SIVAKAMI AMMA

Sivakami is Lord Siva's Parvathi. Though I had known Sivakami Amma, about whom is this note, for nearly five decades as my Gurupathni and also as my mother's friend I never knew her name. Yes, Sivakami Amma is Iyer Sar's wife. Sivakami and Anantha Siva Iyer. What greater match?

A week ago I had my mobile phone ringing displaying an unsaved number. I was dumbfounded hearing a graceful dignified feminine voice "monae, Iyer Sarinte bharya aanu" (son, I am Iyer Sir's wife). She went on "I asked Ramani (her son) to give me a printout of your blog. Son, I read it over and over again. Every day I read it ever since I read it first last week ....... many a time and I will start crying. Then Ramany will snatch away the printout from me. Son, my joy knows no bounds reading your adoration for Sir. I feel like seeing him ..... as if he stands before me. Son, I feel humbled .... I am the wife of such a highly venerated person. Son, while talking to you my eyes are overflowing with tears of joy. God bless you"

By this time I too was crying. I felt like Iyer Sar blessing me. Had a sense of fulfilment. Could not have asked for more.

Why do I remember Iyer Sar?

Immediately after my previous post “Iyer Sar”, Sam Varghese confronted me with the statement that  I have started the write up with a blatant lie. He says that my statement that I have thought of Iyer Sar every day all these years is unbelievable. In a way Sam cannot be blamed. Remembering a teacher every day even after forty-five years surely sounds incredible or crazy or honestly said, as Sam did, a lie. I didn’t  feel hurt as I knew that what I said was not only true but  an understatement even.  One solace was that the ever doubting Shyla did not question. Anyway, I feel, I owe an explanation.

As I mentioned in the previous post, most often remembering Iyer Sar occurs while reading “The Hindu” (or for that matter, any English news paper). Even two days back there  was a news  item in connection with  demonetisation. The reserve bank came out with a statement that almost all the demonetised money have come back to the banks and the title of the article in the news paper was “Much DeMo about nothing”. Shakespeare’s “Much Ado about nothing” flashed through my mind and the glowing eyes of Iyer Sar behind those thick glasses too.

 Forty-five years ago who else would have told me about Keats ....” a thing of beauty”? Who else would have given me that “Joy for ever”?
   
 I cannot claim that I am a man of immense confidence. I am usually broken even by the slightest signs of distress. Yet there had been occasions  when I could show some composure and wait for good days, thanks to Iyer Sar who told us of Shelley .... “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”

E John Jacob alias Pradeep was an English teacher in CMS college. He was one or two years younger to me and we were very good friends. Anyone would love to be his friend. He was a great human being, a brilliant teacher and one of those rare English teachers who would think in English. As he thought in English his language was fluent and very elegant too. During our early years in the CMS College, one day we were sitting in the common staff room and while chatting, in some context, I said “Achilles heel” and in his typical style he exclaimed “Oh Raj, you have heard of Achilles?”  Then I had not thought that knowing Achilles was such a big thing to elicit such an exclamation from someone like Pradeep. I told him about Iyer Sar and his special ways of his teaching, transforming students.

 I have any number of instances to narrate. It was from Iyer Sar I first heard of “deceptive appearance”, “cup of tea”, “both ends meet” and many more. And of spellings. Dictations were an integral part of his classes and he used to pick those words students are likely to misspell. Lieutenant, Colonel Bourgeois, Rendezvous  etc. And “ etc” to me would have been exetra ant not etcetera but for Iyer Sar. One day during the “spelling bee” he said "Diesel". All of us wrote it right and the only one to misspell was George Koshy. Incidentally Mr Koshy George father of, George Koshy, then owned one of the two petrol pumps in Mavelikara.

 I don’t know whether others remember their teachers the way I do. I certainly remember all those teachers who have impacted my intellect and my heart. My gratitude towards them is beyond description and it will remain undiminished for ever. Having written this much as an explanation, I think it is my duty to write about some other  teachers too whom I remember with reverence and gratitude, the way I remember Iyer Sar.

