She is officially the earliest teacher in my life that I got in touch with!!

The day was Jan 15, 1973. I was a tiny tot – all of six years old – when I got down from a strange looking bus – it was more of a re-purposed police van really – to a very foreign environment. I got out of the bus and stared with somewhat trepidation at my new school. That was my first day of being a first grader in Benachity Junior High School.

I trudged along the school entrance path and unlike other smart students, took some time to find my class. I was one of the last ones to arrive and found myself a spot in the very last row of benches. I was pretty nervous. Not really sure who talked to who first that day, but I did strike up an awkward conversation with the boy next to me. Turns out his name was Ansuman Mitra. Actually it still is. And we are still friends and see each other about once a year! “I have a new blue tiffin box”, I remember telling him. That, clearly, was the only thing I could talk thru my awkwardness. Probably, also the only thing that I was looking forward to that whole day.

Presently, a teacher came and announced that the class we were sitting in is 1B. Apparently, 1A still had a few benches unoccupied. And some of us got randomly picked and shooed away to the class next door. That is how I landed up in class 1A. And my somewhat budding friendship with Ansuman was cut short prematurely. In reality though, I sought him out during tiffin (recess) period to show my tiffin box 🙂

Well, it was that random choice that got me in front of my class teacher – Miss George as we called her then. I have but only a few memories of those days. Miss George teaching us English was one of the highlights. There was a red book and a yellow book. I remember some of the contents inside but most of it has faded off. I suppose they were filled with the letters of the alphabet and a lot of pictures.

One of the lasting memories I have about Miss George was that during one of those tiffin periods, I had fallen down (don’t worry, I was not athletic ever; it was not like I had a grand fall while trying to kick the soccer ball or something – it was indeed an ignominious case of me slipping on a stair right next to where they used to ring the big dong announcing that a period was over) and had bruised myself. Miss George had somebody get some medicine (Boroline?) from head teacher’s office and applied it on my knee and put me to ease.

Much later in life – around the mid eighties, somebody told me that Miss George lived somewhere near Aurobindo Avenue (I think that was the street name) and that she wanted to see me. I was such an idiot – and also a confirmed awkward – that I never took that opportunity to find her out and meet her.

Well, that particular memory has gnawed me for a long time. Ever since, I have approached many a people from my past with the “Do you know a Miss George from Benachity Junior High School?” At some point of time, I learned that she had left Durgapur and was in Kerala.

That long search of mine was put to rest last week when Mrs. Bose helped me get her number. It was with great consternation, I called that number. How do you approach a person who taught you forty four years back and somebody you never have talked after that?

“Is this Mrs. Lily George?”
“Speaking”
And all that awkwardness came over me again! “Errr… You will not recognize me but you were my class teacher in first grade in 1973”.
“Oh!”

I recognized that I needed to back up my point a little more. So, I told her about the school, the other teachers and my recollection of how she looked and most importantly that picture she took with us after gathering all the classmates during a Christmas get together.

The conversation, from then on flowed very fluidly. I got to know about her kids who are both live outside India. I got to know about how she has settled down in Ernakulam. But I was most disheartened to hear how she is having a tough time with her knees. And this is in spite of the fact she already had one surgery.

She took down my contacts. And as I spelt my name – something seemed to stir in her memory. “Rajib Roy. Wait a minute. Were you not the first boy in class? In fact you were the first boy all throughout school, right? I remember you very well. I had heard that you did very well in high school too”.

Well, that was really awkward and embarrassing. First, me doing well in studies had more to do with my relentless parents. I was an unwilling participant. But there were other first boys and girls too (We had many sections). So, I was not sure that was my calling card. But most of all, I was afraid that she might say “Hey! Later on I actually wanted to meet you once. Did you ever get the message?”.

Once I kept the phone down after promising to keep in touch with her, a flood of memories of my classmates from those days started floating thru my mind. Suddenly, I remembered something. I went upstairs, opened up the computer and after some search brought out a picture from that Christmas party of Miss George and all my classmates together. From Dec, 1973. I had digitized it and kept it thinking someday it might come come in handy.

