To sir... with love

By Abhilash Gaur

SIR, allow me to wish you a very good morning! Good morning because, as you yourself, in your characteristically ‘frank’ manner, often admit before your students, you never step within the precincts of the college unless the hour be past quarter-to-one nor dwell there so much as a minute beyond five-past-three. Now, assuming that you subscribe to this particular newspaper (for I have observed that your books and attendance register are invari- ably arrayed in its sheets), I am inclined to believe that at this moment, your eyes are riveted on some write-up in these columns and, with some luck, they might alight on this laboured composition of your humble disciple.

When, if at all, they do,I am sure you willl experience bewilderment mingled with alarm and wonder why I should choose a widely read paper to address you instead of employing a more intimate means towards that end.

Well, sir, I am sure it would not have escaped your notice that for some time now — six days, to be precise — yours truly has remained absent from class without seeking your leave for the same. Under the college rules, truancy invites annulment of the enrolment of the student concerned. Therefore, I am overcome with a sense of desperation to somehow explain to you the circumstances necessitating this errant behaviour and, thereafter, to seek your pardon. I assure you that, sincere as I am, my defence, too, bears no trace of the banalities associated with the inveterate truant.

Trust me, sir, when I say that, over the past week, neither I nor one of my family members has been sick, that I have neither managed to miss the morning bus nor been stranded en route on account of punctured tyres, accidents or traffic jams; and also when I insist that I have verily remained ‘in-station’ all this while. Indeed, it is with the greatest mortification that I bring myself to reveal the reason for my absence. I am no longer able to recollect what subject you teach and as a result, find it impossible to place the hall (and hour) where (and when) I must see you! And, ironic, though it might seem, this condition has been brought on by nothing but the elevating influence of your boundless erudition.

Your lectures on the fundamentals of conjugal diplomacy are still fresh in my memory. That Mrs T your soulmate, is a busy lady, a lecturer in psychology with brilliant prospects of being promoted principal, is something you had impressed upon us on day one itself. However, it was in the subsequent lectures, when you dwelled extensively on the intricacies of running a household that we came to appreciate her merits (and your tact) better. How is she, Mrs T I mean? Do convey my regards to her, sir.

Then, there was that series of lectures on candour that I remember so well: that you are a ‘frank’ man, that you love to make ‘frank’ admissions such as those on the physical endowments of your erstwhile female colleagues or the more colourful ones, delineating your nocturnal carousals. These have, quite frankly, ennobled you in my eyes.

Besides, by your own ‘frank’ admission, you have more than a nodding acquaintance with most celebrities and you make it a point to thrash out the what, where and when of their lives in the class.

Thus it is, sir, that I, a being of average intellectual capabilities, swamped by this onrush of wise words, am not able to single out the one officially specified stream that you are lecturer of.

On one occasion I even got down to wondering whether you are an expert at time-management, after all you always emphasise how much you value your students’ time. Yet, on others, and for obvious reasons, I have concluded that you are a master of ethics.

Only yesterday, I had been on the verge of deeming you a lecturer of English: it so happened that the sad memory of the time we disagreed over the meaning of ‘self-indulgence’ came wafting to my mind. I recollected how very aptly you had explained the term as "indulging oneself in doing something" while I had foolishly argued it meant, humouring one’s impulses and desires.... But, as always, the exertion proved futile and I remain, sir, unaware of the branch of learning you are to lecture on.

Most revered sir, although circumstances have contrived to distance me from you, the preceding account bears testimony to the devotion, the ardour, with which I have, like Eklavya, assimilated your diverse teachings. Therefore, I beg you my guru, to spare my thumb.

Come what may, Ishall find my way back to you, but till that comes about, lose not your trust in me, sir, for I remain, yours devoutly!