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.

Some Reminisces & Hill Grange at Night

I was bad at studies. Or perhaps I should defer using the term bad and use “indifferent” instead. Or maybe I was just moody. There were many reasons for this. But the fact remains that I did not like the process of education; it did not appeal to me. I was introvert as a child; and I wished, more than anything else, to be left alone. This was impossible at home – for both my parents were inspired authoritarians and yet uninspiring educators. My relationship with them, especially during my childhood, was strained – more so with my father than with my mother. To cut a long story short, here I was, an uninspired student with nothing to look forward to except his books and knowledge gained from outer sources; a student whose school work all the while suffered because he found nothing really to look forward; and so, I was a very mediocre learner.

Matters came to a head in Class 8. Terminal examinations betrayed that something was indeed very wrong; and my mother descended in all urgency to find the source of error. It fell to Mr. Bhan to take her aside and give her a talking to. He explained to her that my chances for promotion to Class 9 were marginal given the present rate of my growth and my marks therein; Douglas Gonzalves, who taught us science, was almost equally forbidding. As a result of this, I was put into various tuitions both in school and outside of it; I believe that this, too, gave offence to many teachers in school, who thought that perhaps it would have served a better purpose had I not been taken out of their wing and placed in external coaching. But that is how it happened – and the only extra classes I attended in school were for Hindi and for French. Hindi tuitions were held early in the morning in Class 8C, on the first floor. My teacher was Mrs. Shaikh. For some reason, she was very fond of me; and while most students in regular class faced the sharp edge of both her tongue and the edge of her palm, I was spared, and indeed, often treated to words and gestures of kindness. Perhaps she understood my brooding silence; and my sense of alienation from my own existence.

My French coach was not Mrs. Pastakia, though she taught us French in class. On the contrary, it was Mrs. Padma Lama. She taught us singing in Class 8; she was authoritarian, disciplinarian and highly motivated; as well as being cynical and in possession of a deep understanding of human nature, and especially student failings. It is during attending her late tuitions after school where I was first exposed to Hill Grange at night; and even after 28 years, my adventures therein have left a deep, deep impression on me.

On days of NCC, my French tuitions started at about 5:10 in the evening. They often went up to 9. They ended usually otherwise at 8. On regular days, the classes were even longer; they begun just after 4 in the afternoon, and went up at times to the same stipulated time of conclusion. The venue was class 4C at the back of the school, adjacent to that odoriferous primary school toilet; the class was dimly lit, though not hard on the eyes; and in the quiet of these evenings, Mrs. Lama introduced me to the true scope of the French language. Mrs. Lama was strict; but she was also perfectly fair; and while infractions instigated her tongue into all manners of imprecations, work well done was greeted with a ready nod and sometimes even a short word of praise. Her praise meant a lot to me; and she, perhaps sensing that I was very timid, and needed motivation, very kindly took her Sunday afternoons off, before final examinations, to coach me in the intricacies of the French tongue. Her tongue was like a scorpion’s tail; and yet, I do not ever remember her hurting my feelings. She just did not cross into personal realms.

Her tuitions ended long after sundown; she lived close by in the “Sonarica Building”, off Peddar Road; I lived up Nepean Sea Road, adjacent to Simla House. Her journey home was a brisk and short walk. My journey was lonely, long, and tiring; when I entered home eventually, it was past the time to dine; and all I could do was to crash upon my bed – exhausted and quite numb. Yet, I looked forward to the journey home. Why? Because I took in the air of Hill Grange before my departure; and in that darkness of those evenings, Hill Grange was transformed from a busy bedlam beehive into a magical castle – filled with nameless and mysterious; yet joyous creatures and emotions of the dark.

In that primordial darkness lit by a faint glow, Hill Grange was like a puddle of blackness in the pool of light of Cumballa Hill and Peddar Road. Before leaving for home, I would often pause, in the darkness, anywhere in school; and I would take in the calm and absolute quiet of my surroundings. The new building would be dark; a bulb, however, would be burning forlornly above Mr. Pinto’s office, adjacent to the canteen. A lamp would also be burning on the first floor passage between the staff rooms and the class rooms further on; I mean the passage that eventually lead to Miss Kelly’s quarters. For reasons unknown then, but on introspection, probably for some inner calm and quiet, I would sometimes make my way up to the first floor or even the second floor to take in the darkness. Darkness on the second floor was near total, except for the puddle of light that fell out on the passage from within Mr. Reuben’s quarters. Peace was complete. I could listen to the blood ringing in my ears; and I shall never forget the sound of distant radio playing “Vividh-Bharati” programmes of the late evening. Sometimes this quiet would be interrupted by the clang of cutlery from the kitchens; perhaps I was also at times distracted by the smell of some heavenly dish being cooked therein; at other times the quiet was broken by the jangle of a telephone ringing in Miss Kelly’s rooms; there was also a far away sound of disjointed conversations – undoubtedly taking place between people happier than I was; but oh! The peace. The quiet. The calm!

At this time, the auditorium was like the surface of the moon, though a smoother one. It was half lit; and it was surmounted by the yawning darkness of the stage. The air would be fragrant with the smell of flowers; a shadow flying in that half light would reveal a stray bat seeking its dinner; a stray flutter in the leaves of a tree indicated late arrival at a crow’s nest. On top of the auditorium would be an immense and comforting blackness of the night sky; on a cloudless night, many stars shone forth their blessing onto me; and with their twinkle, made my darkness comforting to bear. I have never laid myself down on the floor of the auditorium to look at yonder stars and galaxies, far, far, and even further away; and I wish today I had done so. Perhaps I would have been rewarded with a timeless insight – wrapped in the embrace of my school, my sky, my stars and my own child like legacy that the passage of each moment created and left complete; and yet, undone.

The old building by my side, on these evenings, would be dark; but never forbidding. The wooden stairs that led to the first floor office of the old building often beckoned at me; and up these I sometimes climbed, surrounded by a magical half light, taking care so that I did not give myself away by the creak of my shoes on the ancient wood. There was an indescribable smell in the air then; of books and furniture cooling down after a hot day; of sap from jackfruit tree; of dried ink on blotting paper; of the remnants of perfume left behind by office bearers; and of the ethereal presence of students who had passed that way – nameless faces; the redolence of their hopes; the odour of their straining efforts; of their passage through the very fabric of existence; through the cusp of a lifetime; through the bosom of eternity.

Often, before I made my way down again, I would walk up to the threshold of my favourite room – the great Hall. It was at times illuminated by a single lamp; at other times, it would be dark – with a puddle of light falling on its threshold – from a light in the anteroom outside Miss Kelly’s room. At times the silence here would be broken by the urgent tinkling of a hand-bell; that was Miss Kelly as she summoned someone from the household staff to run a late evening errand.

The magic would be broken as realisation filtered through, invariably, that my home was elsewhere; and I had to make haste to depart. The walk down the slope was utterly lonely; yet, never has solitude seemed more welcoming, enveloping and comforting; never have I ever felt such a sense of belonging as I did then. To Hill Grange are dedicated my most enduring memories; and to this edifice, now silent and dark forever, must go so many experiences which have helped shape me and so many as you as the men and women we have all grown into.

Moments form up as seconds; seconds as minutes. Minutes roll into hours, which turn into days, weeks, years and decades. A child grows into another childhood; then, it grows into a man or a woman – it grows into Mankind. Memories are the only living record of this rite of passage – not only through life as we know it, but of existence, as it shapes us. And so it must be.