My next mission is to get that picture to her somehow. You never know. My awkwardness knows no bounds. One of the India trips, I might just show up at Ernakulam and give her a printed copy of the picture and let her know that her teachings and guidance is going forty four years strong. With no apparent sign of abating!

What a great feeling it was to actually talk to somebody who is till date, my earliest teacher that I have been able to track!!!

[I am the kid with a squint in the left eye standing in the last row, third from the right of the picture]

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18 April 2017

The search for my class teachers (home room teachers)

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13 April 2017

The reason I was in Pune this time

Teachers, especially at school level, are almost always incredibly influential in shaping up a kid. In my own childhood, I was blessed with an excellent set of them. They were often very different from each other and because of that I learnt from them very differently. In that bright constellation, some stars stood out perhaps a little brighter than the others.

One such star was Mrs. Devyani Biswas. She was my English teacher in ninth and tenth grades and also my class teacher (home room teacher) in tenth grade. Without her indelible mark, I can gainsay that I would have grown nary an interest in English literature.

Frankly, I was not that proficient at written English. It did not flow as well as – say, my desk mate Dibyendu Dutta who I was in awe of. Truth be told, it still does not flow that well but my grammatical mistakes and typos make reading it jarring enough that people are usually distracted from the quality of English. My approach to written English those days were not so much dissimilar to the precision that I used to bring to Math and Physics problems. With a wholly different effect, if I may add. There is a telling story that brought this out when Mrs. Biswas had given us a homework to write an essay on “Sound”. If you have the time, you can read up about it here… http://www.rajibroy.com/?p=6911

But finding Mrs. Biswas later was a much trickier problem than writing English essays. The only knowledge I had was that a couple of years after I left school, her husband and she left for Pune. The other data I had was that Mr. Biswas had joined a company called Thermax.

After that, if I could ever find anybody who hailed from Pune, I would try to see if they somehow might lead me to a Biswas family. Just last year, I had realized that a classmate from my eleventh and twelfth grade was working with Thermax. I even made him go to their company database and find out all the Biswas-es from their Pune location.

There were two reasons my searches failed. First, I learnt that evening from Mr. Biswas that he had left Thermax within five years. And the second was that I had forgotten that Mrs. Biswas spelt her name the non-Bengali way – “Devyani”. The typical Bengali way would be “Debjani”. We, Bengalis, can be a little liberal about throwing in our “b”s willy nilly ???? In fact, my name too, outside of Bengal, would be written with a “v” and not a “b”. So, all my internet and social media searches were essentially looking for somebody not my teacher!!

Finally, the search was put to a close when I met my third grade class teacher Mrs. Bose at her house in Kolkata during my last trip to India. Subsequently, I had written to and talked with Mrs. Biswas. She had mentioned that I could still call her “Mrs. DB”, if I so wished. That was indeed how we used to call her those days!!!

Ever since, I had mentioned to Sharmila a few times that I needed to visit Pune during one of my trips to see my parents. The opportunity came in the very next one. I was able to route myself out of Mumbai as the exit point and thus, the previous night, after saying my adieu to parents and siblings, took a flight straight to Pune and showed up at her doorstep.

Over drinks at her place and dinner outside, we caught up on our life journeys. Both her children are in US. Thru all those discussions, a realization I had felt before kept coming back to me. Of all the intersection points I have created, meeting teachers from the long past has been some of the most rewarding. Followed closely by meeting parents of my friends (and the elderly generation, in general).

When I am with a teacher from my past, I remember a lot of events from those days and they further imprint upon me how those teachers were a big part of whoever it is that I am today. In fact, I mentioned to Mrs. Biswas a story from “Tales from Far and Near”. It was called “As the night, the day”. Written by Abioseh Nicol. It involved two characters – Kojo and Bandele. I remember having asked Mrs. Biswas what did the title of the story even mean. And she had explained the original words from Shakespeare – “Be true to thine own self / And it shall follow / As the night, the day”. Essentially Polonius was urging his son Laertes before he set out to the seas to be always true to his own principles and that success would follow from that as naturally as the night follows at the end of the day.