Iyer Sar

Prof A Anantha Siva Iyer might sound exotic. But the Guru in my heart is Iyer Sar. So should be it with the tens of thousands of his students. Iyer Sar is no more with us, but he will live in the hearts of his disciples the world over. This may sound a cliche but I feel that any lesser expression will not just suffice to portray the real picture. It was during 1971-73 that I had the good fortune of attending his classes in Bishop Moore College, Mavelikara. Honestly I can say that since then there wasn't a day I had not thought of him. Almost every day there cropped up some incident to remember him. Let me start with the following one some twenty five years ago. Then in my late thirties, I was traveling by the Parasuram express to Thiruvanandapuram. During such travels I seldom talk or mingle with the fellow travelers as I enjoyed the fleeting sights through the window. My fellow traveler was in his  sixties and had all the looks of a high ranking government official. That was another reason for my keeping aloof. But he took the liberty to intrude and started talking to me. I remember the disdain on his face learning that I am a college teacher. Bluntly he told me on my face that ninety per cent of the college teachers in Kerala are good for nothing. He went on to say that there are gems outside but they are never selected. They remain in the dark unfathomed depths. They remain unseen and have to waste their talents etc etc. Usually I don't contest such audacious statements but suddenly I felt a flash in my mind and said, "Sir, I see Thomas Gray in your words." Saying this I recited Gray,
                 "Full many a gem of purest ray serene
                  The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
                  Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
                 And waste its sweetness on the desert air".
The disdain turned  into disbelief and he asked me, " You said you teach Physics and you know this?"
I proudly, yet with feigned humility, waxed eloquent about Iyer Sar.
I am addicted to "The Hindu". I find that most of the headings have a background which I would have missed but for Iyer Sar. Recently a girl called Priya Warrior was catapulted to stardom with just one wink and The Hindu had this caption " The wink that launched a million likes?" Reading this I remembered Iyer Sar narrating the Dr Faustus exclamation,
               "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
                 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"
I remember Iyer Sar as a teacher who often went far beyond the text book and at times took the students to the horizons of fantasy. That was an experience beyond description. He used to quote profusely from the classics suiting well with the context. But for his classes I would never have  understood the wisdom or otherwise of lending and borrowing. He quoted from Hamlet,
               "Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
                 For loan oft loses itself and friend."
These days when elected members of the people are herded from resorts to resorts, I remember Iyer Sar telling us about Bernard Shaw's "Last Resort"
He used to enter the class like a gentle breeze but would induce a "Tempest" in the thought process of the discerning student. Never made any "Ado" in the class. The classes were like the freely flowing bansuri of Chaurasia.
I disagree with Shakespeare (these also I heard from Iyer Sar) when he says in King Lear and Macbeth,
               "Life is a tale told by an idiot,
                Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"
No. No idiot could have ever told the tale of of the life of Iyer Sar. A life where there weren't any  sound and fury.And of course, a life that signified a lot.
               "As flies to wanton boys, are we to gods,
                 They kill us for their sport"
No, no, no I disagree. Iyer Sar lived a glorious life of eighty six years.
A life that his family can be proud of. A life that arouses awe in anyone who had the good fortune of interacting with him. A life that students look upon with huge admiration and gratitude .A life as a peerless teacher who taught with a purpose. A life no ordinary mortal can emulate.            
Now an anecdote from a Virginea Woolf short story.
The soul of a very nice man who lived a very good life on earth was proceeding towards heaven after his death. On reaching the gates the person in charge could not find his name in the list of entrants. But the person in charge was very sure of the man's eligibility and he contacted God and  God answered. "The person qualifies to be here in heaven. But the guy has regularly attended the classes of great teachers and thus on earth itself he has enjoyed all that we have here in heaven and much more. So for the time being we send him hell"
Do the students of Iyer Sar face this danger??
Respected Sar,
I bow my head in reverence. I thank you for all I could learn from you.You will be remembered for ever ......and of course......in particular.....every time I hear the notes of Sreeragam. Endaro Mahanubhavulu .........

Shyla, I and The Schrondinger's Cat

1983 or 1984 I don’t remember exactly. My right ankle had sprained. Those days there weren’t specialty or super specialty hospitals unlike as in these days when we have such hospitals separately for the right ankle and left ankle. In Mavelikara, the PM hospital, popularly known as “Pilippintasootri” (Philip's Hospital) was the panacea. After the registration formalities I was told to follow the nurse to the doctor’s room. Limping, I found it impossible to catch up with the fleeting nurse, a young little girl. After moving in “first gear’ for some time I could spot the angel waiting impatiently for this hapless patient. Seeing me limping towards my destination the angel flew into the doctor’s room, came out in no time and waved to me indicating that I can go in. In a little while after the angel flew past me I reached the room still in the “first gear”. I gently pushed the half-door and tried to sneak in. I found the doctor, again a small little girl, examining a patient who was lying on the patient’s table. The table was the typical narrow one that can just keep the patient from falling down like the Newton’s apple. Also, these tables are often very high so that the doctors examining the patient will not have to bend.  Though the table is designed so for the comfort of the doctor this girl-doctor (read lady-doctor) was standing on her toes to have at least  a glimpse of the patient. The patient was a fat man in his sixties and that added to the effective height ( and  also to the misery of the young doctor)of the point of examination.  Seeing the doctor struggling to examine the patient I withdrew from the room and waited like a decent citizen never eager to jump the queue. I was then in my twenties and had this mischievous thought. Instead of standing on her toes and trying in vain to plant the resonator of the stethoscope on the patient’s chest she could carefully throw it and achieve her aim !!! There was a chair near the patient’s table and standing on that and examining was the easiest thing to do but a doctor cannot do that.  Standing there, now in neutral gear, I explored various possibilities but none was worthy of being conveyed to a doctor (one was to ask the patient to climb down and lie on the floor !!!).  Some fifteen minutes might have elapsed. The angel appeared again and with a contemptuous stare asked me “didn’t go inside, yet?” Before I could open my mouth she ordered “just go in”. I felt like telling the angel that you are only a little girl still in your teens and I am twenty seven and am teaching in the first college in India, the CMS college, Kottayam. Those days I thought that teaching in CMS was a great thing.  It was only much later I realised that what matters is what you teach and how. Anyway wisdom prevailed and I went inside. This time I was not as much gentle with the half-door as I was earlier. The doctor still standing near the patient turned back and seeing me she shrieked “Edo, Iyyallo”. She abandoned the patient and seeing me limping, came to me and helped me sit on the stool near the patient’s  table. “That was like an angel” I told myself. I too was pleasantly surprised. She was Shyla. Shyla P Sankunni. Now  Dr Shyla P Sankunny. The brilliant head of the 1973 II II B (read 2 2 B) batch of the Bishop Moore College Mavelikkara. I had not seen her since then but had learnt of her 2^nd rank in BSc Botany in the Kerala University and joining the Kottayam medical college for her MBBS.

