THE STORY OF THE LAME ONE AKA HELAVANA KATHE
THE STORY OF THE LAME ONE AKA HELAVANA KATHE
I studied in what was known as DALVOYS ANGLO SANSKRIT PATASHALA at present known as DALAVOY SCHOOL which is situated behind the MYSORE City Corporation. Whenever some teachers were absent some other teachers used to handle the classes. This class were usually utilized for telling some moral stories or the students were asked to tell some stories they know. While I was in the 5th standard the class teacher was one Sri Subrahmanyam. His elder son was employed at Bombay in some company. He had been to Bombay at the invitation of his son during winter holidays (it was previously know as X mas holidays) and returned. After the reopening of the school for nearly a week Sri Subrahmanyam went on describing his trip to Bombay and what he saw and his travel in the tram, his visiting a huge cloth shops and jewellery shops and his visit to a hotel along with his son where the cost of coffee was 1Re (at that period the cost of coffee was just 1 anna and 6 paise equivalent to the present 9 paise at Mysore ) visit to various museums and beach etc etc. one of my class mate was Vijayanarasimha who had in fact had visited Bombay along with his father and he had earlier told us about Bombay without any exaggeration. What sri subrahmanyam told us was 25% fact and 75% fiction..
During one of the special classes the class teacher told us about the story of a lame beggar who had actually donated a bell to the temple of Sri Anjaneya situated on the north gate of Mysore palace.
The story is as follows:
In front of the Anjaneya temple lots of beggar.s congregate. More beggars are found during festival days and on Saturdays and Sundays. They beg for alms from those who visit the temple. One Tuesday a well dressed lady came in a tonga and got down a bit away from the Anjaneya temple. She had carried with her a small male child of about 3 months. She had also carried with her feeding bottle and some childrens clothes and also some small blankets. There she approached a middle aged lady beggar . she went to her and said that she wants to gift her with the male child which had its right led crooked. Otherwise the child was good looking and healthy. The beggar woman was aghast and she said that with the alms she gets it is difficult for her to manage and it is difficult to take care of the child also. She also told that taking care of the child was difficult by her.
For this the lady who had come told her that she will give her every week a sum of 5 /-Rs
every week and so it will not be a burden to the beggar woman. 5/- Rs was a quite a large sum during those days. The beggar woman accepted this gesture and took the baby. The lady also gave her some childrens clothes and also a small blanket , rubber sheet feeding bottle, flask and some milk powde. The lady told the beggar woman that if she fails to look after the child well that she will not give the amount promised.. along with these the lady gave the beggar woman 10/- Rs. The beggar woman was happy. After this episode the lady left. This lady used to come every Tuesday and give the beggar woman 5/-Rs and also give some old sarees and cloths for the child. The beggar woman never used to wear the sarees nor dress the child in good clothes. Her statement was that if she dress well with a good dressed child she may not get alms !!! only on Tuesdays the beggar woman will dress in clean sarees and also dress the child in good clothes so that the lady will think that this is the way in which the child is dressed on all days. The beggar woman used to make the child lie down on a torn blanket covering one leg and prominently displaying the crooked leg. This used to get sympathy from the temple goers and the alms collection was also quite substantial.. The visit of the lady went on for nearly one and half years and one day the lady came to the beggar woman and said that she can nolonger visit her evsreyweek as she has to shift her residence to Bangalore. So she may visit the beggar woman and child once in a way whenever she visits mysore. She gave lots of childrens’ clothes and also gave number of old sarees and gave the beggar woman about 50/- Rs. She took the child in her lap and spent about half an hour cuddling it. She then left the place nevser to return again. The child became a boy and every one started called him “HELAVA” (the lame one in Kannada) and that name stuck. The boy considered the beggar woman as his mother and started begging along with her. When the boy was of nearly 15 years of age the beggar woman died . the boy did not know what to do. The palace security guards who were at the Balarama gate came to know of this and as the then Highness cars used to pass through that gate sometimes they did not want a dead body to be near the gate. They phoned the city municipality and arranged for the municipal van which used to take unclaimed dead bodies . it is not known whether the body was given to the then Mysore Medical College of buried..