To this day, during extreme stressful situations at work and home, those are my trusted go to lines.

Similarly, we talked about Nissim Ezekiel’s “Night of the Scorpion” from Panorama, “Where the mind is without fear” by Rabindranath Tagore and so on and at every point I realized some those small learnings in early childhood translated to much bigger lessons in life. Little did I realize that at that time when I felt that they were simply a means to getting a good grade.

This story will not be complete if I did not talk about Mr. Arup Biswas – her husband and my anchor point for searches in the earlier years. Gracious to a fault, he put me to ease instantaneously with his approachable style, intellectual curiosity and some some very keen observations. I found myself often engrossed in deep discussions with him – who really was none other than a total stranger to me till a few minutes back. Quite a few topics were left to be discussed that night for a future point of time. I wish I had gotten to know him earlier in my life.

At the end of the dinner, the clock pushing almost half past eleven, they dropped me at my hotel. Before I let them go, I let Mrs. Biswas know why it was so important for me to meet her (and other teachers too).

Life is too short. Frankly, many of us find out rudely that it is often shorter than we thought. I just wanted to get an opportunity to tell her face to face – “Thank you for helping me become who I am today”.

Which I did. With all sincerity.

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10 April 2017

My sixth grade class teacher (home room teacher)

“Are you Rajib Roy?”, asked the deceptively young looking gentleman as he got up from his chair in the verandah of his house.
“That I am, Sir!”, said I, fumbling with the gate latch.

It had taken me a long time to find Sir Patrick Moore – my class teacher from sixth grade. I got my lucky break when I had met Pratap Bara at the airport a couple of days earlier. I got Mrs. Moore’s number from Pratap and then a few phone calls later, I had set up my tryst with the teacher that I had last talked to in 1978 !!! Three hours of car journey later, I stood face to face with him after almost four decades.

He did not remember me – which I would not have expected him to. But he did remember the two classrooms we sat in while in sixth grade. I remember that we were in the very last room on the ground floor. And one fine day, we were shifted to the room next to the library on the second floor. Sir Moore remembered that incident vividly since – according to him, it was he who had instigated that change after getting headaches from the chemical smell from our chemistry lab next door!!

I told him how he used to often ask us some very interesting questions and then ask us to think about it or even ask around about it and come back with answers the next day. I reminded him of some of the questions he had asked us…. He had just finished teaching us about how ancient people had discovered fire and how that was a big change for civilization. Then he asked us – “What was another discovery or invention of ancient people that changed civilization dramatically?”.

Or when another time, when he had just finished teaching us about the solar system, he asked us to think about what was a man made object that is visible to the eye from the moon.

I had an equally great time with Miss Yvonne (Mrs. Moore) (who was a teacher in our primary section but I never studied in that section of our school) discussing about life, my own life journey and learnt about theirs.

Finally, I offered my heartfelt gratitude to Sir for influencing me in no small ways to be whoever it is that I am today.

In the bottom picture, I am the one sitting in the same row with Sir, next to next to him, on his right.

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12 March 2017

My second grade classroom teacher!!!

The word on the street was that she was somewhat of a strict teacher. When I first encountered her – in my very first class in second grade, I also realized that she was very tall and towered over little seven year olds like us.

She opened up this book – a small brown cover book called “Brighter Grammar”, as I recollect – and asked “What is grammar”? I raised my puny little hand up – still a little afraid of her. She looked at me and I blurted out “Grammar is the art of putting the right words in the right place”. I am sure you are impressed by my grasp of the language called English at that age. In reality, I had no idea what I just said.

Turns out that my dad had opened up that book before packing it in my bag the previous night and read the first page and that was how the book started. And he taught me those words right then and there. I did not even know what “art” meant, especially in this context. Although I think I knew what “word” and “place” meant.

