Bhadravathi is the town I spent the first seven years of my life. I still remember every main street. The town has two sections- Old town and New town. The railway line marked the border between the two sections which ran almost parallel to river Bhadra. New town consisted of Paper town and VISL town, the townships of Karnataka government owned paper and steel mills. My father was an employee at Mysore Paper Mills hence we lived at Paper town.
The colony was had most facilities for the time. It was a peaceful place, away from the hustle bustle of old town. The township consisted of rows of tiled roof houses. The twin houses we lived in was constructed sometime late 60s. Jayanth's family was our neighbor. Jayanth and I saw each other the backyard almost daily morning. We used to face each other on our houses' backyard steps, both us straight out of the bed and…. Guess?
There was a community park, an officer’s club and an open field across our street. I still remember seeing misty mornings and big cream-colored full moons. The factory was just a kilometer away and dad used to walk it most times, and sometimes took his Lambretta scooter.
Once in a while we used to walk down to Bhadra river a 2 km stretch. We got to see fields full of paddy and sugarcane. We used to come to the river every year to send away Ganesha. Dad used to tell there are crocodiles in the river. There was a foot bridge to cross the river over to Sunnadhalli, small village. There were two temples in Sunnadhalli; Anjaneyaswamy and Eshwara. Close to the bridge was an aalemane, place where jaggery is made. I used to like watching the bright orange flames under the huge pan holding cane juice. The walk to the river and back home was always fun… got to see and learn so many things.
My school, St. Charles Borromeo was in Steel Town. I was one of the many groups of kids who used to travel by buses. Those were private buses with colorful livery and names like Anjaneya Swami, Siddeshwara Transports, Mallikarjuna Roadways, etc. I still remember those buses had wooden flooring with aluminum strips. Our school was stone building, a T-shaped plan surrounded by open ground. Our teachers were Catholic nuns, they were pretty strict but I liked the school. It had huge open place for kids to play around. It also had a hostel for out-station kids. The church was close to our school, just minutes walk away. I remember the pretty Christmas decorations… cotton snow, little huts, toy sheep & people, etc. arranged neatly to create the scene of Christ's birth.
Appaji used take us for picnics to near by places like Kemmangundi, Gajnur dam and Lakkavalli dam. Kemmangundi was his favorite and I too loved that hill station for its greenery & climate. The other attraction was the ropeway conveying buckets of iron ore to the steel mill. I used to ask Appaji if we could travel on the ropeway ...he he! At the end of my II standard term my father quit the job at MPM and we moved to New Delhi.
I visited Bhadravati again after 13 years, the town was more or less same as earlier. This is our PUC-2 group- Kiran, me, Venkatesh, Arvind and Rajesh Arya (standing below) on a goods carriage at Bhadravathi Railway Station. This picture was shot during our our stay at Jayanth's home. It was the peak of monsoon, we had been to Jog Falls and Kemmangundi, they were two different trips. The day we rested at Jayanth's place. we saw two movies- The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin and Sangliyana.
I visited this town again in 1991, this time with my maternal uncle Praveen, on business at MPM. We had stayed at Jayanth's home again. Jayanth took us for a tour of the town, we spent a while at this ground opposite our school. On the is Jayanth and on the right is Praveen. In the background is our school building. The only noticeable change was that the school's main gate was shifted from the main road to the side road. Guess that was done for children's safety.
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