Stratification of K12 education in Vizag in the 1970s
It was palpable to us, even as kids
Studied KG at Sri Sarada Bala Vihar, down the road Chez Ragam, with the three kids with the fancy names (to me):
* Krishna Mohan
* Radha Madhav [our classmate in AUCoE Mechanical Engg], and
* Nanda Kishore,
near the Collector's Office
Dad moved us to Kotak Salesian School not far from our Sea 🌊 Sands Quarters at the start of the 1970s
Most of the folks in Sea 🌊 Sands were professors / readers and i was in the same class with 7# Som and 17# PS
As we grew older, we could walk the distance easily, passing lovely Chez Rajendra, who was in the same class as Satyam, my elder bro
Only one family 21# [తంబు గారు] could afford the high-end schools like Timpany or Visakha Valley [TimVV], of which Timpany was nearby
Didn't know anyone from Visakha Valley till we were preparing for the IIT-JEE in 1980, when we met Chandra, very pleasant guy for one so well off. Later, had the pleasure of getting to know that G in PM was from the same school along with Nayan, who plays Baddy with Chandra in Waltair Club
So it was quite surprising to see a really well-off biz kid like Vijay, in the same class as Satyam. But he might have had a challenge at TimVV
He'd give Satyam all the fancy books of the time, some of which we would also get around to reading. Once he landed up with an air gun at Kotak, which created one hell of a commotion among the kids; can still see that in my mind's eye
He'd tell his classmates that he got a new 100-rupee note every day, and they would try to mark it unobtrusively in some way, to check whether the same turned up the next day!
Satyam had another pal in Balaji, through whom we got the Time/Life books and first read about the Mandelbrot set: those fractals were mesmerizing
21# Rajesh would give me a Hardy Boys book for the evening and i'd devour it overnight! Can still remember the cover of #51 [The Masked Monkey], which was probably the most recent one for us, at that time
Fr. Thayil, who was with us at Kotak, came from St. Aloysius. He was very fond of Basketball and all of us in our family ended up playing it. Have only two memories of St. Aloysius: once to play Basketball and the other to write the NTSE
Kept in touch with mother tongue Telugu as the 2nd language in school
A few folks took Hindi as the second language and i was forced to learn it in 1978 as there was talk of scrapping Matriculation. I ended up collapsing 9th & 10th into one year and finished Matriculation in 1979 itself
Some of the kids in our Quarters went to Telugu-medium schools like St. Anthony's, near Jagadamba Theater
I could never understand that really, as all higher education was in English
For this reason, the decision of Abbi/Rambabu to switch from Kotak to St. Anthony's and, that too, a grade below, never made any sense to me. Am sure they had their reasons but couldn't understand it then
Later, Gopa who studied with Abbi said that Abbi was always generous and would foot a rupee for friends, when they were trying to rustle up 5/10/25 pips for some common treat. Guess his EQ/SQ had an early start. No wonder he ended up as head of North American ops at TCS under N Chandra, with whom i had the pleasure of working in 1990/1991 at Chennai
Stratification of K12 education in Vizag in the 1970s
It was palpable to us, even as kids
Studied KG at Sri Sarada Bala Vihar, down the road Chez Ragam, with the three kids with the fancy names (to me):
* Krishna Mohan
* Radha Madhav [our classmate in AUCoE Mechanical Engg], and
* Nanda Kishore,
near the Collector's Office
Dad moved us to Kotak Salesian School not far from our Sea 🌊 Sands Quarters at the start of the 1970s
Most of the folks in Sea 🌊 Sands were professors / readers and i was in the same class with 7# Som and 17# PS
As we grew older, we could walk the distance easily, passing lovely Chez Rajendra, who was in the same class as Satyam, my elder bro
Only one family 21# [తంబు గారు] could afford the high-end schools like Timpany or Visakha Valley [TimVV], of which Timpany was nearby
Didn't know anyone from Visakha Valley till we were preparing for the IIT-JEE in 1980, when we met Chandra, very pleasant guy for one so well off. Later, had the pleasure of getting to know that G in PM was from the same school along with Nayan, who plays Baddy with Chandra in Waltair Club
So it was quite surprising to see a really well-off biz kid like Vijay, in the same class as Satyam. But he might have had a challenge at TimVV
He'd give Satyam all the fancy books of the time, some of which we would also get around to reading. Once he landed up with an air gun at Kotak, which created one hell of a commotion among the kids; can still see that in my mind's eye
He'd tell his classmates that he got a new 100-rupee note every day, and they would try to mark it unobtrusively in some way, to check whether the same turned up the next day!
Satyam had another pal in Balaji, through whom we got the Time/Life books and first read about the Mandelbrot set: those fractals were mesmerizing
21# Rajesh would give me a Hardy Boys book for the evening and i'd devour it overnight! Can still remember the cover of #51 [The Masked Monkey], which was probably the most recent one for us, at that time
Fr. Thayil, who was with us at Kotak, came from St. Aloysius. He was very fond of Basketball and all of us in our family ended up playing it. Have only two memories of St. Aloysius: once to play Basketball and the other to write the NTSE
Kept in touch with mother tongue Telugu as the 2nd language in school
A few folks took Hindi as the second language and i was forced to learn it in 1978 as there was talk of scrapping Matriculation. I ended up collapsing 9th & 10th into one year and finished Matriculation in 1979 itself
Some of the kids in our Quarters went to Telugu-medium schools like St. Anthony's, near Jagadamba Theater
I could never understand that really, as all higher education was in English
For this reason, the decision of Abbi/Rambabu to switch from Kotak to St. Anthony's and, that too, a grade below, never made any sense to me. Am sure they had their reasons but couldn't understand it then
Later, Gopa who studied with Abbi said that Abbi was always generous and would foot a rupee for friends, when they were trying to rustle up 5/10/25 pips for some common treat. Guess his EQ/SQ had an early start. No wonder he ended up as head of North American ops at TCS under N Chandra, with whom i had the pleasure of working in 1990/1991 at Chennai