Madam’s Pet

When I was in my final year of B.Com at Cochin Arts College, a new teacher joined my college.  Sudha Rani – a young lady from Kozhikode, she had come to Kochi for pursuing her higher studies.  Along with her studies, she was teaching in my college.  On her first day in our class, she introduced herself and asked each one of us to introduce ourselves.  When we finished, one boy asked, ‘Madam, you heard all our names.  Can you correctly identify any one of us with our name?’.  She quickly pointed to me saying ‘Ajoy Kumar’!  The whole class was surprised, and everyone clapped.  It was a shocking surprise to me too.  I was not sitting in the front row.  I was sitting in the middle of the class, and I was neither the first to tell my name, nor the last.  Moreover, there was nothing special about me that would have caught her attention.  But with this incident, my classmates started calling me ‘Madam’s pet student’.

Sudha Madam was teaching Cost Accounting.  Within no time everyone started liking her style of teaching, making her one of our favorite teachers.  When she made us solve numerical problems, I was one among the first to solve them and she would ask me to read the answers loud.  We organised many cultural and social events during that year.  She used to be always with us giving us suggestions and helping us organise the events.  She was just about 2 or 3 years elder to us, which made us feel more comfortable to mingle with her.  She was also enjoying our company.  Though everyone called me ‘Madam’s pet’, I never asked her how she could correctly pick me from a group of fifty students on the first day.  It remained a mystery.

Days flew and it was time for us to leave the college.  One day Sudha Madam told us that she was getting married to someone known to her for long.  She said, she was leaving to Kozhikode the next day.  She collected our postal address for sending the wedding invitation.  That was her last class for us.  We all congratulated her and bid her goodbye.    Few days later, I got her wedding invitation.  When I opened it, I was in for a big surprise.  The mystery was revealed – Her fiancé’s name was ‘Ajay’!

Prof. Rajagopal - A True Friend

This is not an obituary, nor is it a condolence message.  I am writing this to celebrate my friendship with Prof. C S Rajagopal, who left for the heavenly abode on 24-08-2022 at Bengaluru.  It was March 2003, Prof. C S Rajagopal came to SIT for attending the faculty selection process.  That was my first meeting with him.  A gentleman in a coffee colour suit, with a smiling face, holding an executive briefcase – that was my first impression of him.  As part of the selection process Prof. Rajagopal gave a presentation on the challenges faced by commercial banks in credit recovery.  I was impressed by his presentation, and we struck a chord of friendship in the first meeting itself.  Two months later, he joined SIT.  That was the beginning of a strong and close relationship between us, which continued as warm as ever till the end.  He was elder to me by 20 years, but that didn’t matter.  I learnt so many things from him, and he took my help and assistance in matters related to computers and technology.  Prof. Rajagopal taught at SIT from 2003 to 2009, moved to Dharwad as the Founder Director of Dr. D Veerendra Heggade Institute of Management and Research and continued there till 2015. 

There are many reasons why I consider my friendship with him to be special and true.  A blog post is not enough to describe my experiences with him.  So, let me just pick two instances that always come to my mind.  When I was about to submit my application for admission to the Ph.D. programme, I requested him to quickly glance through my research proposal and give his feedback.  He was at Bengaluru for some official work and didn’t have access to internet and email.  I wanted him to go through the proposal that day itself as I had to sent it to the University the next morning.  So, he went to his sister’s house, accessed his email, and read my proposal.  When I called him in the evening, he told me, ‘Ajoy, shall I tell you frankly, to me it appears to be the proposal for an MBA project.  It doesn’t look like a Ph.D. proposal’.  This frankness was one of his qualities.  Some might not even read your document, some may not tell you the truth, but he was different.  (I thoroughly changed my research topic later).

After about a year since I started my Ph.D., I got an offer from the industry.  It was an offer to head and set up a staff training centre of a leading financial institution at Bengaluru.  The offer was highly lucrative and irresistible.  Obviously, I spoke to Prof. Rajagopal and asked him what should I do? He carefully listened to all the details and told me, ‘Ajoy, in this job you will be doing very less of teaching/training.  You will be mostly handling administrative responsibilities.  If you are looking for a career shift, then you can accept the offer.  You have to forget your Ph.D., you can not pursue it along with this job.  But, if you are interested in continuing in academics, then you should say no to this offer and focus on completing your Ph.D. at the earliest’.  His advice gave me the clarity I was looking for.  I declined the offer and continued with my Ph.D.

