UNIVERSITY OF SAUGAR

Back to pavilion with a big confused question" now what next"? In record section of the centre there was a clerk named Mr. Kulkarni (real name). He congratulated me as others and then said, “Sawdekar, I am sure you will be a Commissioned Officer in military one day. But I think I.A.S; I.F.S. etc posts would suit your temperament and academic interest. But for that you have to be a graduate. Listen to me, if you wish Since my relatives are in I.A.S. service, I have comparative information”.

I was only 11^th class qualified, so where was the question dreaming of I.A.S. I forgot it but my mind jumped with a strong ambition of becoming a graduate.

Again J.C.O. G. L. Pandit came to my rescue. He took my case to Subhedar Major Dilbag Sing. Within 2-3 days I was informed that I could attend university classes as a regular student but on the same conditions. Fact was except these two officers other JCOS rarely took any interes in my education. I got always appreciation, encouragement and help from NCOs and Ors. However all had some soft corner for me. Once an incident took place in my very presence when Subhedar Major Dilbag Singh rebuked one JCO who ordered me to go to his bungalow to work as his orderly. Subhedar Major said to the JCO, “You should be ashamed of yourself to ask an educated jawan to do orderly’s job in your house when there were so many in our company to assign the work. How did you forget that he (i.e. I) belonged to your community and not my. Contrary you should help him”. I wrote above statement in a mild language. It was in fact in a vulgar Punjabi language. The officer was our company’s JCO. As this incident took place in the presence of close friend Yadav Ranshrigare who talked about it to others and then it became a tasty gossip for our company’s jawans.

 Since I had become a family member in Madhukarrao Shrikhande’s house, I went to them and informed about my officer’s permission. I also told him that I did not know how to get the admission in the university. He asked me to meet him after 2-3 days. When I met him, he had already brought the admission form. Then he asked me to fill up the details there itself, and told that I should go to university and see Professor Adoni (real name) who was the head of the Marathi Department and said he had already briefed Prof. Adoni about me!

Our relations had become so close that there was no place for “thanks giving” formalities! Mrs. Indutai served me food and next day I went by walk to university. From the  British line the university of Saugar  Campus   was quite far off about 4-6 miles. As Prof. Adoni was already informed by Madhukarrao Shrikhande he sent his peon with me and got my admission in B.A. Pre-university without any difficulty. One after another dreams were getting converted into realities!

Although I offered Marathi language as one of the subjects but our medium was Hindi. Madhya Pradesh essentially was a (Saugar Area) Bundelkhadi speaking region. In military our medium of instructions was Hindi, besides the Marathi people – centre’s jawans – too rarely spoke in Marathi and to a large extent communication – Lingo Franca was carried out in Hindi. So far Marathi people in Laxmipura were concerned since they had been there since generations Hindi had become their first language. My entire reading was limited to only Hindi literature. In result I felt more comfortable in Hindi than Marathi! I thought I should not become a problem for Pro. Adoni!

Prof. Adoni gave me Marathi books from his store and told not to miss the periods. My other subjects were English, Economics, Indian Philosophy, Psychology, Hindi Composition and German language as  an optional foreign language, which I thought to learn. Because the parade, weapons, exercises, school classes etc. would over only at about 1.30 PM and the Marathi periods were scheduled only in morning session I was attending them more irregularly. For Marathi subjects my classmates were very few,Oneof them was Madhusudan Kamble, son of R. S. Kamble, a J.C.O. in MRC. There were 2-3 girl students who were known to me from Mahila Vidyalaya of Laxmipura.

Strenuous part of university life was that I was to literally walk fast or run down from the British Line to the university campus as I had no conveyance and there was no public transport available at least as per my timings. University was housed in the barracks of old military campus since new buildings were being constructed on a beautiful range of hills up above the Saugar city lake. Saugar was a nice and small city .surrounded by ranges of Vindhya Mountains. A big lake was situated in the middle of the city with crystal clear water. The rich people had their beautiful huge houses on the bank of the lake. Saugar was under the Peshawa – Maratha noble’s rule for a long period.  Whole city was studded with green trees and because the British cantonment was situated. there were number of mall roads. The climate was extreme. very hot during summer and very cold during winter. Monsoon was just average. But the life was easy going, enjoyable and comfortable as a whole. (Not to mix with military life).

