My favorite professor

Famous Sanskrit proverb says –asatoma sadgmaya, tamasoma jyotirgamaya, mruthyorma amruthamgaya ! Lead me from darkness to light, unreality to reality and from mortality to immortality. That’s what a great teacher does! I felt this when I met my favorite professor, Prof. Bhavanishankar Rao.

When I opted for Kannada literature, I didn’t realize its impact on me. But today, I feel proud and happy that I made that choice. We were all quite curious about this professor, who always defied the orthodox perception that a student had about literature professors. You know we all have that imagination about literature professors, kurtas, pajamas, black framed glasses, sling bag hanging on the shoulder, bearded man with a book on his left hand. He defied all of them; neither his look, nor his attitude was like a literature professor.

It was our fifth Kannada literature class. The question was about caste system. Do you agree to the caste system? Well, I wasn’t very sure then, what’s my stand on caste system? But I answered – sir, a tiger would prefer to be with tiger and not a cat! Well, that day he just smiled at my answer. Eventually, he just enlightened me about how foolish I was and today I laugh at that answer of my own as I understand the menace of entire caste system and its repercussions on the society. He totally believed that - ‘knowledge will not come from teaching but from questioning. The Kannada literature class was like – Plato’s debate society. Not even a single student would bunk Kannada class. Kannada class was like a mirror to outer world. It was our window to the external world that we were afraid and curious about. Questions, answers, debates, arguments, analysis and further more debates on current affairs, politics, science, environment, technology, corporate, criminal law, society etc etc. it was limitless.

One day I complained in the class that – ‘sir, you are targeting me! Why you ask questions only to me?’ He just asked me – ‘do you agree to democracy’. My answer was yes. Then, let’s go for majority opinion, he said. I was wondering, what he is going to do next. He just asked the entire class to vote. Raise your hands if you want me not to ask her any questions. For my surprise no one raised their hand. Later he explained- look – I don’t want to ask questions to totally a stupid person, because they would never answer. I won’t ask questions to totally a smart person like you, because I know I get the perfect answer. However, I want to ask questions who are sitting on the wall. If I don’t get a satisfactory answer from them, then yes- you’re my last resort in this class. Well, though I wasn’t convinced with his method, it made me proud.

My favorite professor changed my perception about the world outside. He didn’t feed the thoughts in my mind. He just gave me books and asked me to read and then summarize it him the next day. This continued for years and only after my graduation I realized, how these viewpoints made me think and think. He not only respected student’s diverse opinion, but encouraged to reason them out and also develop them. He is an enthusiast photographer, amazing video-film maker, an educationist, a humanist, a great writer, blogger, social activist, computer programmer, an eternal writer, who has written more than 50 books on various topics like computer, law, mythology, education, car driving, politics, religion, economics, share market, trading, photography, agriculture, gardening, logic and reasoning etc,. He was jack of all trades and master of literature. The entire college titled him as ‘walking encyclopedia’. He was the pioneer of progressive thoughts and modern approach. A rare blend that’s hard to find!

This professor, who really is the sculptor of my personality who shaped my thoughts, vision, dreams, aspiration, righteousness, He introduced me to - atheism, existentialism, nihilism, feminism, humanism, logic, reasoning, he opened my doors to reading to traveling, exploring to researching; who gave me the writers like Nietzsche to Bertrand Russell, Franz Kafka to Masanobu Fukuoka, Kant to Dostoevsky, Darwin to Hawking, Ananthamurthy to Rahamat Tarikere, Ranna to Kuvempu to Tejaswi, and put in my mind that “eternal greed” for knowledge and an everlasting zeal! A right teacher at the right time at the right place is the greatest asset one can have!!

He is someone who gleamed optimism, glimmered imagination and galvanized a love for learning – the ones who shaped the person who I am today. His memory sways in my mind for he has brought in the best out of me, which I admire about myself. Great teachers are the sculptors of a great nation, and a good world, truly believe in that!! I wish that every student is blessed with such a gifted teacher. 

