When
I look back on my days at the college hostel I feel those were the finest days
in my education career. The first thing was I had totally unburdened my parents
from payment of college and hostel fee. I used to feel a sense of satisfaction
during my mandatory visit to my home on weekends. I needed only a small amount
from my father for my textbooks and other miscellaneous expenses. Unlike in my
Shimoga hostel, here I had no inferiority complex of a free-student. I got great
respect from the hostel mates.
That
year some of the lecturers had set up their families. All those who had not set
up their families were taking their food in the hostel even though they were
not staying in the hostel. As such, they were instrumental in ensuring the
quality of food. We got three new lecturers for chemistry. Shanbhogue from
Sirsi took organic chemistry and became head of the department. Ramaswami took
inorganic chemistry and Hegde took physical chemistry. The physics department
was strengthened by addition of Nagaraj from Mysore
and Vekataramana Bhat from South Kanara .
Krishnappaiah continued as the Head of the Department. Overall we found the
quality of coaching continuing to be good as far as two major subjects were
concerned.
But we were really in soup as far as
mathematics was concerned. While we had the best existing lecturer N R Bhat
remaining as the Head of the Department, the problem was with the new lecturer
Srinath Sastry. (Bhat was the man who
was responsible for my securing cent percent marks in mathematics). Sastry was
actually a top rank postgraduate student from Mysore University South
End Circle Bangalore City
Sastry
was a fine example of how a highly merited student could become a very bad
teacher! He would start his class with a problem to solve. After some time he would
get totally entangled in his effort to teach us how to solve the problem. Then
leave alone teaching us how to solve it, he would himself land in such a mess
that he could never come out of it! In the end he would simply say sorry and
wipe off the problem on the blackboard. He would start with a new problem in
his next class. The presumption was that he had completed solving of the
earlier problem! The whole exercise was a total misery for the students. In
fact after sometime a sort of fear started engulfing me. The situation was such
that we were going to perform very badly in Sastry’s subjects. Then leave alone
securing any rank it was doubtful whether I could secure pass marks in his
subjects! I often started witnessing nightmares! I had a personal discussion
with Bhat. He tried to counsel me at his best. He assured me that I could
secure cent percent marks in spite of Sastry! I was not at all convinced. The
misery continued and Bhat was simply helpless.
It
may not be out of place to mention here that Sastry left our college after two
years and joined National Aeronautical Laboratory (NAL) in Bangalore
I had earlier forgotten to mention
the name of our Sanskrit lecturer T S Venkannaiah who taught us in my PUC. He
also hailed from an illustrious family of great Kannada Professor of Mysore University Mysore
University
We had a great teacher in NBN
as far as English was concerned. He simply excelled in his teachings. He was a
master in English poetry and Shakespearean drama. We had the Shakespearean
drama Othello for our detailed studies. I can never forget the
tragedy faced by the beautiful Desdemona when her faithfulness was put into
test by her husband Othello. The scheming Iago simply made Othello so jealous
that he murdered the lovely innocent lady. Hats off to NBN, this intense drama
unfolds eternally in my mind whenever I think of him.
But here again the other lecturer
(I forgot his name!) was a total disappointment. In view of the scarcity of
postgraduates in English in those days an elderly High School teacher (M A in
English) from Chennai had been recruited. He continued to teach us like High School
students only! He appeared to be a zero candle bulb against a hundred candle
high voltage NBN! Later the management
recruited a local, Suryanarayan, a B A (Hons) degree holder in English, again a
High School teacher, as a Tutor in the Department. This gentleman was simply a
disaster as far as teaching was concerned. In his opinion English teaching
meant translating the sentences to Kannada! Indeed that is what he did! He
spoiled the prose teaching which otherwise should have been a pleasure.
One of the new boys who joined our
class was Shivashankarappa. He was also
my hostel mate. He was a soft spoken man. We became close buddies after some
time. He hailed from a reputed rich Lingayath family from Birur. His father
Margada Mallappa, the eldest son in the family, was a practicing advocate. He
commanded great respect in Birur and Kadur. I visited their house during the
summer holidays and enjoyed their hospitality. Mallappa stood for Assembly
elections in the year 1967 and won the election. Later he became the Health
Minister in the Devaraja Urs ministry of Karnataka.
Mallappa had a textbook for his B
A (Hons.) degree written by Krishna Hutheesingh, the beloved younger sister of
Jawaharlal Nehru. Shivashankar gave it to me for reading. I read the book by
name ‘With NO Regrets’ and found it highly sentimental and interesting.
It was a rare book worth preserving. Seeing my interest, Shivashankar presented
the book to me. The book remains with me till today. Whenever I get the mood I
re-read the book and find it still worthwhile. It also reminds me my
association with Shivashankar and the regards we had for each other in our college
days. We lost touch after our graduation. But his association remains still
green in my memory.
------ (To be continued)-------
