To Sir with Love

‘I have booked tickets for you in the Nilagiri Express. We get down at Coimbatore and head straight for school’, declared Sathya over the phone. I was literally being bulldozed into making it to the School after a gap of 26 years. And by booking tickets Sathya, my class mate at SainikSchool, Amaravathi Nagar and Secretary of our Amaravians ’82 batch was just making it all the more difficult for me to wiggle out of it. Did I have a choice? I have learnt that sometimes not having a choice in life actually turns out to be a blessing. Hoping luck would be on my side, I boarded the Nilagiri. And what a trip it turned out to be. It was a trip down memory lane, transporting me and probably others (Kumarasekhar, N Saravanan and of course Sathya) in the group to a time that was the most important period in our life, the childhood days, the period when we get shaped to face our future.

Manoharan our batchmate in school, now an architect, picked us all up at the Coimbatore station and even before the sunrise, we set off to our School, as Sathya had spoken to us about the need to make it early, in order not to miss the morning school assembly. Certainly I too didn’t want to miss the morning Assembly, where I had spoken a number of times on various topics. At Amaravathi Nagar, we were joined by two more of our batch mates, Suresh and V Narayanan. There were a lot more old students, especially from the '83 batch which was celebrating its Silver Jubilee. After breakfast, we were right in time for the assembly and some of the ‘old boys’ were invited to give motivational speech to the assembled students of past and the present. As I sat there listening, suddenly their voices faded and Mu Selvarasan’s booming ‘Thambi antha chunnambhu kattiyai kondu vaa’ (brother bring that chalk piece) rang in my ears. Probably retired long ago, Mu Selvaraasan our towering Tamil teacher was conspicuous by his absence in that assembly. My mind went back to the speech I had delivered in the same assembly almost 26 years back and tears welled in my eyes as I was flooded with memories of Mu Selvaraasan, our beloved Tamil Iyya, who made me feel very special after that speech.

My speech that day was in English and it was about the Disastrous role of religion in contemporary life. It was 1982, Rajiv Gandhi was yet to become PM and unlock the doors of Babri Masjid, vitiating the communal atmosphere and Khalistan was the issue of the day. I, a 12th Standard student began my assembly speech with a quote from Rousseau, ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains’, drawing parallels to the role of caste in Hinduism and how it kept the Dalits (then SC’s) enslaved. I spoke of the futility of fighting in the name of caste and religion by quoting a poem of the Tamil poet Subhramanya Bharathi.

‘Vellai nirathoru poonai
engal veetil valaruthu kandir
Pillaikal petrathu appoonai
Paambin niramoru kutti
Vellai paalin niramoru kutti,
Sambhal niramoru kutti,
Vellai chandhu niramoru kutti,
Inniram siridhenrum, inniram peridhendrum yetram kozhalamo?
Thayai porutha mattil avai yavum oru tharamandro’ from Kottu Murase

In short Bharathi, the great Tamil poet speaks about a white cat in his house that gave birth to kittens of varying colours. “Would the mother discriminate its kittens on the basis of colour? Are they not equal to the mother?” asks he. And that was exactly the point I was trying to make. God, I felt was not going to differentiate his children on the basis of the religion. So why fight in the name of religion, I asked.

Having covered my self with quotes from two eminent men, with confidence I moved on to trickier and problematic terrain by pointing out the deficiencies in each religion as it was being practiced then. The caste in Hinduism was unfortunately bedeviling Christianity too, I observed. Even after conversion one is still known as a Parayar Christian or Nadar Christian and so on. Why carry the stigma of the caste, I wondered. And then it was the turn of Islam, where I lamented the fact that some of the preachers and followers were making very narrow interpretations of the religion, taking it to stone ages.

I concluded my speech with a quote from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali
“Leave this chanting, singing and rolling of beads,
Open thine eyes and see where you are.
You are inside the temple with all the doors shut.
God is there where the tiller is tilling the soil,
And the path maker is breaking the stones.
He is with them in sun and shower.”

This was a speech I had prepared well and it was delivered well without any stage fright, as by then I had given a number of speeches before. As I was walking down to take my seat after the speech, I could sense an approval from the principal and some of the students. Before getting into the class a few students, juniors complimented me. However during lunch at the mess, I was curious about the reaction of my English teacher, a man from the minority faith, who used to sit next to me at the head of the table. I asked him out of my curiosity. He didn’t bother to look at me. Without raising his head from the plate and waving the fork and spoon in his hand, he glowered, “I won’t worry about what I have in my hand, whether it is a fork or a knife. I will just kill you, if you speak ill about my religion next time.” I was a bit surprised and disappointed by his reaction. However I was convinced of what I spoke. Having made his displeasure known, the English teacher continued eating as if nothing had happened. Neither did he demand an apology, nor did I offer one. He was generous enough to forget the whole issue immediately and never held it against me. Probably he thought it was a juvenile speech not worth being taken seriously.

On the contrary Mu Selvaraasan, my Tamil Iyya seemed to have a different opinion, but very typical of him, kept it to himself for about three days. Mu Selvaraasan was an extradinary man. He would walk into the class with an authority, place himself in front of the black board and with his back turned to us, with his right hand extended and looking nowhere in particular, he would ask for a chalk piece in his own booming, pure Tamil, ‘Thamby, antha chunnambhu kattiyai kondu Vaa’(Brother bring the chalk piece). We used to be mesmerised by this man, who spoke unadulterated Tamil and seemed immensely proud about his language and origins. It was he who once looked at me and declared that ‘You Tamil Muslims speak the most pure Tamil’. It was news to me and I felt immensely pleased and proud. He never explained as to how come we of all Tamils spoke the most pure form of Tamil. Nevertheless in a school, where occasionally I used to be bullied and taunted and told rudely to ‘go away to Pakistan’, the Tamil teachers certificate of my uniqueness in upholding the glorious Tamil made me feel at home and ignore those occasional barbs. To a teenager living away from his parents, his words were very comforting.

As I mentioned earlier, Mu Selvaraasan did not react to my speech that day when it was his turn to conduct the Tamil class. I too wasn’t expecting any reaction from him. However on the fourth day, as he entered the class, he closed his eyes, and in a dramatic way with his right arm raised and the forefinger pointing upward as if making a point, he announced “Thambi Anvar, 3 naatkalukku munnar naam umadhu uraiyai kettom. Miga nandraga irunthathu. Anal udanadiyaga naam paaratavillai. Karanam ennvendral, ethanai naatkal nam manathil antha urai nirkirathu endrariyave inru varai kaathirunthom. Moonru naatkalakiyum indrum namadhu manathil andha urai pasumaiyaka irukkiradhu. Mika pramadhamana urai. Emadhu vaazhthukkal.” (Brother Anvar, we heard your speech three days back. It was good, but we didn’t appreciate it immediately because we wanted to see how long the speech lingered in our mind. Even after three days, the speech is still reverberating in our mind. It was a great speech. Congratulations.)

I have received many prizes for my extempore and elocution skills but nothing would compare to the word of appreciation that came from my Tamil teacher, an appreciation which he made it clear, came from the depths of his heart, and deliberately withheld for three days to test the power of my speech.

Coming back to reality, as speaker after speaker spoke at the Amaravians Alumni Association meet of 2008, trying to motivate the young students, it was Mu.Selvaraasan who was looming large in my mind. Missing that great man, a big motivator and influence in my life, who was conspicuous by his absence in that special assembly, tears welled in my eyes.