Our School and my teachers and professors

When I was admitted to The Ashram School, it was called “Sri Aurobindo International University Center.” At that time there was a galaxy of professors & teachers. There are still some who continue to teach. There were then Sisir-da, Nirod-da, Tehmiben, Jugal-da Joshi bhai, Sunil-da, Sanat-da, Purani-ji, Bharati-di, Nolini Sen-da, and quite a few others. All were the best in their respective fields.

Then there were the younger generation teachers and professors who were educated in The Ashram School - Manoj-da, Amita-di, Chitra-di, Arati-di, Aniruddha-da (Babu-da). Dhanavantiben, Sumitra-di, Suprabha-di, Arunbhai and others. They were very good teachers as most of them were brilliant students. Thus we were extremely fortunate to be taught by these sadhaks. But I often wonder how much we profited by being their students.

For example English Professor Ravindra Khanna-ji was a scholar of Persian literature & language. With eyes closed he recited verses from Persian poetry in original and then in the same breath gave the English translation. He didn’t need to think, he just knew, such was his authority on both the languages. He was also a connoisseur of Indian Classical music. One could hear music wafting out of his room sometimes Carnatic sometimes Hindustani. In the later part his life he was unable to come out of his room; music was his constant companion.

His brother Jagadish Khannaji was not as scholarly as his brother Ravindra Khanna-ji, but he had a very good grasp on Urdu literature. Like his brother he recited Urdu Couplets closing his eyes and translated it at the same time in English for us, so that we may be able to appreciate.

Sanat-da was an I.C.S. officer who was posted in Pondicherry as the High Commissioner of India to French India. He met The Mother, resigned and became an inmate of The Ashram with is wife Chandana-di. He was a gentleman; never spoke in a loud voice, never chided his students even if they were noisy in the class. I am speaking of the early fifties when he took classes for younger students. Later he taught only the senior students.

He was a topper. He once while talking of his life as a student mentioned “Father wanted us to be first in the class, we brothers tried to please father remaining always at the top of the list.”

He taught History and one could see the knowledge he had of the subject. We had been his students for four years and if we got interested in the subject it is because of him. His way of presentation was unique.

In Higher Course a few of us took history as an optional subject. Now what is called a project, we did a similar thing twice or thrice a year. He gave us a subject and a list of books to study & consult and then write an essay or whatever you may call it. This was mainly to find out whether we understood the topic we were given to study and discuss in the class. This work had to be done in our free time. If someone had some questions they could be asked at the end of the regular classes and if need be he recommended some more books. He encouraged his students to think for themselves.

I had never been a student of either Jugal-da nor of Sunil-da, thus I am unable to say anything on personal level. But Sunil-da through his sublime New Year music and that of The epic poem Savitri. Jugal-da through his writing gave us a glimpse of what they were and how profound their knowledge was.

Joshi-bhai is of a different category. His erudition is of a different kind, he could and still can make any branch of Chemistry accessible to anyone. For us it was a great fortune to be in his class. He had a friendly disposition towards his students and we could ask him any stupid question regarding the subject which we often did as our knowledge and commitment were pretty poor, but he had always been most patient and answered our questions again and again simplifying it so that we could grasp something of what we were studying. His effort to teach us something had endeared him to us and we behaved as friends when we met once in a while, even today.

I could write about other teachers and professors as well but as I had mentioned earlier, some had left an indelible impression in me.

Of the younger generation of teachers Manoj-da taught us one year “General Science”. His presentation was always very interesting and unique. While explaining a certain topic he referred to a scientist or another and narrated some interesting anecdotes. As far as I remember one day he said something like this that, as life has emerged from water, every living creature is attracted to it, more so man. This was a statement which has remained with me till today.

Amita-di introduced us to Antoine de Saint Exupery, Andre’ Gide, Chateaubriaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine and others. Anyone learning French gets to know Victor Hugo very early. Half seated, a foot touching the ground, a book in hand in front of us was Amita-di reading from Andre’ Gide “Nathanae’l jet e parlerai des attentes. J’ai vu la plaine, pendant l’e’te’ attendre, attendre un peu de pluie.....Puit il plut.

Or reciting from Baudeloire :
‘ Au-dusus des etango, an-dusus des vallies Des montagnes, de bois, des nuages, des mers.... ‘ or ‘Alors je reverai des horizons bleuatres Des jardins. Des jets d’eau plurant dans les albatres.’ And again Saint Exupery’s ‘Vol de Nuit’ where Fabien is above the stormy clouds, ‘Trop beau pensait Fabien, il ersait farmi les etoiles accumuleos avec la densite’ d’un tre’sor....Pareil a’ as voleurs ds villes fabuleuses.....infiniment riches, mais condamnes.’

We listened to her spellbound. She as we all know was the chosen person by The Mother to enact the character of ‘Savitri’ in the epic poem. She is a woman of many qualities. She painted, acted, wrote in the school journal of which she was the editor, played guitar. A teacher who had many new ideas and tried to give us some of the things she had learnt from The Mother directly. Another professor who taught us how to appreciate literature was Nalini Sarkar da. He taught us Bengali in Higher Course. He didn’t teach us, he shared with us the fine points of a literary work in Bengali. He just read and we listened. With inflection of the voice he created a word of different emotions.

Kireet bhai joined the school may be in late fifties. He was an IAS Officer; came to visit the Ashram, later resigned from his job to join the Ashram in the Higher Course he taught “The Life Divine”. He took up a chapter gave in brief the arguments and then elaborated with example & references. His method was such that the students automatically paid attention to what he spoke about.

There were others too who have enriched our lives.