Requiem for a master

((a story from my book ‘Buddhu’s legacy and other short stories’)  

(Students at the school level have always been found struggling with Mathematics, a subject they could never be friendly with. If there stands out a person who can motivate them, make them independent in solving the sums, make them comfortable with the subject, introduce them to funny methods that never occurred to them before; then rest assured that the students would play with the subject rather than struggle with it. My Mathematics teacher was one such figure who taught the subject in such a fashion that I am still well conversant with most of the topics, even after more than five decades of his training.
This story is just a little paean sung in honour of that exceptional teacher of Mathematics, Lal Moni Sir).
Our mind is a storehouse of memories. It gathers pieces of past events, sad and happy. It can wander backward, reviving and unfolding any of such events in flashback whenever we wish to. Having passed out of my school more than five decades back, I am many times transported to those good old days which stir up certain recollections of my student life. The revision of chapters during examinations, a free bird like escape on vacations, a haughty jubilation on getting a rank, a feeling of desperation on being left out of the merit list, an exciting school picnic, a reprimand by the teacher on some mistake, a stage performance during school function, nervous moments on school inspector’s visit; such and many more memories of that early academic life remain implanted in the mind.

These are such pleasant reminiscences as go on swapping and switching positions in mind. The figures of teachers also appear and disappear like a fleeting flock of birds in the sky.
But hold on. There is a school master who stands out as a fixed entity difficult to budge from my memory. Even if he sometime blurs out of mind temporarily, he comes back like a sea wave that keeps on kissing the shore, no matter how many times it has to go back.
One may wonder why I have selectively penned the word ‘master’ where as I could have simply used ‘teacher’. A discerning on the right choice is imperative here due to the qualities he carried in his persona and the duties he successfully performed. He was really a master who had a full control of his conviction. He was also a master of his profession who confided in his students and created a trust for himself. He made us stand on our feet by taking away from us, the elements of dependence on others.
I am transported to a period of late fifties, a hot day of May and a section of 45 students. Our mathematics class at the secondary level had just started. A man entered our classroom. He looked to be in his fifties. He had an oval face and a wheatish complexion and had big eyes which appeared to be bulging out of their sockets. He was bespectacled and had an erudite look. The frame of his spectacles was thick and so were the lenses. His magnified eyes peeped out from inside the glasses and surveyed each nook and corner of the class. He was of a heavy built. He was dressed in white shirt and pants and we all noticed that he was somehow able to camouflage a portion of his paunch with a wide leather belt which he had fastened tightly. His shirt pocket had bulged due to the weight of two fountain pens and a diary.
He occupied the chair and put the chalk and the duster on the table. He threw a cursory glance at us and kept silent for some time, creating suspense for us as to what his maiden lecture would be all about.
From the very first lecture itself, he sounded very promising, “Students! I am Lal Moni Bhattcharya, your Mathematics teacher. I shall take you on a journey with this subject for 3 years up to the Board level. Today, I shall devote this period to acquaint you with mathematics and how pervasive the subject is in our daily life. Mathematics is like a neighbourhood dog. You get scared and it will run after you to bite but if you muster courage and cuddle it, it would turn out to be the best of your friends. So always keep in mind that mathematics is not here to make simple things complicated but to make complicated things simple”
He continued, “You will observe that in all walks of life whether it is the milk man or the newspaper vendor or your neighborhood Kiranawala (provisions merchant), it is the basic arithmetic that helps you in calculations and payment of the costs of any kind of services rendered. No one would ever dare to cheat you once you are thorough in basic calculations.
Not only arithmetic, even Geometry finds its application in various household jobs. While your mother cooks food, just stand there and observe how different shapes of geometry appear before your eyes in vegetables and fruits. The bottle gourd in the basket of vegetables carries the shape of a cylinder. Look into green vegetables where the leaves have a pattern of parallel lines called venation. The orange has a spherical shape and if you cut it, you will observe a number of triangles inside.
Then, if had you had anytime looked into a honey comb, you must have seen innumerable cavities in the shape of a hexagon.
All these phenomena assert that nature is in itself contributing to establish shapes and figures for the subject of Geometry to develop.
Algebra will again be a fun to learn. Use acronyms to know the order of operations like BODMAS i.e. brackets first, then the orders like power, square roots etc. followed by division or multiplication and last, addition or subtraction”.
He further went on to introduce Trigonometry in a simple way relating it again to nature. “Have you seen a sea wave? Have you noticed its behavior? How it rises and falls? It sets a defined pattern which we call Sine wave in trigonometry. How these waves repeat is called frequency. How long these waves reach is called wavelength and how high these go i.e. vertical sizes are called amplitude. These are basics of sound derived from nature and trigonometry”.