Back to Mrs. Shastri – for that was what we called her…, she closed the book and asked me “Do you want a double promotion?”. If I did not know what “art” meant, there was no way in God’s green earth I would know what a “double promotion” meant. I was scared out of my wits by her question. Instinctively, I felt that if she had closed the book before talking to me, that could not be good any which way to Sunday. I just bleated out “No, ma’m”. And she proceeded on with the rest of the lesson. Which, of course, I have no recollection of. Because my dad never taught me anything beyond that first line.

When I came home, I complained to my dad that he did not teach me the right thing and he should stay away from my books. My teacher had threatened to give me a “double promotion”. Some hearty laughter from him and for good measure, complete confusion from my side later, I sorted out that I was going to be okay with Mrs. Shastri. I might have even hit a home run with her, for all you knew.

Just as I was starting to feel really great about myself, my father said – “You gave the right answer. You are not mature enough to go to third grade”. And there went all my feeling great about myself. Never quite figured out who was more strict – my dad or Mrs. Shastri.

Why am I telling you this story now? Because I just finished up telling this story to Mrs. Shastri herself. You see, after getting out of second grade – way back in 1974 – a full 43 years later, I actually heard her voice today and talked to her over the phone. I have not met her yet (so the picture here is taken from her Facebook public profile) but I certainly intend to do so at the earliest.

One of the reasons our paths never crossed much after 1974 was that in 1976 I left that school and in 1978 she relocated back to her home state. And yet, it was crazy to find out how close we have been later without knowing of each other’s presence. Apparently, she used to come to Dallas to visit her son – during a time period when I lived there with my family!!! For all you know, I might have even seen her in one of those Indian grocery stores!!

It was great catching up with her and learning about her journey in life. It was exciting to hear about the book she has written (and one more is on the way) and her research and teachings in alternate methods of healing.

Towards the end, I had a nagging feeling that I was forgetting something as I kept my conversation up with with her. And then it hit me suddenly – “Before I forget ma’m… A very happy birthday!!”

As I kept the phone down, a sense of great happiness descended upon me. The fact that I was finally able to say “Thank You” to somebody who influenced me at such a tender age was an unbelievably satisfying experience!

And this story will not be complete without me thanking Mrs. Bose – my third grade classroom teacher – without whole help, I would have never found out Mrs. Shastri’s whereabouts!

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3 January 2017

Meeting my third grade class (home room) teacher

The year was 1975. About twenty five very young kids from third grade were asked to line up and walk towards the school gate. Any distraction from class work was always welcome; so we merrily started walking in a line. What was more exciting was that Mrs. Shastri – the teacher who was leading us – took us straight out of the school gate and onto Mirabai road. About a hundred meters down that road, we took a sharp turn and entered the outer garden of a bungalow. That was the bungalow of Mrs. Chobi Bose.

My memory is very unclear around why we visited our home room teacher Mrs. Bose that day. But I do not recollect seeing her in class again after that. Nearly 42 years later, my brother and I marched up to her house in Kolkata last evening. The best backdrop to the story above that I could put together yesterday is something like this: Mrs. Bose had left the school in the middle of the year in somewhat of an unplanned fashion. In all likelihood, Mrs. Shastri had taken all of us – her students – to visit her since she had left suddenly.

You know how sometimes some small incidents get permanently etched in your mind for no apparent reason? Well, I let Mrs. Bose know how I was struck that day back in 1975, by how well decorated her living room was. I still remember where I sat in her living room and was suitably impressed by those square pillows that were lined up against the wall on their vertices along their diagonals with very colorful covers. Mrs. Bose had a hearty laugh at my recollection.

My brother and I had such a great time chatting with Mrs Bose and finding out about her family. As if getting to see her and talk to her after such a long time was not a reward unto itself, she was, on top of that, able to give me two leads to two more of my teachers that I had been looking for some time. My second grade class (home room) teacher – that same Mrs. Shastri and my tenth grade class teacher – Mrs. Biswas.

Like that day forty two years back, I was again struck last evening by how tastefully Mrs. Bose’s living room was done. Admittedly those square pillows sitting on their diagonal were gone 🙂 But Mrs. Bose was the same old lively person that I remember from the mid seventies.