The boy continued to beg and once in w eek he used to have bath in the public tap which was situated at the back of town hall (at present Visvesaraiya complex is situated) have some food at eateries on the road side have his morning abolutions in the public toilet situated at the same place that is behind the townhall purchase second hand clothes at Boti Bazaar situated on the western side of Devaraja market and wne on leasing the life. The front of the temple was the only place he knew. In the night times he used to sleep on the pavement of Lansdowne buildings. So his life went on and on. If he fell ill he used to go to the Palace Dispensary which was situated in the present Jantha Bazaar buildings nedx to prestnt day State Bank Of Inida head office at Mysore..
His life went on like this. His advantage among beggars was that he had a crooked right leg which he used to prominently display while begging. When he attained adult hood some beggar women wanted to live with him. He refused this and was living alone. When he reached late middle age one day he asked the priest of the temple that he wants to donate something to the temple of Anjaneya. The priest was surprised and asked him as to how much he wants to donate. For ths the beggar told him the amount he wished to donate. The priest told him that the amount is sufficient to purchase a small bronze bell and this he can donate to the temple. So with this amount the lameone went to the Doddapete (the present Ashoka road) and purchased a bell . the shop keeper asked him as to what temple he is donating it and also wanted to know the person who is donating it.
The beggar told him that he is donating it to the Anjaneya temple and his name is “Helava”. The shop owner asked him to give his real name. for this also the beggar told that he knows no other name and he is called “Helava” all his life !!! the shop owner got the bell on its neck inscribed “HELAVANA KANIKE” (offering of a lame man). The shop keeper also gave a nearly metre long half inch steel rod with couplings on both sides with bolts and nuts. This the beggar brought it to the temple and offered it to the LORD ANJANEYA. This bell was taken into the sanctum and pooja was performed to the bell and LORD ANJANEYA and the bell was ceremoniously tied in the front verandah of the temple. We must know that the bottom of the bell is at a height of about 10 from the ground and nobody rings it. There are so many bells and the bells are votive offerings .
After sometime the beggar died and the priest who came to know of this garlanded the dead body with a garland from the sanctum sanctorum of the LORD ANJANEYA. The body of HELAVA was taken by the Mysore municipality van. He had some money and the other beggars gave this to the temple.
Thus ends the story of HELAVA as told by Sri Subrahmanyam.
The story only ends here and the adventure of we three guys does not end now..
The three guys are me, vijayanarasimha and G.Sundara. we had taken a fancy to read the detective novels penned by one Mr Gururajachar in kannada . the cost was about 4 annas which works out to be about 25 paise. If the book is returned without its being soiled the refund was around 12 paise. Vijayanarasimha and sundar used to pay one and half annas each and I used to pay about one anna. It was myduty to provide wrapper to the book. In our house during those periods we used to get kannada daily news paper “Thayee Nadu” , in the morning. So I used to get one sheet of old paper and cary it to the school. As soon as we got the new book from a road side book seller at the junction of Sayaji Rao Road and the front road of the Devaraja Market I will immediately wrap the title page and the last page. Usually we used to go to the market in the evening before returning to our houses . The house of vijayanarasimha was in Bakshi narasappa laya at present known as B B Garden and Sundar was residing in the house of his realative at Old agrahar.
I was a fast reader and I used to get the book first for reading it. The book usually contained maximum of 40 pages. I used to take it home and finish reading it in the night itself. Then it was the turn of Vijay and later on that of Sundar. As there was lot of books which was a sort of chain like the serials coming in the present local TV the Detective stories never ended!!! So we will find out the name of the next serial and purchase it after returning the earlier one. For this I used to contribute old six paise and vijay and sundar contributing old 9 paise each.
We never thought that the hero is an imaginary one and we thought that all his actions were true.!!!.
During the next long holidays we wanted to confirm that the bell our teacher had told about was really existing or it is just an imaginary one.. sundar was having a good physique, I was a lean and light one, vijay was of medium built but a good runner.
So the plan was that as soon as the doors of the temples was shut for the noon I have to stand over the shoulder of sundar and vijay should stand as a guard. We chose a Tuesday as the crowds were not alrge on those days. We waited until the door was closed and as soon as the priest left or so we thought , sundar stood under the series of bells and he cupped his hands with interlocked fingers at the back. With its support I climbed over his shoulder and was balancing myself on his shoulder. We do not know where the priest was hiding and we saw the priest running , shouting at the same time and rushing towards the temple. I jumped from the top of the shoulder of sundar and we both started running towards the Curzon park. In the meanwhile vijay was running towards the opposite garden. We did not even see whether the priest was following or not. the curzon park was then inclusive of the present City bus stand. We did not stop running until we reached the school. Viajay also came a bit later . He actually came running after circling the palace. We were happy that the priest was not following us.
