To Sir, With Love

My first teacher was a kind woman who lived near our house and taught at a government primary school. Each day, she arrived at our home for an hour to tutor my sister and me. I was about five, and my memories of those lessons are tinged with a soft haze. She introduced us to the rudiments of Malayalam, our mother tongue, and simple arithmetic. We scribbled on slates with chalk and slate pencils, wiping them clean with the ubiquitous “mashi thandu” humble shrub!

Next came Saroja, affectionately known as Saroja Teacher, a Brahmin in her mid-twenties who lived nearby. When my sister and I visited her home for lessons, we were greeted with an array of Tamil delicacies—sweets, savories, bajjis, and fluffy paniyarams. She taught at Holy Angels Convent School, where we studied, guiding me from first to fourth standard. Her home held a treasure trove: her brother’s vast collection of comics. I was captivated by the adventures of Phantom, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, and Mandrake the Magician. Her brother, a spirited dropout, spent his days immersed in comics, relishing food, and setting off firecrackers during Deepavali—a charming rogue by any measure. Saroja Teacher disapproved of my comic-reading between lessons, warning that their imperfect grammar could stunt a child's language. Thankfully, her elder sister’s gentle intervention let me lose myself in those vivid pages.

Around third standard, alongside Saroja Teacher’s classes, we began lessons with Ms. E. Sawyer, a middle-aged spinster who lived across the street. An Anglican by descent—not Anglo-Indian—she tutored us in English, often even in her kitchen as the aroma of her cooking filled the air. Her parrot, Polly, spoke English with startling clarity, outshining our own efforts. Years later, I sought her out after she moved to another part of town. She was very glad I remembered to visit her. But a few years later when I went there to only find strangers living there. If alive today, she would surely be over a century old—a quintessential Englishwoman, an enigma stranded or adrift in the subcontinent.

When I was in fifth standard, Mr. Sankaranarayana Iyer, a retired headmaster in his eighties, began teaching us at home on alternate days. A masterful educator in English, mathematics, and beyond, he transformed learning into a voyage of discovery. His lessons were never forced; instead, he invited questions and wove captivating tales into our studies. I still recall how he eased the dread of algebra by recounting stories of the Second World War, Churchill, and de Gaulle, making the subject almost palatable. His diverse anecdotes kept boredom at bay, embodying his belief that learning should be a joy, not a chore. He taught us through eighth standard. Years later, after college and into my working life, I visited him in Sreevaraham, Thiruvananthapuram. In his late nineties, he was frail yet sharp, recognising me instantly. Our final meeting, at his son’s home, eyes rheumy, found him weakened, unsure of who I was. He passed away soon after.

One moment stands out, etched with goosebumps: a reunion with another teacher after nearly a decade. I had last seen him when I visited his modest apartment at Government Model High School to invite him to my wedding. Retired from teaching, he served as the school’s chief warden, a role offered by the school in gratitude, along with a room beside the boarders’ block. A bachelor with no surviving family after his mother’s passing, he was a respected figure in Thiruvananthapuram. Of medium height, lean, and bald, with a flowing white beard and clad in an ochre dhoti and kurta, he carried the aura of a sage. Nearly every notable person educated at the school had been shaped by his guidance.

It was the morning of my cousin’s wedding in Thiruvananthapuram. As the groom’s traditional reception unfolded at the mandapam gates, I walked beside my cousin in the procession. Amid the crowd, I glimpsed a frail figure with a white beard, and he saw me. With a cry like a warrior’s call, he rushed forward, arms wide, shouting, “Eda Anil!” (Dear Anil). His bear hug was fierce, and I, caught in the moment, lifted him off the ground. Tears glistened in his eyes. As a family friend of the bride and their honoured guest, he brought an unexpected joy to the day. The crowd, unaware of our bond, stood stunned by this outpouring of affection from a teacher to his former student—a mediocre one, at that. He was Mr. Narayana Kurup, beloved “Kurup Sir.”

He passed away peacefully years ago, mid-meal at a local restaurant.

To “Sir, with love!”

The Electrician

Someone, look alike of Oliver Twist peeping from outside the main gate of my office. He was seen standing outside with confused but eager look, and I noticed him through the day when ever I ventured out.

The next morning, the watchman came in to my cabin and enquired if he can permit a boy to come in and that he wants to have word with me. Also that he was persistent that he was hanging around the gate since yesterday and would never go.