Our university vice chancellor was Mr. D. P. Mishra, Registrar was Mr. Bajpayee and Dy. Registrar was Mr. Pathak whose son Subhash was my close friend. They were staying near the university in the same campus. He always lent me his books.

I had very little time for study. Because of circumstantial compulsions, consciously or unknowingly I had developed a technique of study. I could not afford to read and re- read nor do revisions of the same topics. So I would concentrate on the subject only once and then would make revisions by -recapitulations while attending my duties. It required no notes or books and more importantly no lights even after 10 PM. Meanwhile I wrote a satirical article in Hindi for university magazine entitled “Professor Sadamast”. It meant Professor Evergreen. This brought me in lime light in the university campus. Whenever I was on quarter guard duty, which was for 24 hours, I would miss many periods. But gradually I found professors gave little attention to the student’s attendance. After some months our German language professor Rouf (?) left the university and my intention to learn the German language remained unfulfilled. Also Prof. Nand Dulari Bajpayee, our professor for Hindi Composition also left. Professors of other subjects like Prof. Shrivastav for English, Prof. Sinha for Indian Philosophy, Prof. Dayal and Bhattacharya for Psychology and Moral Science, Prof. Seth for Economics, Prof. Adoni for Marathi  were really learned and taught us with great care and interest.

Prof. Bhattacharya a bachelor was typically intelligent and prompt answering. Once a girl student asked him why he was looking only at boys and never ever glanced at girl students while teaching. Pat  came the reply from him, "If I had been blind". We all boys made a big laughter while the girl students looked visibly upset,

My horse race became a part of daily life. But having sometimes felt physically tired I thought of buying a bicycle. And one day I sold my precious gift, the Timex wristwatch given by Major Thomas and bought a second hand bicycle from Lalkurty Shop. Now I was not feeling tired and could save a lot of time. Sometimes I missed my students also. But now they were little grown up and fully understood my difficulties. With bicycle in hand I could go to Shrikhande and Hardikar families more often which provided me tremendously family like tonic!

My pre-university examinations were over and I had cleared it too. I informed my family. I never missed my schedule of sending money to them. This year I got an additional monetary gallop. With the guidance of Prof. Adoni I received scholarship of Rs. 500 for scheduled caste students. As my monthly income was just Rs. 35/- , the amount received through scholarship helped me immensely. I sent money to my brother. He purchased one acre of agricultural land and also performed the marriage of his eldest daughter. We could purchase land! Just unbelievable but still important matter was that our family was relieved of the big and apparent insurmountable problem of the daughter’s marriage! Day’s earning spent on the evening meals, where from the money would come for marriage?

In Army some new development took place. Up till now Mahar Regiment was comprised only of Mahars except micro-minority of non-Mahars but they too were scheduled caste from Maharashtra. Other speciality was that machine gun was exclusively with Mahar Regiment. Now due to some Government decision BorderScouts) Battalions were attached with the Mahar Regiment and consequently more companies of Border Battalions got posted at MMGRC SaugarThis was in 1956 when I was in MRC,. Obviously as soldiers we were not concerned with it, but the process of intermingling rolled in. In Border Battalions jawans were from almost every part of the country. Needless to say there was lot of curiousity among them about me as a soldier who was also learning. I made several jawans from Border

Battalion my friends and taking advantage of close acquaintance I could  learn writing and reading of Gurumukhi – Script of Punjabi language and also acquired its working speaking. My regular going to the residence of Subhedar Major Dilbagh Singh and J.C.O. G. L. Pandit already had cultivated my Punjabi vocabulary, as their language was Punjabi. Jawan like Rayannwar (real name) from Chikhodi, Karnataka State taught me some Kannad language.

I was keen observer of human behaviour. Our daily intermingling, mutual working, exchanging of personal experiences etc. widened my horizon of knowledge about the jawans, their regional profile, their social customs and individual traits and characteristics. In fact I could develop and cultivate my mind to such an extent that I could immediately tell jawan’s region or district he might be belonging by knowing his only name. This helped me to make more and more friends from all parts of the country.

As I stated earlier army life was full of entertaining activities contrary to the civilian’s notion.