Continued Ramblings....
I am back. I have not had the urge
to put down anything for quite some time now.
Not that there is not been any developments, would say it was just plain
laziness and of course some dearth of free time to start my process of thinking
back.
One important thing deserving of mention
is that I have been able to reconnect with my most favorite teacher of all
time. I have had the privilege of being in touch with him over the years- calls
yearly at least-to be precise, but now it’s so much better. My very much
admired and well-loved teacher has gotten himself to being socially active,
especially on the popular social network and that really helps me a lot as I
get to see another one from among those beloved people of my younger years.
Even better, he writes! Never knew this bit of info before and
I am surprised that I never had the slightest idea about this talent of his. He
had been a writer for quite long, like from a quarter of century back and its
only quite recently that this self-acclaimed, most admiring student of his has
known that he is such a talented a writer too. What a pitiful admirer and pupil
could I be? It just is a sheer pleasure to be
reading every bit of his writing. And he draws and paints too. But I sometimes
have no idea what it is until someone comments on it. Poor! I know.
My dear Professor shares every
little bit of his poems, one at a time on his page and it just is such a privilege
and pleasure to me to see him being admired and praised, gently criticized by
his friends, colleagues and most of all his beloved students from all over the
world.
Initially, I had thought (even boasted
to myself) that I did get it all …everything that I read that is, of my teacher’s
writing, and was I wrong! Thinking back now, I feel I might have maybe grasped just
1% of all that he meant/ or wanted to mean in any one given piece of his overall
writing.
Anyway, it is a grand treat for me
every once in a while, having the privilege to read through his thoughts. It
takes me years back to my undergraduate classroom; almost 25 years back to be
exact. I once again become this very wide-eyed puny and timid girl, with my all
absorbed/ absorbing eyes and mind, admiring him for his knowledge and the way
he presented it and being so enthralled by this quite young all-knowing teacher
who alone had the capacity to hold almost 99% of our classes’ attention. The
beauty of it is that he had such a wonderful, incomparable talent to seize and
hold our attention in his very own original, peculiar, academic and kind ways. I
use “kind” because of a little incident in class. Actually it was quite big,
little incident for every one of his students that day.
One fine day, he began preparations
for teaching us the essay “On Cheeses” by G K Chesterton. Now, for me to
remember an essay and also its author’s name is quite extremely rare. The
reason being, that I usually am not a fan of essays in general. He did turn me into a fan of the collection altogether
though- The Representative Anthology-
by just being our teacher for that book. That is his talent. To come back
to the topic of his kindness, Mr. Nair knew that none of us students, (45 or so I guess) probably
had ever tasted cheese ever in our life. Cheese as such not being a necessary part
of our daily diets whatsoever. Maybe one or two odd ones had, but generally
most didn't. Nevertheless, he did not assume this fact, but having gauged from
our answers we hadn't, (we were quite the aliens to cheese in those days), he went
ahead and spent his very own money and bought some cubes of cheeses from the
nearby grocery store (Spencer’s), which couldn't have come cheap I am sure, being
Spencer’s and all that. And then, he proceeded to let all of us have a taste
of it in class just so we understood what we were reading about in class and to
get us interested in the very topic I believe, which of course immediately roused
all our attentions.
None of our teachers in school or
college whatsoever, until then, past or current had ever gone to such lengths
for students. At least, none that all of his students of that day knew of.
So, my dear teacher was not just
kind, but extremely advanced in his use of brilliant use of classroom
techniques too.
The well-read, beautiful English
classes he engaged us in were incomparable to any other that we ever have had
the luck to attend. The wonder of it was that, above all this seemingly
limitless, all embracing knowledge of his, he was so totally humble and extremely
kind, gentle and understanding to everyone. I have heard his colleagues
speaking highly of this humility of his in quite recent years too. All this
leads me into feeling profoundly proud of him for being a grand person and then
leads me feel pride in myself for having had the luck to be his student for just
a few years.
Now, his beautiful writings are
each like small, delectable slices of his classroom instructions to every one
of his students I am sure, reminding us of those blessed days that we all
rather enjoyed. The well-read, sincere wholehearted way in which he engaged
his classes are quite a precious rarity in these days of tech- rich classrooms,
I got to say.
And indeed it is been one of my
greatest blessings, one that I count very precious along with all my treasured blessings
to be able to interact with my wonderful teacher and enjoy my teacher’s vast
knowledge and his beautiful impressions of life that he thinks fit to make
notes on.
