Tatayya and Fitness

When I was young, my father used to say, “Study well, otherwise you will end up working in the fields”, pointing to some of my cousins who were doing it.

He grew up in a family of marginal/subsistence farmers, and was the first one to go to school in a community of about 40 families of friends and relatives. Due to the strained circumstances at home, he had to stop studying at different times, work in the fields, and then restart later, with the help of others.

As he ended up a government school teacher, we children had the luxury of an assured schooling. He was keen to help us take good advantage of it.

He did not stop with that, he was also instrumental in ensuring access to education to a large percentage of children in my generation in the extended family and beyond. But that’s a different story.

Today, at 70, he is hale and hearty and generally healthier than we would ever be. So, as we work in the garden, I get my revenge telling my son, “bend your back and work hard. Look at Tatayya, he did that and he is so healthy today. Otherwise, you will end up like me”!