R G Kulkarni : My Grandfather

Context : Written Kruthika Kulkarni, Christ University, Certificate Course History of Scientific Discoveries -2013

When people talk to me, they say that I have got my grandfather’s brain. I was 5 years old when he passed away but there are many things around me that help me connect to him every day. So for the next few minutes you are going to see how he is there for me, right next to me, walking beside me through this life.
If I were to prioritize things, my studies hold the highest place in my life. This is where my grandfather, Late. R.G.Kulkarni comes into role. Born in a poor family in Hallur, he always found scriptures interesting. Forget about higher education, his family could not afford an end’s meal. He was lucky to obtain a scholarship from Dharwad University with eminent professors like Gokhale to teach. He took up M.A (Kannada) right after undergraduate course. But the scholarship only paid his fees. It did not fill his stomach. I remember the pain in my grandmother’s eyes when she said “He only ate one meal to pay for his books.” With all these difficulties he obtained a degree and not just that, but topped the University leaving behind people who were to become great poets in the near future.

With a degree in hand and passion for teaching he went in search of a job. He worked as a Kannada Professor at Sathya Sai College, White Field and in no time became the principal. All along the way, money and power never meant anything to him. If something was important, it was ‘Knowledge’. When my mother married his son, they shifted to Bangalore and he worked at Vijaya College where he retired in the later years.
 

My grandfather was a super hero to me. It’s because he could carry books with minimum of 1000 pages everywhere he went! I remember telling him once, “Thatha, someday I will read every book you have read and in face break your record “. Today when I enter his library I realize that I will never be able to as voracious a reader as he was. Well, it’s no more a library since most of the books are gone with him.
 

He was not just a great teacher, but a writer too. He was one of the loyal students of Jnana Peetha Prashasti winner D.R Bendre. His pen name was ‘Sakshi’ which represented how much he owed to his soul and to the truth.  My parent’s wedding card had a poem written by him. I wanted to know its meaning. So I took it to my Kannada teacher in school. She read it and said “The Kannada is too impeccable and of such standards that I need some time to understand it myself!” To state a newspaper about a similar incident during his University days, “Such were his sweet atrocities on the minds of the people who claimed to know everything”. Now what creates a sense of pain is the fact that he passed away a month before the publication of his first book on a large scale.
 

People always taunted about his ways. He was one of those who let their wives decide for the family while he used to lose himself to the world of books. Now no human is perfect and he wasn’t either. His family needed more time than what they got. But over the years he had built a separate world for himself.
I loved spending time with him. I am not one of those with fair complexion while he is as white as milk. As a child I used to always ask him “Thatha who is fairer?” . his reply might be a shock to you. He used to say “Me”. My grandmother used to say “She is only a child. Can’t you just lie to her?” to which he would say “Always stick to the truth.” Now this might seem a little rude to you but it is what constitutes most parts of my morals. I am not saying that I am a descendent of Sathya Harish Chandra but honesty plays very important role.
He always said that we should never lie to our self. Because deceiving others might be a mistake but deceiving your soul is a sin.
 

All of this might have made you think that he must have been a saintly human tending to perfection. But there was a fun side to him too. My dad told a story about him. He once drove to Mantralaya which is like 385KM from Bangalore on a bike. Now that must have been a hell of an experience. Being an NCC cadet came handy. He was full of adventure and no one ever doubted that.
Though he indulged in books all the time, he had time to spend with us-his grand children. We are 5 cousins but he was closest to my sister and I because we got to spend more time with him (He lived with us).
 

The room which had his books was like a dungeon. Books piled up everywhere; there was hardly any space for anything else, not even a human. When he passed away many institutes came over to our place to buy those books that had great value but out of publication. Today I realized that letting those books be sold is like selling a fortune at a half price sale. No, I am not talking about the money. It’s what those books held in them that matters. The knowledge of eminent writers and the precious notes of my grandfather were like an icing on the cake.
 

What makes me write about him? It’s the dream of excelling that gets me close to him. He had a dream of being bestowed with knowledge and he knew that hard work is the only way and that’s what makes me want to place him on the pedestal. It’s his stand on virtues that gives me the strength to live. It’s his unmoved determination that moves me. That reminds me that I have dreams too. People say that he left his intelligence as a fortune to my sister and I but they exaggerate. Though it hurts me to accept this face it also gives me the courage to actually be worth the glory bestowed on me even before I have proved myself.
These might seem really mesmerizing things which are found only in written work. But for 19 years this is the role he has played and I had left it unspoken until this assignment came across which brought in a realization along with it- my grandfather is my ideal of man.