Returning my book, my history teacher, Sri Panduranga Vittal, frowned with the words "Very bad English!". I stretched out my hand to receive it and hung my head low. That was after a routine test in the 9th Std. at Sarada Vilas High School in 1972.
Later, mostly due to foolish neglect, I made my PUC a 4-year circus, two of which did not have the need to attend college. It created plenty of time to pursue street cricket and other interesting indoor hobbies. Listening to live cricket commentary on the radio, esp. from BBC and Radio Australia was as fascinating as it was educative, cricket-wise and language-wise. In parallel, I also tried to tune in to other overseas radio stations that broadcast English programmes, mostly for curiosity. It was in one of these, a list of penfriends was being announced. Penfriendship appealed to me as an exciting prospect where I could write freely without being under the powers of an evaluating teacher. Exchanging letters with a few like-minded penfriends was to bring me immense joy, improve knowledge, sharpen the language and the excitement of waiting for the postman to deliver letters to me. One of my introductory letters to a friend had returned "addressee not found" and reading it many years later, I experienced what my history teacher had felt with my answers. In the meanwhile, one of my essays had won a prize in the English Section of Radio Korea's contest. Reading autobiographies of famous cricketers was a passion that cropped up around that time, though not much of novels and stories. My friend Dr.Rajgopal Nidamboor, author of Cricket Boulevard was to inspire me in so many ways, after we met in a common friend's place in 1979.
The words of my teacher in that seemingly innocuous incident kept cropping up in my mind often and my conscience probably wanted to prove them wrong, much the same way when Navjot Singh Sidhu was referred as a 'strokeless wonder' by a reporter after he failed in his Test debut. That angry look in my teacher's eyes had pierced mine, along with it, my mind.
Later, mostly due to foolish neglect, I made my PUC a 4-year circus, two of which did not have the need to attend college. It created plenty of time to pursue street cricket and other interesting indoor hobbies. Listening to live cricket commentary on the radio, esp. from BBC and Radio Australia was as fascinating as it was educative, cricket-wise and language-wise. In parallel, I also tried to tune in to other overseas radio stations that broadcast English programmes, mostly for curiosity. It was in one of these, a list of penfriends was being announced. Penfriendship appealed to me as an exciting prospect where I could write freely without being under the powers of an evaluating teacher. Exchanging letters with a few like-minded penfriends was to bring me immense joy, improve knowledge, sharpen the language and the excitement of waiting for the postman to deliver letters to me. One of my introductory letters to a friend had returned "addressee not found" and reading it many years later, I experienced what my history teacher had felt with my answers. In the meanwhile, one of my essays had won a prize in the English Section of Radio Korea's contest. Reading autobiographies of famous cricketers was a passion that cropped up around that time, though not much of novels and stories. My friend Dr.Rajgopal Nidamboor, author of Cricket Boulevard was to inspire me in so many ways, after we met in a common friend's place in 1979.
The words of my teacher in that seemingly innocuous incident kept cropping up in my mind often and my conscience probably wanted to prove them wrong, much the same way when Navjot Singh Sidhu was referred as a 'strokeless wonder' by a reporter after he failed in his Test debut. That angry look in my teacher's eyes had pierced mine, along with it, my mind.
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This article was published in the paper. A month or so later, as luck would have it, I spotted him on the street one evening, but he had become frail from natural ageing. He had come by walk from his home which was just about 15 minutes away, which I came to know from him after I introduced myself as his student and told that incident (which obviously, was not on his mind). I said I'd come to his house one day, soon and took his address. I went to his humble home a fortnight later and reminisced the days of yore. He told me the passing away of a few of his contemporaries who were also teachers to our class. He was 82 when I met him. I took his autograph in the book as well as on the article in the paper. He was moved, visibly, for none of students seemed to remember him. I offered my respects / namaskaara to him and left. I was to leave on a journey that evening. Meeting him after so many years, I never imagined. I could recognize him because his face had remained the same. It is a meeting that will stay in memory for a long time.
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