I remembered the chap I noticed the day before. I asked the watchman to send him in. He came in rather timid watch full but unsure of his next step forward, rather furtively- whether he should make it or not. He was certainly a late teen version of Oliver Twist- the image that we have seen in the work of Dickens. He wore khaki trouser, but no footwear. His long sleeved shirt was dirty and slightly open at seams. His hair was dirt brown and looked altogether not cocooned in a healthy comfortable living.

He was from a village south of Tamilnad, beyond Madurai. He has been in the city for a few days now and his hunt for livelihood was fruitless. He indeed looked distraught and famished. I asked him what work he could do. He pulled out a multiple folded plastic cover from inside his trouser pocket and took out a certificate which was almost in tatters. It said that,”Subu Raj …. Is approved Electrician in grade…” And that he has passed the Electrical curriculum from ITI.

SubuRaj reported to duty at 8. And precisely, the next morning. He was in a different clean trouser and shirt, but crumpled. He was bare footed. I called him sometime in the day and told him that he will have to compulsorily wear leather footwear while he is on work. I remember giving him a little advance for immediate personal chores.

He married in a year’s time. And I understood he lived with his young wife in a rented dingy room near the factory. He proved to be a fantastic worker. He had this keen sense and uncanny ability to handle electrical works, installations, trouble shoot, and all with élan, perfection and neatness. There was no hanging wires not tended points and all the haphazard matters typical of electrical works we often see in many places. I never had a breakdown in the factory and office while he was around. He eagerly ran errands for other members of the staff and fixed their electrical works in their homes.

He did a perfect and professional work in the new factory premises we wanted to commission. Later C asked him if he could do the electrical plan for the 4 acre plot we bought and wanted to build a small house amidst a jungle of trees. He planned things so wonderfully that in no time we planted some four hundred trees on the land. He did a wonderful work in electrifying various points on the land, drip irrigating every sapling. There was a small shack that was built on a corner of the plot, where tools and electrical mains were installed. Suburaj was asked if he would to stay there in the night. He was at ease. We lived some five kilometers away.

One morning around 7’o clock, I and C was on the verandah sipping tea and scouring the daily. The phone rang inside, and C took the call. I went in hearing C give a howl. She turned to me holding the phone and said,”Suburaj is dead, he hung himself.”

I soon began getting calls from other guys in the office. Some were already at Suburaj’s dingy home. They told me that he went back to his room after the night shift around 3 am. He even had tea in the way side shop and chatted with the guys loitering there, smoked cigarettes. He told them he will be back by 8 after dawn. And at 5 in the morning his sister-in-law who lived next doors along with two of her brothers went past his room and seeing the door open she peeped in to see the poor fellow’s body hanging lifeless from the ceiling. No one could tell what transpired in Suburaj’s brain between that short while from the teas shop to his hanging.

I asked the guys to inform the police and ensure that all help is extended to his brothers –in law to transport the corpse to their village. I promised to be there as soon as the policemen took charge.

At 8 am I stopped by the office to speak to the crowd of workers who gathered in shock. I got a call then from one of the staff that Suburaj’s corpse has been taken by the brothers- in law in a Taxi to their village. And that they were in a hurry. The police wanted the sub-inspector to be present before they could visit the scene. I was shocked at the haste and the lack of legal formalities. No autopsy, no police records. It can bring me trouble as he was on my payroll. I called the police station to record my anguish and complaint at the total lack of legal formalities. I suddenly felt something odd and expressed it to the policeman who attended my call. He said,” Why must you worry? The chap is dead, killed or extinguished himself and found in his place. Nothing happened in your premises. Let us not bother much. You take care of your matters. We have a lot of work to do than run after a dead man.”

Suburaj was not cremated in his village but buried and the same evening. I was told his uncle wanted it so.

His uncle a middle aged man came to my office one day and spoke to me. He said that he tried in vain to get the local police to exhume the body for an autopsy. And that he was certain the Suburaj was killed and then hung. He was adamant that the foul play was perpetrated by the two brothers in law.

Later it transpired that Suburaj was having a liaison illicit and amorous with his young sister in law (wife’s sister) who lived next doors. And his wife was upset with the matter and she went back to her village. And that Suburaj used to take his sister- in-law to the shack on our land for his amorous extremities. The brothers in law were furious that they could not dissuade either of them and struck on the plan to put an end to the man himself. I sat listening to all the matters in dazed attention.

 And even when his wife and infant son came with her brothers to collect his pending salary money, and dues, I could only mechanically sit and listen to the eulogies his brothers in law reeled out about him. When they were departing, I commented,”Suburaj did not kill himself, he was murdered and then hung.”

