Our gang of six at 25 and again at 75

These two photographs of the six of us were taken with a time lag of about 50 years. At the time of taking the picture, we were around 25 and had settled after our education.

The black and white photograph was taken in a studio opposite Majestic Talkies. Despite being friends for a long time, all of us chose different professions in life.

Dr Govinda, after his medical, joined government medical service and served in villages. He completed his service in Bangalore. He is a skin expert and has trained many young doctors. He is our family doctor even now. I always tell him that he shall live as long as I live.

Murthy joined Rambhai Patel and Sons, who then ran a chain of theatres like Majestic, Kalpana, Ranjit in Mysore and some in Hyderabad. The Patels were all cricketers.

Renukaradhya studied law, but followed his family business and did not practice. He would always be a questioning legal expert for us.

Anantha, the most intelligent among us, could not take up professional studies but chose commerce and joined the family business.

Vishwa, the youngest of us, studied engineering but did not follow the practice of joining his family business - Jingade & Sons, a popular cloth merchant at that time. He joined BEML, Kolar and shifted to Bangalore after completing his service.

After my graduation in civil engineering, I joined PWD in 1962 as a junior
engineer with a basic salary of Rs 200 per month with Rs 10 as dearness allowance.

I continued working there and retired as engineer-in-chief in December 1999. I was later appointed as the engineer-in-chief of BBMP and served later as an  advisor till 2008.

For nearly ten years after joining service, we used to go to Central College grounds - a pavilion for walking, running and exercises.

Later, we had an open shuttle court in our house and used to play for around an hour, followed by coffee at 50 paise per cup in Gandhinagar.

Of the six of us, I continue to work and am also a member of state committees attached to PWD.

The second photo is taken in February 2016 during Govinda's grand daughter's birthday. He too turned 77 that day.

Our spouses and children joined us at the party. All our children are settled and a few of them are in the US.

During our hay days, we used to go to Mysore, Tumkur, Chikkaballapur (where Govinda was working at that time), Nandi Hills, Kolar (Vishwa was working in BEML during those days).

We would travel on two-wheelers, which cost between Rs 3,000 to
Rs 3,500 then, and our cars.

We would come back to Koshy's in the night to have something and spend less than Rs 100. Morning breakfasts were usually in MTR near Lalbagh at around 7  am. The idli, sambar and dosa were our favourites.

We continued to meet in the evenings on the lawns of Vidhana Soudha even after getting married. It was then open for public on Sundays and we would go with spouses and children. These visits would be followed by a stop at a restaurant nearby.

We have also travelled to Goa, Ooty, Andhra Pradesh. I still recall our visit to Tirupati where we could go to and return the same day after a darshan of Lord Venkateshwara.

Even now, we call each other and meet at least once in two to four weeks. These two photographs, which marked the transition from silver jubilee to platinum, are something we will cherish all our lives.  

R Jai Prasad
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