Time was ticking away and this doctor had no intention of asking me what brought me there. She kept narrating old stories and inquired about what all happened to me after I left Bishop Moore College etc. I too felt very happy seeing her after some ten years. It was some ten minutes and the doctor was in no mood to examine the sprain on my right ankle. The pain was disturbing but we kept talking all bla bla bla. The room was very small and I could not even stretch my legs to make myself a little more comfortable.  Sitting on the stool made me more uncomfortable and I banked on the table behind me with my elbow resting on the table knowing well that this can be considered indecent by the patient lying there. But I wanted to relax a little. It was another ten minutes and I thought I should remind the doctor of her duties towards her patients  as I started feeling a sort of conscience prick thinking of the abandoned patient on the table just behind me. I told myself,” The guy must be too weak. Otherwise he would have got down from the table and walked off in protest against this neglect or insult”.  In a low voice I conveyed my concern to the “unethical” doctor.

Shyla rose from her seat, laughed aloud and told me “Edo athoru dead body aanu” ( Bro, that’s a dead body).

My good heavens !!! For so long I was sitting with a dead body ?!? Oh oh my elbow was even touching him !! oooh!!  Instantly  I sprang on my feet and jumped on to the veranda crashing the half door and in the melee I forgot to protect my right ankle and as it happens on such occasions I landed on my right foot ! I heard a small sound and I told myself that something has broken inside my leg. But alas, the pain has disappeared  !!!  Is this the healing touch of doctors ??

Kaippuniam. Kaippuniam indeed, I told myself.

The next day I went again to the PM hospital. By the night  I realised that my landing after the “three-and a half somersault” was not “perfect”. The problem with the right ankle has shifted to the left one. So the sound I heard was not the right one getting cured but the left one getting injured.

Note: Those who have not learnt Quantum Mechanics kindly Google for The Schrodinger's Cat.

JOHN CHACKO MENON

Hope you have read my previous post "SINE, COS, TAN, LOG AND LOGJAM ". If not please read it.

There was another contribution to the logjam. That again comes from the cos thetha - sin thetha teacher. Just before leaving  after that devastating first class he made an announcement."All of you should buy the Physics text book by John Chacko Menon !!!!!!!" I was thrown of my seat. John Chacko Menon ???? A staunch follower of Christ, I could not append a Menon to my Christian belief. I could not believe that a person can have a name like that. "Cultural integration", "integration of faith", and such integrating terms were yet to be coined as there weren't any sort of disintegrations those days other than that of the radio active variety. Later in life I heard about Cherian Nair immortalized by the immortal Kuthiravattom Pappu in the movie "Poochakkoru Mookkuthi". After that I heard Amar Akbar Antony. Then those three great men," Sagar Alias Jacky" !!! (Throughout that Mohan Lal film people searched for the elusive Mr Alias). But this John Chacko Menon was really devastating for the 16 year old boy of the early seventies. It took me some more days to come to grips with John Chacko Menon. This John was Prof K.K John of S.B college. I had the good fortune of being his student during my BSc. He was a great teacher. I owe a lot to him. He taught Physics with incredible clarity. And the Chacko was Prof K.C Chacko. When I joined the Physics dept of CMS college, he was the H.O.D.  And Prof Menon was in one of the NSS colleges. And to sum up, I bought the book by John Chacko Menon and realised that Physics is a very secular discipline.