I Did Not Know What to Tell

                   The School Flat with the Chapel

The first time I travelled without shackles- without the company of someone from home was when I and a few delinquents sneaked out on a train journey to Quilon some 70 kilo meters away from Thpuram. We went to the beach there and loitered before eating a good platter of mutton curry and parattha.I must have been sixteen or there about. It has been stifling times at home, more because I was a rebellious character. Perhaps it is better to rephrase and say, a different sort of fellow unusual for a conventional family with quite conservative leanings in tune with the establishment. I ceased to be religious in the conventional sense, no temple and Providence  from that age, was questioning everything including the existence of God or even he himself if he were real; began to be fascinated with skeptical readings in literature. Rebelled against the diktat from home to keep away from friends etc as they thought friends were bad influence, even the good ones next doors. In the bargain I landed with some unsavory elements to the great distress of my mother.

I dreamt about a life in the boarding. While in college I was in awe about the fellows who lived in the boarding. The College hostel was tucked in the midst of a rubber plantation and we used to venture there during recess. It was a different fantastic world. But I knew that my yearning will be still born as I hailed from the same town.

When years later, we had to decide to admit A in a school away from the town we lived, the only option was to put him there as a boarder. Constraints of our work , besides lack of good educational infrastructure in that town we lived then, gave us no room to manoeuvre and the option was to put him in that distant school in Ooty as a boarder. He was then going into the first standard. The agony that we went through, and the distress and lost feeling him as little child went through then, are still painfully alive in memory. Both the children growing up were given enough room to manouevre, and freedom to tell us, talk to us anything and everything. I was keen that they must not feel the constriction I felt when I was their age. They still enjoy the freedom and we hope they make intelligent and conscientious use of that.

There were interesting alumni there. People who came back with their children.  One day during our visit to the school we saw this guy in his forties hugging the huge pine tree near the hostel of the primary class laughing with tears in his eyes. He later confided that he was a parent and it was to this tree that he used to go to while he was border during his bouts of loneliness and home sickness. He said he used to hug the tree for long and feel comfort.

The school was not an elite institution fees wise, as well as by way of philosophy and motto. It was an institution that was begun by an English clergy man some seventy five years ago. With both our children doing their schooling from the first standard there, we can confidently content that their formative years were well taken care by the institution. Now to hope that they carry those things of value they imbibed from there through into their lives.

A, passed out his twelfth from there four years ago. He was the Head Boy in the final year. And being an active participant in various activities especially music and dramatics he was in the elite group fancied by the Principal and the faculty. But strangely the relationship of the whole class with the Principal turned sour towards the fag end of the term. The Principal was a strict disciplinarian and that may have turned the tables on the boys and girls of the twelfth who were all in a rebellious age in their lives. The precarious times when one is not a child, but is neither an adult though one wants to be noted so.

A’s class mate and chum,G, as this boy may be called was a happy go lucky sort of fellow with occasional exploits and fond of girls. The Principal had notified that if found in sneaking on conducts considered unsavoury, dismissal from school, or confinement to the school hospital tucked up far in the campus for other infractions will be certain. Infractions such as carrying a tuck, pocket money, cell phones in the locker for instance.

A, used to tell us his apprehension when he was home on short breaks from school. That G is being recalcitrant and may land up in serious trouble. He was warned by A to avoid his flirtations. He did not want an incident to mar the year. But G being the glamour boy for some girls, A was in a quandary. G was too indulgent! One night during the group study, G and his girl friend were hauled from the garden nearby. It was the Gorkhas who busted the matter. News reached A, and he slapped G for the infringement. The Gorkhas refused to hush up the matter. The lid was blown and G was dismissed. The Principal smelt that the matter was going on for some time and he was furiously cross with A for not revealing it. A was adamant during the enquiry and the threat to strip him off the Head Boy badge, that he was not aware. The Principal did not believe him. He mentioned the matter to me, while I met him to collect A’s mark sheets and certificates after the examination results were published. I felt quite miffed when the Principal covertly aired the accusation to me. I felt cross with A. It was the feeling a father would have when someone accuses his child of infarction and misconduct.

I could only tell the Principal that I will enquire with A.

When I confronted A, he said, “Yes I knew about G’s relationship. I even hit him and tried to discipline him. I forewarned him of the peril should his conduct be known. The whole class was aware of how I took him to task and reprimanded him often. But if the Principal wanted me to be a snitcher, well no, I cannot be one. G is my friend, he may have done wrong. But I cannot disown him and compromise him. Not over even the threat of my dismissal or stripping me off the badge of the Head boy."

I did not know what to tell.

     A, & friends getting ready for the farewell dinner ( 2008)