He also revealed to us, a unique method to memorize values of sine and cosine angles from 0 to 90 degrees He asked us just to remember square-roots of 0/4, ?, 2/4, ?, and 4/4 for sine angles 0,30,45,60, and 90 degrees respectively. The reverse, he explained was true for cosine angles. With such methods, he stressed on the ease to learn various formulas and values.
He assured us that as we would proceed further on the subject, he would guide us with many fun based techniques to make the subject, a child’s play.
Lal Moni Sir was able to dispel the fear and anxiety we had with Mathematics. He could develop in us; the kind of thinking that was specifically needed to relate to the subject. He emphasized that through school and beyond in life, Mathematics would always find its use and application. So, he would stress that ‘the earlier we befriended the subject, the better’.
His way of teaching was different and novel. He would explain the fundamentals; solve two different kinds of questions and then write five sums on the board asking us to solve them as quickly as possible. This way, he would create a sort of competition as to who would first go to him with the solution.
He would check the note books of at the most three students and then call the weak students to come to the blackboard to solve the sums. This way, even the weakest student would try to practice the topics at home to avoid cutting a sorry figure in the class. He would then proceed to illustrate the solutions on the board and at the end of each solution, he would write ‘Quite Easily Done’ (Q.E.D) and not the usual Quad Erad Demonstrandum.
Adopting such a technique, he would succeed to boost our confidence. Teaching for Lal Moni Sir was not his vocation. It was his religion. The quiet but a stern person of few words, he had a heart that cared for his students and a mind that always explored ways to ease the burden that Mathematics usually posed to them. Lal Moni Sir never wanted his students as mere spectators to what was appearing on the blackboard and accept that as such but made us seek reasoning for anything our mind did not willingly agree to. He would teach us through our own exposure to various possibilities. He would always advise us to go for a personal sense of investment to reach a solution. Through his unique style of creating a feeling for genuine learning, he motivated us to withstand a variety of tests; of examinations and of a practical life.
His style of coaching was unique from all perspectives. He would let us think and solve problems. This made a huge impact on our thought process. Now at this age, I realise that it was a period when we had to build our value system that got modified over time. With maturity, it got stronger but the nascent stage at which our Lal Moni Sir nurtured it, made all the difference.
Time progressed as usual. We had reached the final year of our school life. The board examinations were just a month ahead. Of all the subjects, the maximum marks we could expect were from Mathematics covering Geometry, Algebra and Trigonometry. Our Lal Moni Sir had prepared us in all the possible ways for facing the toughest of examinations.
He would voluntarily take extra classes as practice sessions to boost our confidence. I can never forget the day when a farewell was arranged for us in the school (it was customary to bid a farewell to final year students). We had all assembled in the school auditorium. The principal and most of the teachers had arrived and positioned themselves on the dais. We were eagerly waiting for Lal Moni sir to come. The wait was getting longer. Suddenly, the phone in the hall rang up. The caller asked for the principal who left the dais to receive the call. A feeble female voice from the other end said with a choking voice, “Sir, I am Monica, Mr Bhattacharya’s daughter. Papa is no more. He had suffered a severe heart attack this morning around nine”.
The Principal returned to the podium. He looked very sad and in a nervous tone, revealed the conversation he had and announced, “Your Lal Moni sir is no more. He passed away suddenly some hours back due to heart failure”. There was a shocking silence all over the auditorium. We were motionless, thoughtless and perhaps out of our senses.
There were tears in all the eyes. There was hardly anyone who could control his emotions in that situation. The faces had turned sad. A gloom descended on the venue.

We rushed to our class rooms where Lal Moni sir had taken an extra class only the day before. The imprints of chalk were still visible on the board, though the figures had dimmed a little. We were feeling as if he would emerge from the door and write Q.E.D on the board which he had somehow left out.
The entire school was at Lal Moni Sir’s residence. We saw his body lying peacefully on the floor. He seemed to be in deep slumber, but disappointedly, never to wake up again.
A mathematical genius, a gem of a person, a mentor and a master had although physically gone away from us, yet, we knew that he would be alive among us in our memory throughout our journey of life, inspiring and motivating us.
It was an exceptionally sad day with condolences pouring in from all the quarters from those who knew him even a little in his circle, besides of course almost everyone from the school staff and the students. It was an unprecedented gesture of respect for the great man that the entire school followed Lal Moni Sir to the crematorium in his last journey.
It was a poignant moment for all of us, standing around the pyre on which lay the body of Lal Moni Sir. The fire rose and fell, consigning the remains of an exceptional guru to ashes. We remained at the funeral till the embers cooled. We were not in a hurry to leave him but suddenly, some lines from an unknown poet whispered into my ears:
For this journey that we all must take,
And each must go alone;
It’s all a part of the Master’s plan,
A step on the road to home.