SINE, COS, TAN, LOG AND LOGJAM

My previous two posts were describing my nightmarish experiences in the Physics and the Chemistry labs.
This one is about my first Physics theory class at the Bishop Moore College. The lecturer took to the platform and started speaking something in English. Even before I got time to start shivering in fear and despair he drew a right-angled triangle on the board and started raining statements like "sine thetta = opposite side/hypotenuse". Thetta? My Good Heavens !! And sine thetta?? After some more jugglery with some more words I had never heard, he wrote on the board "logarithm" and started saying "log of a number is defined as ..." !! I sat like a log.
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After this Physics class I came to the conclusion that I will never pass the pre-degree course. And what next.......?? I never knew. As confusion grew into chaos a wonderful thing happened. I was sitting on the cement bench on the Mavelikkara railway platform when my senior Suresh V. Anand appeared before me like an angel. He asked me the reason for my gloom and I hesitantly told him all about the sine thetta, log and the logjam that ensued. He took a piece of paper and explained to me the whole things in less than 15 minutes. With protruding eye balls and pouting lips I asked,
"That's all"
Suresh: "Yes, that's all".
I was amazed by the clarity with which he talked. After all these years, I still wonder as to why the lecturer made the whole thing so complicated. He should have told us that "thetta" is just a Greek letter and that as "x" in algebra, in trigonometry we usually use Greek letters. (I think Suresh latter became an officer in the Federal bank. Those days smart guys preferred the bank job to any other)
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Things changed drastically and I started loving Physics once Kurien Sar (Prof K. Kurien) started teaching us Mechanics. If I was all at sea with "sine thetta" I was very much at home with "tan thetta"  when Kurien Sar wrote on the board "tan thetta = v^2 / rg . He was teaching us the "banking of curves" and it was after that class that I decided to learn only Physics and Mathematics after the pre-degree course.
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Incidentally, Kurien Sar's  younger son Vimal Kurien is on the faculty of the Commerce dept of CMS college. The boy feels shy, and happy too, when I tell him in the presence of others that I have carried him on my shoulders.
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THE BURETTE

The scare of the first day in the Physics lab lingered in my mind (please read the post “The Common Balance”).  On the second day we were herded to the chemistry lab. “Great place on earth’, I told myself. Without any introduction the teacher asked me to go to the burette. Burette??  Seeing my confusion the teacher pointed to the table. I found it very innocuous unlike the common balance. Seeing the tap I turned it gently and the next moment I had the tap in my hand detached from the main body of the burette. All hell was let loose. I was fined Rs 40 for the damage. Those days petrol cost less than Rs 2 per litre and you got 150 coconuts for Rs 40. The whole class fell into a gloom. The next day some of my class mates came up with a solution. A tutorial college was prepared to buy the broken burette for Rs 10.. Great news. We went to the H.O.D. But he refused to give the “broken” burette. His argument surprised me. He said “ suppose I give it to you and somehow it reaches the hands of the Naxalbaris!?" They will use it to make bombs and you will be in trouble !" Oh God, what I have damaged was something that can be used to make bombs.!?! After all these years I am very sure that the tap could have been put back in place and the burette could have been in use for many more years. (The astute tutorial Principal knew it well. And the H.o.D  knew it better!!??)

Those days Kerala was reeling under the threat of Naxalism. I remember this Boban and Molly story.  One morning the “Chettan” (panchayat president) sprang from his bed and started running towards the mirror on the wall. When asked why, his answer was ‘let me see whether my head is there above my neck or not’ .

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The scare of these two incidents never left me. Later when I started my career as a teacher, I used to feel  very  restless  during the lab sessions. Usually these lab sessions are a happy retreat for the teachers.  The lab was a place where I never felt at home. When students came with complaints I had to go with them and get the complaints rectified.  The potentiometer was a horrifying thing for me. Students always had problems with it. Most often they came with the complaint that they get only one-side-deflection.  While walking with them with pretended courage I used to tell in my mind, “son, you now have at least one side deflection !!”

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THE COMMON BALANCE

The story is about my first  day as a pre-degree student at the  Bishop Moore College. We were led to the physics lab and I entered the lab with trembling feet. I was assigned the experiment "Common Balance" and the teacher asked me to do it ! I was seeing the equipment for the first time and knew nothing about it. I walked up to the apparatus and decided to "do" it. Seeing a knob I turned it gently and ....
"The pans fell down
 And broke the pane
 And the beam came tumbling after"
I started crying. I realised that my future was hanging on the (fallen) balance. I saw the lab assistant walking up to me with brisk steps. I feared, he was coming to beat me. But he walked up to the fallen balance and put things in place in less than ten seconds and left with sympathy (or contempt?) writ large on his face. "Great man. Great indeed", I told myself. With infinite appreciation for that man I decided to become a lab assistant in the future. But soon wisdom prevailed upon me and I heard some inner voice telling me, "to become a lab assistant one should know everything about the common balance and much more". And I never became one.