriedly, slapped me a couple of times, and scolded me to get away. I started crying and asked what my mistake was.

She said, "Don't you remember that you should not have started it first?"

Later on, she explained that my birth had brought all kinds of troubles for her. Because of her menopausal problems, my childless aunt raised me as her own son. My uncle took care of me as his owns on, and we had a milk-producing cow until I was about thirteen. Every morning and evening when somebody would be milking the cow, my uncle made sure that I went with my huge tumbler. They would hand me the fresh milk, and I would drink as much as I could. After I was completely full, the rest of the milk would go to the house for other family members. If a cow stopped giving milk, my uncle would buy another one so there was no break in getting adequate fresh milk. In spite of all my mother's misconceptions, she loved me very much. I loved her from the core of my heart until she died. She was a lady perfectly befitting my father.

My eldest brother, Ram Lakshan Giri, was also a strict vegetarian. He completed his education up to BA BT (bachelor of arts and bachelor in teaching) and MA (master of arts) degrees from Patna College in Bihar. He was only the second person in my big village to study to that level during that time. According to the prevailing customs, he got married at an early age when he was in school. It was arranged by my father. However, he had the dedication to continue his education even after his marriage.

After his education, he first took a job as a schoolteacher in Gumla High School near Ranchi, South Bihar. He had hardly worked there for six months when my father told him that he could not tolerate his first son living away from him. My father did not care about his very good education or whether he worked and earned money. With that ultimatum, my brother took a teaching job at Ekma High School; every day he went to school from home. He was a true disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and completely dressed with hand-woven clothes (with dhoti, kurta, and a cap) throughout his life like him. Throughout the locality and the adjoining villages, he was known as Gandhiji. He was an embodiment of extreme honesty, truthfulness, discipline, and simplicity. Whenever I mention Gandhiji, it refers to my brother, Ram Lakshan—not Mahatma Gandhi (Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi of India).

My second brother, Mewa Lal Giri, never liked concentrating on studies. After he completed tenth grade, he stopped going to school. My father asked what he would like to do.

He replied, "I want to be an aachargya (the top degree) in Sanskrit."

Reluctantly, my father got him admitted to that discipline in school. He completed the first stage, Prathama, but started faltering in the second, Madhyama, stage. He would come home and utter his fabricated poems in Sanskrit and Hindi.

"What's the necessity of studies; rather cultivate land well and grow houseful of food grains" (Parhlikhabinu kaun Akaju, Har Chalawa ghar bharahu Anaju). "Those who study they too die like those who don't; then what's the use of studying and giving pains to the tongue?" (Jo Parhatam so bhi maratam, jo nahi Parhatam so bhi maratam, to jihwa ko dukham keon Detam).

My father had to give up on him. My father had enough landed property. So he became the main person to look after the farming and various family affairs. We did not have any tractors for farming. It was tilled by oxen and cheap laborers. Later he took agency of Dabur Dr. S. K. Burman, an Aayurvedic medicine company, from which he used to order medicines mainly to help cure poor villagers for small ailments. This was just for his satisfaction of helping the people.

My second brother changed the eating habits and traditions of our entire family. He often used to go to my mother's parents' home; they owned a farm and a big lake. All the people in their family were accustomed to eating non-vegetarian foods. My brother developed such a taste for non-vegetarian foods that he vowed that everybody in our family after him would become a non-vegetarian. He said that vegetarians were missing a big taste of food—and that is what really happened.

My two brothers and I were examples of brotherly affections like the Hindu god Ram with his brothers Lakshman and Bharat of the Hindu religious book Ramayana. People said, "Closeness and affections between brothers should be an example and lessons to learn like these three brothers."

My four sisters—two from my father's previous marriage and two from my mom—all loved me. They were married with deserving boys and in well-to-do families from the customary arranged marriages. I used to visit them often with my second brother.

CHAPTER 2

My Childhood to High School

As the youngest child, I was given tremendous privileges and affections from everybody. I developed a very choosy diet habit. I did not like eating bread (chapati) in any form. Every meal had to be rice, dal made of lentils, and vegetables made of potato only. Every evening, I used to check between my mother and my aunty to see what each was preparing for dinner. I would eat whichever side had my favorite preparations.

I was extremely fond of sweetmeats until I was twelve. My family always brought packages of my favorite sweetmeats. I used to eat a lot of them and used to get sick every three or four months. My uncle would go to his homeopathic doctor friend. Hussain Babu would come and examine me by checking my pulse and asking about my symptoms. He would give me a couple sweet little tablets.

When I was twelve, Hussain Babu said, "You all must stop of giving him sweetmeats if you don't want him to fall sick so often."

When they stopped, I didn't get sick anymore. Because of my bad eating habits, I was very frail. Our relatives and friends would ask my father and uncle if they did not feed me well. This was obviously not true because I was the darling of the entire family.

I completed third grade in a lower primary school in a village called Ganjpur. I walked on a narrow dirt footpath and a dirt road for a mile. The school had just one teacher in one big hall. All the students sat on sacks that everybody had to bring from home each day, and the classes were separated by markings. A bunch of us used to walk together. The teacher used to sit on a wooden chair. The school hours were 10:00–4:30 with half an hour for recess. I am not sure how I did in my studies until the third grade.

I was admitted in an upper primary school in Shitalpur. It was two and a half miles from my home. We had long benches to sit on and high benches for our books. One of the three teachers in this school was my cousin's brother. I had to walk in the morning and evening on narrow dirt footpaths and dirt roads. I studied there for two years and completed fifth grade.

When I was in the fifth grade, along with ten of my classmates, I was sent to participate in a competitive test. A bunch of local upper primary schools participated too. I don't know how it happened, but I was the only one from my school who scored at the top. My school and my family congratulated me for that. That gave me a real boost and lifted my morale. In fact, I narrowly missed getting a big award.

When I was admitted to sixth grade in high school, my eldest brother was assistant headmaster. I studied there until I completed eleventh grade and graduated from high school. Science and art were the only subjects available in my school. Ishwar was my top competitor; sometimes I would have the highest points, and other times it was Ishwar. Ishwar was strong in the arts, and I was strong in math.

Ninth grade was the time to select one or the other. My Sanskrit teacher was pressing me hard to study Sanskrit, which would have put me in the arts for the rest of my life. I consulted my brother as to which way I should go. Gandhiji pressed me to go for math and science. He said that my math was strong, and I would have a better future with that. That's how I decided to go into science. The high school headmaster was Baikunth Narayan Singh. He taught us English and inspired us to be decent and worthwhile.

I have deep respect and regard for my math teacher. Indra Deo Prasad taught math from the ninth to the eleventh grade. The geometry textbook was by Hall and Stephens, British mathematicians. After every theorem, there were lots of deduction questions. I loved all math courses, especially geometry. After teaching a theorem, Indra Deo Babu (as he was commonly known) would say, "Is there anybody, except Jagannath, who can prove this deduction?"

When nobody would raise a hand, he would call on me. I would go to the board and prove it quickly. He would ask the class if they understood. After everybody said they did not understand, because I was too fast, he would explain to them slowly.
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from An Autobiography of Lessons Learned by Jagannath Giri. Copyright © 2013 Jagannath Giri. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc..
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