We studied at the "Partition Barracks"...

In Mumbai, some of the famous locations around Matunga, include Dharavi, supposedly Asia's largest slum, the Sion hospital, also called the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Hospital, Kings' Circle, Aurora theatre and the Gandhi Market. There are also the not-so-famous locations between Matunga and Sion Hospital. These include the GSB Gymkhan and the Punjab Association Gymkhana, the Don Bosco Church, the Khalsa College Hockey Ground and the Kings Circle Flyover, which was one of the earliest flyovers in Mumbai.

The not not-so-famous, the almost unknown but more historically unique to the region, include the Sri Manav Seva Sangh and Lions' Club clinics, serving thousands of local patients every month, at subsidised rates, the veda pathshala /school, on Adenwala Road, the Prithviraj Kapoor Lane, where the Kapoor family lived, as did several other famous film stars of earlier times and the most silent witness to history, the partition barracks, between Sion Hospital and Kings' Circle railway station.

These were the barracks where families of refugees were housed in, deep within Bombay. The families stayed at the barracks during the late 40s and 50s before being relocated elsewhere. Soon, all barracks were vacated of the partition refugees, as they went about reorganising and rebuilding their lives.

These barracks were later provided as school space to the various education trusts that emerged out of the holistic cosmopolitan Bombay of the late 50s. The Andhras, Keralites, Kannadigas, Tamils, Gujaratis, Kutchis, Rajasthanis, Konkani and Catholic missionary educational trusts were allotted 4-6-8 barracks each, to start or relocate their schools from within Central Mumbai.

My grandfather's cousin was part of a trust called the "Andhra Education Society" in the mid 50s. It was not a formal institution at that time, but comprised a group of committed Andhraite opinion leaders who established a primary school at Mahim, near the Sitaladevi Temple. Upon allotment of 8 barracks at Matunga, the school shifted out of Mahim.

My mother, newly wed, having moved from Madras, took up a job as a Telugu teacher in the school. It was not a decision devoid of options. She could not, as I cannot, escape the profession of teaching. Her father, and her grandfather before him, had established their schools, and had run them efficiently. Her grandfather had run a school in Satyavedu village in Chittoor district, while her father had run the Raja Rajeswari High School in Egmore, Madras. But, those are other stories.

With my grandfather's close association, and my mother as a teacher in the school at the partition barracks, did I have a choice? I joined the school, in the KG standard in 1965-66 year at the barracks. I remember my classmates, some of them, to this date. K. V. S. Ravi, P. Srinivas and Srinivas V. Rao, B. Bhaskar, Emmanuel, Moses, Sarada, Laxmi and Kalyani. Uniquely most have stayed the test of time. I remember, Arvind had joined mid-term, while Harinarayan joined in Sr. KG. Sarada was the daughter of our caretaker, Gangubai, and passed away in an unfortunate turn of circumstances after her marriage.

We had another unique situation. Our first year in school education was also the first year of employment for our new KG teacher. A young goan lady, joined the 100% Telugu speaking school, and I think, was solely responsible thereby, for changing all our lives. She was an excellent teacher and instilled the best foundations for learning, enjoying and appreciating the English language.