For the past couple of days I have heard and read many
wonderful memories people have shared about my teacher, Professor Sudhakar
Marathe. He passed away this Thursday evening and hundreds of people, whose
lives he has touched in deep ways, have been writing messages on various new
age portals to connect with each other and express their loss.
To me he was the most observant and altruistic teacher
I knew.
The first time I was helped by Professor Marathe was
when I was an anxious twenty-year-old scribbling away at a desk in a large hall
in a strange city, attempting to write an impressive essay during the entrance
exam for University of Hyderabad. Suddenly I saw one of the invigilators holding
out his wrist watch to me. I looked up from my paper and he indicated that I
should note the time. He repeated that action three times in the next hour and
a half. I felt immensely grateful that an invigilator during an entrance exam
noticed that I wasn’t wearing a wrist watch for an examination and wouldn’t be
able to keep track of time.
That was the beginning of a long association through
which I gained much. Not only did I find the affectionate guidance of an
extremely generous teacher who selflessly gave his time and energy to his
students to help them become good readers and writers but also a person I knew
I could call and consult whenever I felt the need for wise counsel.
The picture below is of the books he had edited and/or
translated in the first decade of this century and given to me during my visits
to him after I moved on to a different city and a different educational institution.
He was also a great upcycler of every imaginable piece
of paper. That bookmark placed on the cover of his translation of R R Borade’s Fall was made by him using a part of a
used reference card and some sketch pens. He gave it to me some twenty years
ago when he I went to his office to discuss my latest draft of a chapter of my
M Phil dissertation and he got to know that it was my birthday that day.
Almost all his students who knocked on the door of his
office knew that he will find a way to help, either by hearing the person out
if he had the time or by setting up an appointment to meet later and give the
issue his full attention if it wasn’t urgent.
I have been dealing with his slightly nasal drawl,
“Come on in” going around in my head for the past few days, coupled with the
regret that I did not call him up for years. I have been in touch with him
through other new age ways of communication, including a newsletter he painstakingly
composed and sent every Sunday to some of his friends, urging them to look
around and learn from the natural world around us. I received the last one on
30th of January, which was a heartening account of a rescue of a
lake in Pune by a group of nature-lovers. I had read it late evening that
Sunday and had planned to write to him to thank him Monday afternoon after my
class because I felt an upsurge of positivity upon reading that extremely
optimistic account of the success of perseverance towards an altruistic cause. My
email remained unwritten, for I received news of his hospitalisation from Mrs.
Marathe— a very warm-hearted and generous lady who welcomed any student who
rang their doorbell most work day evenings for decades on end. I had truly believed
that he would solider on through this obstacle too and promised myself that I
will go to Pune to meet them during the next break I get from work. That was
not to be.
In all of this, I have surprised myself by reacting
like a child. I don’t care whether it was in a childish manner or a childlike
manner—after all it was Professor Marathe who also led me to the realization
that adults are being very judgmental when they use these terms pejoratively or
otherwise. He was my first guide into the world of research and into childhood
studies.
I began my journey as a teacher under his firm
supervision and Mrs. Marathe’s gentle support and no one could have wished for a
better apprenticeship. If I manage to find it in myself to give half as much as
he gave to his students I would think I have been a good student to a great
teacher.