Thus . ended our finding out about the “Heleava’s Offering.
After some decades or say about 60 years later on I attended the marriage of the grand daughter of (Late) Agent (of Vokkalagere ) Sundara thathachar and engineering son of Dr Parthasarathy. For this marriage an aged gentleman arrived just before the tying of the sacred thread by the groom to the bride. As soon as this gentleman came he was offered a prominent seat and almost all the persons who were from the bridegroom’s side came to him and offered their respects. The groom and the bride also came and prostrated before the old gentleman. Some one in the group were telling that the old man is the leader of their ethnc group and was the chief priest of the Anjaneya temple in the north of Palace for
more than 50 years. When all the crowd around him thinned I approached the gentle man and as he was hard of hearing due to age factor I told him about the bell offered by “HELAVA” to the Anjaneya temple. He told me that he does not know anything about it and may be it happened during the days of his father or grandfather.
So this ends the story of “HELAVA’S OFFERING OF THE BELL”.
Even now the bells offered by those who have given it to the temple as a token of gratitude is there . they are fixed at a height of about 10’ above the ground and they only serves as a sort of embellishment and not rung.. .
AN EXPLANATION:
The above is not a story but incidents which happened and as I remember.The above story appears to be not linked properly and it appears to be three in one story. May be my narration is not cogent. We three felt that the narration about Sri Subrahmanyam's experience at Bombay was completly not genuine as our friend vijay had informed in detail about his visit and experiences at Bombay. His father was a leading lawyer during those days and quite well to do. so also sundar was from a well to do land lord family. So we wanted to find out the truth about the "Helava's offering". The background for this is our faith in the detective stories by Gururajachar's which we believed as true portrayal of a detective and it spurred us to find out about the truth about the Helaava's gift on ur own. Hope this clarifies the doubts arising by the readers of this blog.
I studied in what was known as DALVOYS ANGLO SANSKRIT PATASHALA at present known as DALAVOY SCHOOL which is situated behind the MYSORE City Corporation. Whenever some teachers were absent some other teachers used to handle the classes. This class were usually utilized for telling some moral stories or the students were asked to tell some stories they know. While I was in the 5th standard the class teacher was one Sri Subrahmanyam. His elder son was employed at Bombay in some company. He had been to Bombay at the invitation of his son during winter holidays (it was previously know as X mas holidays) and returned. After the reopening of the school for nearly a week Sri Subrahmanyam went on describing his trip to Bombay and what he saw and his travel in the tram, his visiting a huge cloth shops and jewellery shops and his visit to a hotel along with his son where the cost of coffee was 1Re (at that period the cost of coffee was just 1 anna and 6 paise equivalent to the present 9 paise at Mysore ) visit to various museums and beach etc etc. one of my class mate was Vijayanarasimha who had in fact had visited Bombay along with his father and he had earlier told us about Bombay without any exaggeration. What sri subrahmanyam told us was 25% fact and 75% fiction..
During one of the special classes the class teacher told us about the story of a lame beggar who had actually donated a bell to the temple of Sri Anjaneya situated on the north gate of Mysore palace.
The story is as follows:
In front of the Anjaneya temple lots of beggar.s congregate. More beggars are found during festival days and on Saturdays and Sundays. They beg for alms from those who visit the temple. One Tuesday a well dressed lady came in a tonga and got down a bit away from the Anjaneya temple. She had carried with her a small male child of about 3 months. She had also carried with her feeding bottle and some childrens clothes and also some small blankets. There she approached a middle aged lady beggar . she went to her and said that she wants to gift her with the male child which had its right led crooked. Otherwise the child was good looking and healthy. The beggar woman was aghast and she said that with the alms she gets it is difficult for her to manage and it is difficult to take care of the child also. She also told that taking care of the child was difficult by her.
