School Education

There was no school in Thalikottai during my father’s childhood. When my schooling started, the first primary school was setup in our village 1947, when India attained independence. The school was upgraded to a middle school in 1974.
When I was six years old my parents took me to enroll in the newly started District Board Elementary School in our Thalikottai village. School Headmaster Periyasamy asked my name. My parents said “Balasubramaniam”.
Back then parents were often too ignorant to get birthday certificates of their children as they are now. Only a couple of months after the child is born, the horoscope used to be written. The horoscope writer records the the date of the Tamil year and the Tamil month based on the information that the parents gave. Similarly, when the Headmaster asked about my birthday, my mother was born on the last day of Tamil month, Aaippasi (October). Neither she nor my father could tell the exact date, Therefore, according to what they said, the Headmaster wrote that my birthday as 15.6.1941.
If you look at the school certificates of those born in fifties, you can often see the birthday as June 15th. After I grew up I found out that my actual birthday is 13.12.1941. I made several attempts to change the birthday in my certificates and register the actual birthday. Approaching the High Court did not help me.
When the Headmaster Mr.Periyasamy enrolled me in the school, he prayed to God and applied sacred ash and saffron on my forehead. Then, he held my finger in the sand and made me write ‘Agaram’ saying “Ari Namothu Chintam”. Writing like that was the norm that day. After that, he wrote my name in the school register. Then he looked at me in the presence of my parents and said, “You must come to school with saffron on forehead every day.” Accordingly, it was customary for my mother to send me with saffron every day to school. One day a tattoo artist came to our town. Mother had my forehead tattooed with a spot. This solved the problem of going to school with saffron every day. This tattoo mark is still on my forehead.
T.R.Baalu had his High School education in the middle school at Aalangottai, named “Thiruvalluvar High School”.
There were no transport facilities from Thalikottai to Alangottai School as there are now. To reach Alangottai School, which is 8 km away students had to walk a total distance of 16 km daily. Owning a bicycle was beyond the reach of the average person. Therefore, most of the village boys particularly girls, discontinued school education with 5th grade.
During the rainy season, the river overflow. At those times T.R.Baalu’s father would carry his son on his shoulders.