That was a great evening spent with a teacher from my elementary school days!! I am glad I got to see her after so many days!!

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1 January 2017

Our schoolteacher!!

Last time I was in India, I simply ran out of time after meeting five of my school teachers. This time, I wanted to make sure I got to meet Mrs. Nita Banerjee. While she was not ever my home room teacher or subject teacher (she had substituted for our home teacher who had to be away from school for a couple of weeks), I had heard from my friends who had her as their home room teacher that she had enquired after me. I was a little intrigued about how she remembered me.

I was simply astounded how much she remembered about me when I met her today. Again, last time I saw her was in 1983. There is something about teachers. They see a new set of students every year and somehow they have an incredible ability to recollect a few things about vast majority of those students. It is something that has always marveled me.

I was delighted to see Mrs. Banerjee after such a long time. In a complete reversal of roles, today, I explained to her my philosophies in life – why I quit work after every so many years, why I put a high premium on human relationships, the book that Bronnie Ware wrote and so on. I had a great time discussing some of those topics that are very close to my heart.

We had a lot more discuss but it was time for me to leave. We promised to discuss these philosophies in more detail next time… perhaps when she comes to US to visit her son…

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1 January 2017

Our renowned physics professor Dr. P.K.Mukherjee

Strictly speaking, “PKM” was never my teacher in any class. He was the Physics professor in RE College and his fame as a teacher was pretty well known. I had approached him during my summer vacation in eleventh grade when I was home from my residential school with a couple of Resnick Halliday problems. I remember him taking me under his wings and had asked me to come a couple of times in the week at 3 PM.

I do not recollect the exact days of the weeks but I remember that he wanted me to come when there were no other students (I guess 3PM on a Durgapur summer day can be oppressively hot) and we used to sit down and keeping working on Physics problems. He was one of the first guys I had called up after the results of my final exams a year later were announced.

I also remember one more incident when I had gone to his college to greet him in 1986. He was leaving to take a class and just asked me to join him. So, there I was – following him into his class and then sat with the rest of the students. He finished the whole session as if there was nothing awry. And it was totally a practical joke he had played. Because half the students in the class were my classmates from tenth and twelfth grades. They were way too surprised to see me in the class and very curious to find out what had happened but dared not do anything lest “PKM” Sir got mad!!

At the end of the class, he took me back to his office and we caught up. But not before he laughed out and “Kirokom dilam bol” 🙂 🙂

I had made an attempt before to meet him. But he was visiting his daughter – and a friend of mine Anushree-di – in USA. I gave it another shot today. Fortunately, I was able to see him in his house today. We caught up on a lot of things including old Resnick Halliday problems!! I even reminded him of a billiards ball problem in rotational momentum that had taken us three days to crack and till date, I remember the answer to that problem – 5h/7. Don’t remember the full problem though.

He was impressed with me recollecting the problem enough that I felt like saying “Ami ki dilam bolun” 🙂

Category: Intersection Points, Vacations | 6 Comments

3 July 2016

PT Sir!!

We were getting ready early in the morning to start from Durgapur to Kolkata when my brother and I had a brainwave – since we had covered some of my favorite subjects the previous day, why not see if we can cover my least favorite subject too. We knew the rough area and the rest we figured we would wing it. It was easier said than done. We got a little lost and had to make calls to a friend in Delhi to bail us out.

But that is how I met “Shanti sir” or “PT Sir” as he was called during our school days. After 31 years again!! Now PT sir was less of a teacher to us and more of a friend. I recollect him to be very jolly, very active and always smiling – almost bordering on breaking into a laughter at the least provocation. And he has not changed one bit. You can see from the picture – it would be hard to place him to be in his sixties.

Yesterday, I learnt his fascinating family history. Especially how he got to be a PT teacher because his dad wisely got him to leave our state to shield him from all the Naxal movement that was holding ground. And how he aced some of the athletics tests (I think in Gwalior) and the rest has been history.