For this the lady who had come told her that she will give her every week a sum of 5 /-Rs
every week and so it will not be a burden to the beggar woman. 5/- Rs was a quite a large sum during those days. The beggar woman accepted this gesture and took the baby. The lady also gave her some childrens clothes and also a small blanket , rubber sheet feeding bottle, flask and some milk powde. The lady told the beggar woman that if she fails to look after the child well that she will not give the amount promised.. along with these the lady gave the beggar woman 10/- Rs. The beggar woman was happy. After this episode the lady left. This lady used to come every Tuesday and give the beggar woman 5/-Rs and also give some old sarees and cloths for the child. The beggar woman never used to wear the sarees nor dress the child in good clothes. Her statement was that if she dress well with a good dressed child she may not get alms !!! only on Tuesdays the beggar woman will dress in clean sarees and also dress the child in good clothes so that the lady will think that this is the way in which the child is dressed on all days. The beggar woman used to make the child lie down on a torn blanket covering one leg and prominently displaying the crooked leg. This used to get sympathy from the temple goers and the alms collection was also quite substantial.. The visit of the lady went on for nearly one and half years and one day the lady came to the beggar woman and said that she can nolonger visit her evsreyweek as she has to shift her residence to Bangalore. So she may visit the beggar woman and child once in a way whenever she visits mysore. She gave lots of childrens’ clothes and also gave number of old sarees and gave the beggar woman about 50/- Rs. She took the child in her lap and spent about half an hour cuddling it. She then left the place nevser to return again. The child became a boy and every one started called him “HELAVA” (the lame one in Kannada) and that name stuck. The boy considered the beggar woman as his mother and started begging along with her. When the boy was of nearly 15 years of age the beggar woman died . the boy did not know what to do. The palace security guards who were at the Balarama gate came to know of this and as the then Highness cars used to pass through that gate sometimes they did not want a dead body to be near the gate. They phoned the city municipality and arranged for the municipal van which used to take unclaimed dead bodies . it is not known whether the body was given to the then Mysore Medical College of buried..
The boy continued to beg and once in w eek he used to have bath in the public tap which was situated at the back of town hall (at present Visvesaraiya complex is situated) have some food at eateries on the road side have his morning abolutions in the public toilet situated at the same place that is behind the townhall purchase second hand clothes at Boti Bazaar situated on the western side of Devaraja market and wne on leasing the life. The front of the temple was the only place he knew. In the night times he used to sleep on the pavement of Lansdowne buildings. So his life went on and on. If he fell ill he used to go to the Palace Dispensary which was situated in the present Jantha Bazaar buildings nedx to prestnt day State Bank Of Inida head office at Mysore..
His life went on like this. His advantage among beggars was that he had a crooked right leg which he used to prominently display while begging. When he attained adult hood some beggar women wanted to live with him. He refused this and was living alone. When he reached late middle age one day he asked the priest of the temple that he wants to donate something to the temple of Anjaneya. The priest was surprised and asked him as to how much he wants to donate. For ths the beggar told him the amount he wished to donate. The priest told him that the amount is sufficient to purchase a small bronze bell and this he can donate to the temple. So with this amount the lameone went to the Doddapete (the present Ashoka road) and purchased a bell . the shop keeper asked him as to what temple he is donating it and also wanted to know the person who is donating it.
The beggar told him that he is donating it to the Anjaneya temple and his name is “Helava”. The shop owner asked him to give his real name. for this also the beggar told that he knows no other name and he is called “Helava” all his life !!! the shop owner got the bell on its neck inscribed “HELAVANA KANIKE” (offering of a lame man). The shop keeper also gave a nearly metre long half inch steel rod with couplings on both sides with bolts and nuts. This the beggar brought it to the temple and offered it to the LORD ANJANEYA. This bell was taken into the sanctum and pooja was performed to the bell and LORD ANJANEYA and the bell was ceremoniously tied in the front verandah of the temple. We must know that the bottom of the bell is at a height of about 10 from the ground and nobody rings it. There are so many bells and the bells are votive offerings .
After sometime the beggar died and the priest who came to know of this garlanded the dead body with a garland from the sanctum sanctorum of the LORD ANJANEYA. The body of HELAVA was taken by the Mysore municipality van. He had some money and the other beggars gave this to the temple.
Thus ends the story of HELAVA as told by Sri Subrahmanyam.
The story only ends here and the adventure of we three guys does not end now..
