The Singularly Pluralistic man..(Chad sir who definitely touched the magic realism of the Moon) It was a sultry and dull evening, sometimes in the spring of 1984. I was on a singular journey to locate a house, somewhere in the cavernous by lanes of Rashbehari….I was rather diffident and my mind was overflowing with thoughts, that were, at best, ambivalent. I was apparently trying to find a home that belongs to Sri Aniruddha Lahiri. To be frank, I did not know him much then. Except to the extent that he was a gaunt and sombre looking gentleman, with exceptionally powerful glasses (later on I became cognizant of the Power – minus 22!!!), and a balding palate, who I often spotted in a distinct corner of our school library, always inebriated in studies and rumination, and is going to ‘teach’ me English. Today, I do not know if I have learnt the language, or captured its capricious tenets, but I do know, with a fair degree of certainty, that I have possessed an intelligent appreciative capability of the limitation of a linguistic barrier a language can bring upon in initiation. Aniruddha sir had an oceanic repertoire. Sitting at his feet for several years, I certainly discovered, almost singularly, to epic proportions, the plasticity and nuance of a foreign language. As I spotted out, after a considerable effort, the disquiet surroundings and a 2-storey house standing in the farthest corner of a dilapidated lane. Those were the days of frequent power outage, euphemistically called Load Shedding, that gave the antiquated place a somewhat spectral look. I knocked on the designated door, creepily, watching the apparitional surrounding. After some nervous moments it opened up. Sir was standing there, wielding a lantern. Before I muttered a single word, lights came…..!! It would be somewhat worthwhile to describe, in brief, the background of my being there. I was not oblivious to the fact that Sir taught only at an advance level, primarily because of his acute myopic conditions, and second, which I perceived to be more just, a student learning English would need to possess a matutinal disposition. I did not have that. I was rather an imposition on him. Because of my vernacular background till standard V, which landed me in a distinctive disadvantage compared to my illustrious peers in SPHS, I was already in an unenviable position that even turned out to be a classical case of egregious behavior meted out to me at times in school. Aniruddha sir was aware of this. He not only welcomed this ‘back door’ entrance, but what he did in next few years proved apocalyptic…. I heard stories, mostly apocryphal, about his serious demeanor, and difficulty in handling his mercurial temperament. I was also aware of his intransigence in terms of linguistic imperfections. His study was a rather large one, shelved on all but one side with books and magazines, several thousands of them, with subject ranging to infinitesimal. In next few years I tried to count them, in vain. Contrary to what I heard, he treated an amateur, suffering from linguistic apepsy, with dignity and just sympathy. Never even once he treated me with disdain or displayed condescension. His teaching method was elaborate, often invoking disquisition, yet simple. He never gave an opportunity to effectuate mendacious means. He would often ask to write, on varied topics, which he would carefully read and correct. I think ‘correction’ is an understatement here; he would, almost always, write a full story. His handwriting was calligraphic, distinct and overflowing in effortless efflux, weaving a story that would surely be efficacious of epic proportions…. There was, by the way, a focused lamp in his study, beneath which Aniruddha sir would contemplate and lose himself from the profane mundane, and focus on the solar plexus. That tall, standing light, creating a hallow with a definitive deep focus, would depict a silhouette of the giant of an intellectual, whose company I cherished for years. It would be apt to conclude with Wordsworth: The Music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 17:34:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015