Goodbye Sir

It is so easy sir, to speak with you, now that you have transcended this incarnation. It seems so effortless, sir, to open my heart and my mind to you, and converse just as I would have wished to, so many years back, in school. Life did grant me opportunities for such interactions in subsequent eras of our respective lives. I did not avail of those chances. I know you will forgive me this, just as you have forgiven me so many other transgressions. I was never a good student. But your calm understanding made my lot easier to bear. Memories of your strictness, which I once feared, caresses me with tenderness that is heartbreaking to contemplate; for I have left indulgent childhood and grasped the nettles of that forest revealed only unto adults; I thirst, I crave; I long for those days when I could learn, again.

Rest you, teacher, in your realm of bliss after so many events lived; after such herculean tasks accomplished, after such immense burdens borne and carried distances so great. Rest, dear sir, after concluding an incarnate experience in this world; this, an illusion of cruelty mired in an ocean of turgid, swirling black waters, befouled by our sins. Yet, it is not such a bad world after all, for those such as you deign to visit, and bequeath upon us so many lessons, the beauty of which makes living here so much more tolerable. Your tasks are done, sir; the darkness deepened in the concluding hands of your time in this transient existence through which the living yet struggle, convinced as we are, that it is we who are alive; yet, we are those that are dead bound by unreal time upon which we mark our weary passage, knowing not that we live, dead, so to die, and to gain greater life. You have now gained infinity; that greater, shining life. God has opened the doors to eternity for you, sir; rest then, in that Eden that claims those of greatest worth. Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and Dreadful.

I remember the day I heard of you. I saw you first, though I knew you not: a portly gentleman with a philosopher’s brow; alert eyes; off white pantaloons and white shirt; a green twig in your hand, the offering of the jackfruit tree; you, on Assembly Duty. It was only in the bus, going back home, that I was told of you; and it was with quiet dread that I remembered calling your pretty daughter “Hema Malini”. I wonder if Fareez ever complained; I think not. I saw you so many times then, off and on. I saw you from afar, laughing and joking with your students; you were always the beloved of your class. Strict, fair, conservative but forward thinking; with laughter ready just behind your eyes; and yet, such terror did mathematics inspire in us! When one is a student, a day is as long as a year; and years pass as quickly as the wind; and so, one rainy morning, when the sun made its febrile appearance behind black clouds, on a Sunday as I remember, I was introduced to you in a special class that you conducted with such élan, in Hill Grange’s laboratory. There, surrounded by cupboards overflowing with mysteries, in that atmosphere redolent of chemicals, you introduced us to the world of Venn Diagrams. I remember that morning; it is etched firmly in my inner spaces. Your calm voice that carried forth; the scratch of chalk on black, wooden boards, creating spaces contained within many circles; equations of proportion, percentage and quantity, all explained so emphatically; so clearly.

I started out well. It was a pleasure being your student. I don’t remember the moment when I begun fearing you. Why did I fear you so? I know not. You never raised a hand upon me. You never blazed at me; you never humiliated me; in fact you were known to make funny statements at my errors. Yet, my errors grew; so did your impatience; but so did your effort to ease my way. Often, glancing through my workbooks, you would take your spectacles off to wipe off chalk; and in doing so, you would reveal eyes penetrating, kindly as well as understanding, all at the same time. So I knew not sir, why I feared you. In being frightened of you, I have been unjust to your legacy, for I had nothing to fear. As I look back, through the rain, shine, snow, shower, night, mist and haze of so many years, I know I could have had a friend in you. But an unknown gulf divided us. Yet, now, that which unites us is Life. Your life is eternal; mine is yet an experience; I too shall to cross that impenetrable wall called death, for I am consoled that such is the nature of life. And I am consoled again, for I know, that one day, when time ends for me, I shall meet you and receive that same warm hug that greeted me in that chance meeting, so many, many years after I ceased being your student.

Take a look at me now, sir; I am renouncing this world; its trials, tribulations, failures and transient successes. I am embracing truths that can repose only in the beyond and be revealed only through the magic mathematics of energies; embraced am I of this mandate, whence I must tear asunder the veil that conceals the mysteries of the universe, and lose all that is composed of myself, in the infinite dust of this Creation. You would be so proud of me, for I renounce material, even as I embrace the Spirit.

Mr. Bhan, you will remain forever in me and with me as I walk the rim of my eternity. Goodbye forever, but fare thee well, till we meet again. We love you sir.