Those Three Words

Those three words!

Those three words! Those three words that fascinated mankind for centuries. Those three words, that humanity tried to seek an answer. Those three words that differentiates a human from an animal. Those three words, that’s an eternal enigma. What are those three words? When I asked this question - The answer I got from few married people is – I am sorry; few toastmasters answered – table topic session, and then few others mentioned –let’s get married! Few lovers said – those three words are - ‘we should talk’!

While pondering the answer for this eternal enigmatic question, a childhood incident crossed my mind. I am an ardent admirer of nature. I was fortunate to own my ‘tiny little’ garden that we cousins named as ‘suchi’s garden’. There were petite hands playing in the slush and rainy water, planting the colorful flowers that they found beautiful. The garden was their empire and workshop, everything there was their life, every plant was their baby. Months passed by thus with these little children and their suchi garden. One day, a neighbor boy ajay came and stole a beautiful plant from suchi’s garden. The very act of their neighbor boy got those little children angry, annoyed and furious. The next day, all over their fence they wrote that ‘ajay is a thief’. Well, suchi and suchi’s cousin gang stopped talking to that thief ajay. Even till date we don’t talk to each other. Today it sounds silly to me- but, once that was the right thing to do.

As I grew older, this incident intrigued my life. Why it mattered to me. It was just a plant? Was that plant part of me? Even to date, I feel he is a wrongdoer. Is it against my principle? Who taught me that? What constitutes me, what constitutes my thoughts, what constitutes my morals, Final question was – who am I? What is life? Why am I here?

These three words have sent poets to the blank page, philosophers to the agora and seekers to the oracles.

When asked, why are we here, a great philosopher said - we are here to die a heroic death for the sake of the collective, we are here to produce off-springs, we are here to prepare them for life and we are here to provide for them, is that it? Or are we our thoughts and ideas. We should be seeking immortality for our ideas and thoughts and not our physical body.

Our belief that we are here for a purpose shows that we are so engrossed in ourselves that we feel, our existence has a purpose. We are the same species that feel animals, insects, flora, fauna and everything around us is purposeless and they are here to accommodate our existence.

We are so deeply wired to find patterns that we never accept that many things are just random. A moth is so deeply wired to fly towards the light that it may never accept that the light bulb is not the moon. And we sympathize that moth. We should have the same sympathy for our faulty wiring as we do for the moth. Give us some dots and a line, and we’ll see a face. A carrot from my garden looks like god, a mere cloud formation looks like a sign. What does it mean? A black cat crossed my path. What does it mean? An old friend calls just a minute after I was thinking about them. What does it mean? What does it mean when someone likes your fb posts and pictures, and someone doesn’t? What does it mean when someone laughs at every sentence you speak? What does it mean when you get a loud applause and when you don’t?

The answer my dear friends – is Nothing! Nothing at all. Nothing has inherent meaning. Everything is only what it is and that’s it.

The great music band Talking Heads, was popular for their redolent and mysterious lyrics. Their lyrics made you wonder what they were really about. In an interview about their lyrics, they said many of their lyrics were random. They would write random phrases on pieces of paper, then throw them into a bowl, and shuffle them up. Then they’d pull them out, and put them into the song in that order. They did this because they liked how the listener creates meaning that wasn’t intended. We assume that if someone writes a song, and sings it on the stage, it must have a meaning. Nope. It was random. Any meaning you think it contains was put there by you, and it’s yours not the writers.

Let’s get back to our original question. Who am I? Why am I here? Recently I joined yoga class. At the end of each session, the instructor asks all of us to do something that was so enlightening and refreshing. Please follow me.  Kindly close your eyes. Imagine you are sitting in your favorite place with calm and quietness! Forget everything around and focus on you. Ask yourself - who am I? Why am I here? We may not find an answer, we may not have an answer, and the answer may differ to each one. But for this moment, let’s leave it there and live a life that’s meaningful to you.