“I shall put you in a mixer, grind
you and make each and every classmate of yours to drink that juice”! These were
the words that came out of one of my lecturer’s for ME!!
I was still in the second year of
my engineering and fortunately or unfortunately (more of unfortunate) I was the
class representative and even unfortunate was the fact that we had our classes
scheduled on the top most floor and to add to this, there was no elevator. Now
why do I call this as unfortunate, because as a class rep I am supposed to get
the chalk, the projectors remote and do all that shitty work for which I had to
eventually shed a couple of kilos (from an ambassador to the tango) climbing up
and down the stairs. To be honest, it was so so soooo much pain.
And there was this particular
lecturer who would never be happy without sending down to fetch something or the
other and that made me real crazy. He was a pain. For me he was like warlock taking classes
for us which were no less than nightmares. He was more like a wizard with those
devilish powers who could cast a spell and I was on the hit list of his spells
because I was that unfortunate class rep and that too of the class in which I
never wanted to be. I hated my class.
It was obvious that he didn’t
like me, and the feeling was no different for me either. There were many reasons that
supported it. That every hour he used to take was more like short film, with a mix of teaching and drama
which comprised of humor (which was humor only to him) and thrill because there
were instances wherein he used to threaten students that, if he/she fails to answer
the question, he shall throw him/ her out of the 5th floor through
the window and if they happened to answer then, he himself would jump down
(neither of which ever happened). So every day we had this short movie for an
hour and also eating our precious interval time every single day (The time, when I could
meet my friends from the other section) and this continued throughout.
One day, he had given us an
assignment, and he said, “Namratha, you are the class rep (damn, not again! I thought) and
it’s your responsibility to collect every person’s assignment and see to it
that it reaches to me by 12:30P.M., failing which I shall put you in a mixer, grind
you and then make each and every classmate of yours to drink that juice”! Having
this very bad habit of imagining and picturing things as and when people talk,
the very thought of it made me to giggle (though I wanted to laugh out my
heart) but then I realized sir is still staring at me.. ! you must be wondering
what on earth made me giggle when the rest of my classmates were so scared and
serious. Hea..hea.. The fact is that, by then I had realized that humiliation
for him, was a way to motivate his students. Somehow, every time he humiliated me, it
gave me a feeling of being doubly blessed..(or may be I was just getting used to it)
Days passed, and I was in the
final year, final semester where we have technical seminar, wherein every
student has to choose a technical topic and present on it for twenty minutes
and ten minutes for the Q & A. A
dreaded panel of about four to five lecturers was formed to evaluate the seminar.
We all hoped that the wizard doesn't turn out to be in our panel, but my bad
luck continued. Yes, he was one among the five panel members, all of them were
just like him.
Five of us were to present that
day, and I was the fourth presenter of the day. The previous three were royally screwed and it was my turn now. I begin my presentation at about 3:10 P.M. and I stopped talking
only at 3:45 P.M. I had stopped because I had reached the end of my
presentation, the thank you slide and I was now waiting for that dreaded panel
to shoot n number of questions at me. I looked at each of the panel members and,
one of them called my name out. I looked at him. He just shook his head and
said, “For your level of confidence, and for the way you presented today, HATS
OFF!!” and he not only said that, but he actually did it and applauded..and the entire class joined hands to applaud !! He also added that
“I wanted you on and on”. I still could not believe..Can I get a better compliment than that? Could I get it from him? Yes, it was
not from any other person, but from GP himself. (Yes, the wizard or the
warlock I was referring to was him, The GP Sir). He also added, “I don’t think, either of
us have any questions for you. “ And
what a day it was. All this while, he
blessed me through his humiliation and today he had actually praised me with
all dignity and I was so immensely blessed.
I never met him after my
graduation. I always thought I shall meet him when he can be proud about the fact that I was his student. The time was nearing, I wanted to meet him, but I can never meet him again because God had some other
plans. A call from god made him disappear. He is now gone, gone forever, leaving
behind the memories. Never ever will I forget that day, his words, and his way
of inspiring, his humiliations (motivation in disguise) and never will I forget
him.. R.I.P. GP Sir.
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