In fond memory of my doddappa!

We, the Sharmas of Kappettu, have a war veteran in our family – my doddappa, a kind and loving soul and an inspiration to the Sharmas of Kappetu and all who knew him.

Late Shri Rajagopala Sharma, my dad’s eldest brother, was born on 4^th Dec, 1921. Living in Trivandrum where his parents, (my grandparents) lived at the time, he began contributing to the family’s meagre income right from the tender age of 12. He would proceed to the pond in front of the famed Shri Ananthapadmanabha temple, Trivandrum, in the early hours of the morning, take a dip in the holy waters and then sit in the temple corridors, distributing teerth and Gandha – holy water and sandal paste – to the many devotees who thronged the temple. The coins which some of them dropped into the tray in front of him would be his day’s earnings which he would hand over to his mother before rushing off to school.

A few years later, when my grand parents decided to leave Trivandrum and return to our native land of Udupi, they left behind a young and impressionable Rajagopala, then just a lad of 15/16 years, at Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu as an apprentice in a photo studio. The hard-working and diligent boy, he took no time to learn the nuances of photography and soon his dedication and talent impressed the owner enough for the latter to name the studio after him – Raj photo studio.

However, with only experience and no wages for all his hard work, his father called him back. The eldest of 8 offspring, consisting of 5 boys and 3 girls,  carrying the load of responsibility on his slim shoulders, out of utter poverty and sheer desperation, the young man looked beyond the fields of his home in Kappettu, Udupi.

The winds of change were already blowing across the country then and with the strong pre-independence movement sweeping through even the remote and fairly unseen and unheard of little town of Udupi, the man decided to follow the call of the country. In the year 1942, at the age of 21, young Rajagopala left home with two of his close cousins, to join the army, without informing their respective families as they were sure permission would be denied.

After completing his initial training with the Madras Regiment in Wellington, Ooty, he was inducted into the Electrical and Mechanical Division of the Indian Army. He was forthwith dispatched to Malaysia for active war service.

The young recruits travelled in a cargo ship for 7 days suffering many hardships on the way, unused as they were to the rigorous life style. They journeyed from Madras to Penang, Malaysia and joined the Indian Army as part of the Allied Forces fighting against the Japanese in the 2^nd World War. They moved from Malaysia to Burma to Nagaland in the course of the war, all the while remaining incommunicado from their family for security purposes. He would later recount some of his war escapades to his family, among which was how they had to survive in the thick and dangerous jungles of Burma, surviving only on an erratic supply of tinned food and condensed milk sent over from England.

By 1945, when the war ended, the strange new lands, harsh conditions, extreme exhaustion and a severe bout of malaria all took its toll and a tired and home-sick Rajagopala was admitted in the Community Hospital in Dacca, Bangladesh where he took nearly 4 months to recover.

Under pressure from his father, he left the army in 1947 and returned to his native town of Udupi where he joined a transport company as a mechanic. However, his work there and the pittance that he was earning did nothing to help his family. Meanwhile, news reached him that the Ammunition Factory at Pune was looking to hire interested candidates and Raj dodappa decided to try his luck there. His earnest and humble nature and with the added bonus of his previous experience at the army, helped him secure a job in the Quality Control Department at the Ammunition Factory at Khadakwasla, Pune. The factory was then one of the biggest small-arms factory in the whole of Asia, under the Ministry of Defence, where he served for 28 long years.

It was no easy job.

Besides a 12 hour demanding work schedule, the workers were required to put in overtime hours without even the regular holidays, to meet the supply of the ever-growing demands for arms and ammunitions due to the frequent wars of 1962, 1965 and 1971.

His expertise and experience with machines did not go unnoticed and Raj dodappa received recognition and awards for innovations and improvements in production lines. He was very popular among his colleagues and the authorities, and he was often called in to other ordnance factories in India for consultations and advice for repair and restore war machinery, even after his retirement.

Later he moved to Udupi and settled down in Ambalpady, but he was still addressed by his various nieces and nephews as Pune doddappa! He was actively involved in all the activities of the Maha Kali and Janardhana temple at Ambalpady and endeared himself here too.

With a slender and slight figure, Raj dodappa always had this gentle smile on his face even when he lost most of his hearing in his later years and could not participate in the noise and conversations at family gatherings.

He passed away peacefully on 23rd Jan, 2017, at the ripe age of 96 in the arms of his patient and loving daughter-in-law.

A more gentle, humble, undemanding, warm and loving personality than our beloved Pune doddappa I am yet to encounter and he remains forever a source of inspiration to us all.

On the 75^th Republic Day of our country, a day to remember and honour our real heroes, I simply felt like sharing this write up dedicated to him.