The three guys are me, vijayanarasimha and G.Sundara. we had taken a fancy to read the detective novels penned by one Mr Gururajachar in kannada . the cost was about 4 annas which works out to be about 25 paise. If the book is returned without its being soiled the refund was around 12 paise. Vijayanarasimha and sundar used to pay one and half annas each and I used to pay about one anna. It was myduty to provide wrapper to the book. In our house during those periods we used to get kannada daily news paper “Thayee Nadu” , in the morning. So I used to get one sheet of old paper and cary it to the school. As soon as we got the new book from a road side book seller at the junction of Sayaji Rao Road and the front road of the Devaraja Market I will immediately wrap the title page and the last page. Usually we used to go to the market in the evening before returning to our houses . The house of vijayanarasimha was in Bakshi narasappa laya at present known as B B Garden and Sundar was residing in the house of his realative at Old agrahar.
I was a fast reader and I used to get the book first for reading it. The book usually contained maximum of 40 pages. I used to take it home and finish reading it in the night itself. Then it was the turn of Vijay and later on that of Sundar. As there was lot of books which was a sort of chain like the serials coming in the present local TV the Detective stories never ended!!! So we will find out the name of the next serial and purchase it after returning the earlier one. For this I used to contribute old six paise and vijay and sundar contributing old 9 paise each.
We never thought that the hero is an imaginary one and we thought that all his actions were true.!!!.
During the next long holidays we wanted to confirm that the bell our teacher had told about was really existing or it is just an imaginary one.. sundar was having a good physique, I was a lean and light one, vijay was of medium built but a good runner.
So the plan was that as soon as the doors of the temples was shut for the noon I have to stand over the shoulder of sundar and vijay should stand as a guard. We chose a Tuesday as the crowds were not alrge on those days. We waited until the door was closed and as soon as the priest left or so we thought , sundar stood under the series of bells and he cupped his hands with interlocked fingers at the back. With its support I climbed over his shoulder and was balancing myself on his shoulder. We do not know where the priest was hiding and we saw the priest running , shouting at the same time and rushing towards the temple. I jumped from the top of the shoulder of sundar and we both started running towards the Curzon park. In the meanwhile vijay was running towards the opposite garden. We did not even see whether the priest was following or not. the curzon park was then inclusive of the present City bus stand. We did not stop running until we reached the school. Viajay also came a bit later . He actually came running after circling the palace. We were happy that the priest was not following us.
Thus . ended our finding out about the “Heleava’s Offering.
After some decades or say about 60 years later on I attended the marriage of the grand daughter of (Late) Agent (of Vokkalagere ) Sundara thathachar and engineering son of Dr Parthasarathy. For this marriage an aged gentleman arrived just before the tying of the sacred thread by the groom to the bride. As soon as this gentleman came he was offered a prominent seat and almost all the persons who were from the bridegroom’s side came to him and offered their respects. The groom and the bride also came and prostrated before the old gentleman. Some one in the group were telling that the old man is the leader of their ethnc group and was the chief priest of the Anjaneya temple in the north of Palace for
more than 50 years. When all the crowd around him thinned I approached the gentle man and as he was hard of hearing due to age factor I told him about the bell offered by “HELAVA” to the Anjaneya temple. He told me that he does not know anything about it and may be it happened during the days of his father or grandfather.
So this ends the story of “HELAVA’S OFFERING OF THE BELL”.
Even now the bells offered by those who have given it to the temple as a token of gratitude is there . they are fixed at a height of about 10’ above the ground and they only serves as a sort of embellishment and not rung.. .
AN EXPLANATION:
The above is not a story but incidents which happened and as I remember.The above story appears to be not linked properly and it appears to be three in one story. May be my narration is not cogent. We three felt that the narration about Sri Subrahmanyam's experience at Bombay was completly not genuine as our friend vijay had informed in detail about his visit and experiences at Bombay. His father was a leading lawyer during those days and quite well to do. so also sundar was from a well to do land lord family. So we wanted to find out the truth about the "Helava's offering". The background for this is our faith in the detective stories by Gururajachar's which we believed as true portrayal of a detective and it spurred us to find out about the truth about the Helaava's gift on ur own. Hope this clarifies the doubts arising by the readers of this blog.
posted by N.S.Char at 7:32 AM
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