Life is made up of time and Space (A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking). My Father was a school teacher (Kalarickal Pranchu Master of Udayamperoor). He was a historian and research-minded scholar. As I told you I was born in Aluva, the famous Sivarathri Temple Town. So my first memory is about the temple town. In Aluva we lived at Thekkeangaadi (south-side market).
My Uncle had lots of money to play with and by contrast my father was very very poor because he had lost all his land and properties because of my honest and spendthrift grandfather. So my father wanted me to be a merchant like my maternal uncle rather than a teacher like my father. Studying in a college was out of question because the fees in the college at that time was three times the salary of my father. My father had also cousins who were traders from whom he used to loan money. This is the reason why my father did not want me to become a teacher. My father’s uncles were also traders who had lots of money. You might ask the question why my father became a teacher while he did not want me to become another teacher. The reason for my father marrying my mother was because my grandfather believed in the worth of education and educated my father selling much of his land and properties. The uniform at that time for High-School students was full-suit. He was educated in Thripoonithura, a town 4 km of my father’s place. So there was no possibility of myself getting higher educucation.
While taking bath with mother in the temple town of Aluva, I overheard students from Union Christian College speaking about the plans which they had about going abroad after completing college education. This introduced the ambition to see the world and I thought that would be possible only if I got college education. I had high marks in Thripoonithura and with this I applied for Scholarship to study in Union Christian College, Aluva. I was surprised that I got the Scholarship and I could study there without paying fees (three times the salary of my father). I ran home and gave the news to my uncle. My uncle offered that I could stay with him in the temple town and go to the college.