There are a lot of memories I have of PT Sir. Two stick out. The first one was the day when I broke out into a bout of typhoid (see a previous blog about our Geography miss). He was the guy who had taken off his jacket seeing me shiver and put it on me instinctively. I remember bobbing in and out of deep sleep – and I felt a little comfortable at one point of time. Opened my dreary eyes and realized I had his jacket on me and he was standing next to me.

The second incident was very funny. As a background, just like many who know me today and not from before get surprised when they see any old picture of mine with a head full of thick and lush hair (I was not born this way, you know 🙂 Actually, I was. But that is not my point 🙂 ) similarly, they would find it very surprising to know that in spite of all my running and marathons and attention to physical health today, I was a terrible athlete most of my life. Using the word athlete itself would be a stretch.

I was a very wiry, nerdy guy. With parents extremely focused on my studies. I liked playing. And would try to do so whenever my parents were not watching. But I was outrageous in my skills. Rumors in school had it that I would not even know which end of a soccer ball to kick. Regrettably, there was a lot of merit to it. On an aside, I played soccer for my college team later in life but I will tell you that story later. It was more of a question of relative excellence since I studied then in a part of India that was not too familiar with that sport 🙂

If following PT sir’s instructions to run after the ball was not scary (because seven other guys would outrun me to the ball), attending the PT exams was an outright nightmare. I think it was such a test in my eighth grade. Or was it my ninth grade? In any case, he split us into two teams to play field hockey. In that entire period, the sum total of times that I touched the ball was – mmmm… let me think … if I count all the flicks, long shots, short passes, hard hits and accidental brushes with the ball….. ummm.. yeah, it was a big fat ZERO 🙂 In the end PT sir gave me a chance to hit the ball in the goal with nobody around but just the goalie. It took me three independent attempts to connect with the ball. That one time that did connect, for good measure, I connected with a whole lot of ground too. My chattering teeth moved much more than the ball did.

In any case, at the end of the whole episode, PT sir declared the grades for each students. I was one of the only three students to have achieved the distinction of getting a “C” grade. Everybody else got “A” or “B”. In fact, most got “A”. Frankly, it did not bother me. My parents would have not let me back in to the house if I ever brought back a “B” grade in any subject, but they did not care about my PT grade.

The funny thing happened a little later. First, I would not say that I was not disappointed. I was hoping for a “B”. May I remind you that I did connect with the ball eventually and it did head out in a generally appropriate direction? An “A” would have been uncalled for since it stopped within about a foot. A couple of my classmates – I distinctly remember Kushal, Jayanta, Sanjiv and Biplab walking up to PT Sir and saying – “Sir, O class-er first boy. Okay C grade dilen”? Basically they pleaded for a better grade for me on the grounds that I was the “first boy”. PT Sir, in one of those “I may be a teacher but I am your friend first” moment, promptly upgraded me to a “B” grade. I was elated! I plotted how to come up with stories of my excellent footwork and all that while explaining my hard earned “B” grade to my parents – then thought the better of it and opted for the real story. My dad had a good laugh!! My mom – who would have a fifty fifty chance to knowing which end of my hockey stick to hold – totally thought I deserved it. On a good day, I might have even got an “A”, she thought.

You can only imagine PT Sir’s surprise when I told him about my marathon runs. Once he had settled down from his guffaws, he looked at my brother (who, by the way was a true athlete and PT sir’s favorite student) and he confirmed what I had just said. In one of those spontaneous moves, PT Sir came over to me and shook my hand!! I could not believe it!! That was my triumphant moment!! I had finally earned our PT sir’s respect! Finally I got my “A” grade. Without any assist from Kushal, Jayanta, Sanjiv or Biplab!! Eleven years of trudging along the trails in merciless heat, torrential rain and bone chilling snow – all of that was made totally worthwhile – by that one handshake!!

I am a painfully slow learner but I eventually got there. Over thirty years later!!

Category: Intersection Points, Vacations | 4 Comments

1 July 2016

Sir Nandy!

Time to visit another teacher. I called up a number I had obtained recently. I was assured that was the right number.

