Tehmi-ben

One of the most respected professors of our Centre of Education was Tehmi-ben. She taught English literature to the senior most students and later took classes only on “Savitri”. I was her student for the last year of the school and the first year of Higher Course. It is then I came in contact with her. Some of my classmates wrote on the blackboard a couple of verses from “Savitri”. Tehmi-ben entered the classroom, looked at the board, read the verses and then asked us whether we knew the context and the meaning. Most of the time it was a negative answer except now and then we were capable of giving her the book & the canto. She often not only gave the reference, but also recited a few more verses from Savitri. Sometimes she recited also from some great English poets.

As a student I held her in awe as she was so different from the others! She lived in Golconde and always was in white. She walked on the street with her head down. You hardly saw her stopping on the way and talking to someone. For me, first few months were difficult as I could not work as she expected us to. From my side I was weak in the subject and then I was neither a bright nor a diligent student. I just worked and that was that. Though later I took interest in History and Philosophy but the languages remained my weak point. (The irony of the life is that I was asked to teach French and then Bengali, I still do!)

With the end of the first year of Higher Course my contact ended with her. It was in the seventies of last century that we began to meet. Sutapa also lived in Golconde; These two Parsi ladies were more like sisters. As I have already mentioned, Sutapa used to eat in “Corner House”, sat with Krishnalalji and myself. On my birthday I began to send them some snacks and cake; because I knew they had their tea together in the afternoon. They sent me small greeting cards prepared by themselves. Even then I cannot say I knew Tehmi-ben. It is only after she began to sit with us during the recess in the school for soup that I became quite free with her.

One morning after soup she was having little difficulty to get up. I naturally wanted to know whether she had hurt herself somehow. The answer was that she was having some difficulty at night as her mattress had become very thin due to age. I blurted out “Themi-ben, why don’t you change it then?” She then gave me the reason for sleeping on an old mattress.

In those early days of Golconde The Mother used to visit it quite regularly in the afternoon. On a particular day Tehmi-ben was suffering from fever, so she was resting in bed and feeling sorry for not being there to receive The Mother. Suddenly she felt a hand on her forehead, opening her eyes she found The Mother seated on her bed and all she could do was to slide down and kept at The Mother’s feet. “When she sat on my bed how can I reject that mattress” she asks.

I then suggested that she gets a new one and put it under the old. Even that was not possible in Golconde as there were specific rules and regulations, and she did not want to break them for her comfort.

She held classes reading and explaining Savitri but once she advised me, “If you want “Savitri” as your spiritual guide; you should study it by your self.”

It was while taking soup together once I said “Tehmi-ben it must be the good deeds of seven lives that we have come under Her protection.”

She answered “No child, it is Her Grace that has brought us here.”

On another occasion I lamented “As long as you people are there, we can always approach you for help. What will happen later?”

“Depend, always depend on Her” was her answer. That was Tehmi-ben.