Prof. Rajagopal was always full of life, energetic, smiling, and active.  He was a teacher admired by many.  He brought his vast industry experience into the classroom – not to showcase his heroism, but to explain the concepts with appropriate examples.  He was like an elder brother to me – the one whom I consulted whenever I took any major decision in my life.  When I tasted success, he cheered me; when I was in pain, he consoled me; when I was confused, he helped me get clarity; when I was right, he stood by me; and when I was wrong, he didn’t hesitate to point it out – what more do you want from a True Friend?! Life can only snatch away his physical presence.  He lives in the memory of all those whose lives were touched by him in one way or the other.

Kings Books

Imagine a time when there were no cell phones, no internet, not even a television in most of the houses – that is how my childhood was.  Those days, apart from various games that we used to play, our major source of entertainment was reading books.  We had many children’s publications in Malayalam such as Poompatta, Balarama, Muthassi, Malarvadi etc.  There were English publications such as Tinkle, Phantom etc.  Amar Chitra Katha was available in Malayalam and English.  Since one could not afford buying all these books, we used to borrow the books from each other and read.  Still, it was not possible to read all the books.

When I was in class seven, a group of us thought of starting a library.  We wanted the library to have as many books as possible and remain self-sufficient.  We didn’t want our parents to pay for the books.  So, we came up with a unique idea, where we decided to lend books overnight for a small payment.  I still remember, most of the magazines used to cost two rupees.  We decided to charge 20 paise for overnight lending.  Thus, once a book is lent 10 times, the library recovered the cost, which was used to buy the next volume.  This arrangement was attractive for the borrowers too, because by paying one tenth of the cost of the book they were able to read the book.  In other words, for the cost of one book, they could now read ten books!

Someone suggested the name ‘Kings Books’ , which was acceptable to all. Salahuddin, one of my friends came forward to keep the books and operate the library from his house.  The next issue was how to identify if a book belonged to the library.  We decided to get a rubber stamp made in the name of the library.  I remember, on the day when we got the rubber stamp made, in excitement, we rushed to the library and took turns in stamping the books.  Those days, apart from children’s literature, many Malayalam weeklies were published which carried stories, novels, articles etc.  These weeklies enjoyed huge readership, especially among women.  So, in order to expand the operations of our library, we decided to include these weeklies as well.  Most of the women in our area, including our mothers and aunts became the members of the library.

Initially we used to store the books in cardboard cartons.  But as the number of books increased, we felt the need of proper storage space.  But a bookshelf or cupboard was beyond our reach. Again a ‘jugaad’ idea came up.  We had a vegetable vendor nearby who used to get supply of tomatoes in small boxed made of thin wooden boards.  He used to sell these boxes as scrap.  We bought few boxes from him.  Using nails and clamps, we made a small cupboard out these boxes!

It all went well for almost a year.  Suddenly one day, we heard the news that Salahuddin and his family were shifting their residence to a place far from our area.  Now we had to look for a place to keep the books.  Most of our houses neither had the space nor the permission from our parents to run the library.  One of my friends whose father was working abroad suggested, ‘if we ask my mother’s permission, she won’t agree.  Let us shift the library to my house when she goes out.  Once the books are kept inside, I will convince her’.  Accordingly, when his mother went out, we started shifting the books.  Unfortunately, she was back in ten minutes.  She flatly refused to let us store the books there.  With great pain, we decided to close Kings Books.  All the books were sold as scrap and the wooden cupboard was broken and thrown.  Till recently, the rubber stamp of ‘Kings Books’ was in my drawer as a mark of those days.

Kings Books was in existence 35 years ago.  Compared to those days, today there is a huge choice of avenues for entertainment and the reading habit has come down among the people.  But, I am happy that Yashoda, a high school student and daughter of my friend at Kochi, started a library two years ago.  Her primary objective is to inculcate reading habit among the children.  The biggest attraction of her library is that the books are lent free of cost.  At a time when people are reluctant to read, Yashoda’s library is pulling children back to reading.  Her library has already become popular and has attracted lot of media attention.  Let Yashoda’s library continue to flourish and spread the reading habit among children!

 

Here is a link to a report on Yashoda’s library:

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/meet-12-year-old-kerala-girl-who-runs-free-library-kochi-105435