“Achcha eta ki Mr. Nandy’r nombor?” (Is this Mr. Nandy’s number?)
“Hnah. Ke bolun to?” (Yes, Who is this? – he addressed me in the form of grammar used to address elders in Bengali)
“Sir, Amaakey aapni bolben na. Aami apnar purono student. 1983 batch. Naam Rajib Roy”. (Sir, don’t address me that way. I am much younger. In fact, I am a student of yours from 1983 batch. The name’s Rajib Roy”

“Rajib Roy maaney amaader Rajib?” (Rajib Roy? Are you our own Rajib?)
That was a very confusing question. I had no idea which Rajib he had in mind. This was getting more confusing than his alligation problems from Jadab Chandra Chakraborty math book.
“Kon Rajib bolun to”? (Which Rajib might you be referring to?) I asked.
“Narendrapur to?” (He referred to the school I went to for 11th and 12th grade)
“Osadharon smriti shakti aapnar”. I told him I was amazed by his memory.
“Aarey, tokey ekta cost accounting-er boi thekey khub shokto onko eney diyechhilam, mon-e aachhey?”

While life has prepared me for a lot of a situations, certainly it did not for this one where my math teacher from seventh and eighth grade not only pin pointed me from among thousands of students who he must have taught over the decades, but remembered the exact problem he had given me. I had no living recollection of that problem.

But then again, that is our Sir Nandy! Like I had mentioned in a previous post, between Sir Nandy and Sir Roy, you could not possibly escape getting the soundest of foundation in logical and mathematical thinking. I visited him yesterday. This was the first time I saw him after 1983!! A short 45 minute planned meeting went for nearly two hours.

I got to know his family history. As students, we never had shown interest in understanding our teachers’ backgrounds. We talked a lot about our school and how education has changed over the years. I also got to meet his daughter who is headed to the USA for her MBA degree. We talked a lot about living in the USA. By the way, I am impressed with the youth of today and technology. She has never seen that country (or any other country for that matter) but through the internet, she and a couple of her friends have already fixed a out of campus dorm, figured out what to buy from Bed Bath and Beyond and all that. At that age. I would have been lucky if I could figure out how to spell the American university name properly. And the state name if I really went Beyond 🙂

But nothing was more fun than discussing with Sir those problems where people, with no apparent real jobs would keep mixing milk and water repeatedly from two containers and then we had to calculate the proportions of each. Or those tubs of water that used to get filled with a tap but also seemed to mysteriously have a hole that water escaped thru and the hapless students like us had to figure out when would the tub get filled up. If ever. I mean, if ever, we could figure it out 🙂

“By the way, what was that problem you were referring to?”, I asked. The story I got from him was, apparently, I used to finish up my math problems in class quickly and sit down and idle in class. To keep me busy, he used to bring new problems for me – increasingly more difficult. Then he got frustrated – his words, not mine. Because I kept solving them. As he explained to my brother who was with me and also was his student – “Aami-o chharbo na. Oke aami thhekaboi.”. Basically, he felt he had to come up on top of this what he perceived as an escalating war. That is when he fished out a cost accounting book from his college days and chose the problem for me that he referred to in the phone call.

“Did he solve it?”, my brother asked.
Sir Nandy laughed out aloud. “What do you think?”.

I kept smiling sheepishly because. frankly I had no idea if I did or did not. But I am going to take that as a yes. Or that is the story I am going to stick to when I narrate this story to dad tomorrow. Else, he will make me call Sir Nandy up again for the problem and won’t let me go out for a run till I solve it successfully. I am telling you, my dad has not changed much.

That was a blissful time spent with Sir Nandy! On our drive back, I was not sure what I was more happy about – that I got to see him again after 33 years or that he had such detailed memory of me. I must have done something right somewhere, either way!

P.S. I have tried my best to write this in a way I do not come off as a self-boasting or showing-off person. I am sure in those days, I was an idiot. But hopefully, today I am not. In spite of my efforts, if this has hurt your sense and sensibilities, I sincerely apologize.

Category: Intersection Points, Vacations | 2 Comments