My Teachers

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Ibegin by reproducing a letter, which I wrote to an office bearer of Himachal Pradesh University Alumni Association (HPUAA):

Dear Prof Thakur Thank you for inviting me to the first meeting of HPUAA. I am happy that a team of professors has taken an initiative of bringing together so many alumni of the University. The first step is always difficult because it needs a lot of effort, determination and positive energy. I have always felt proud of my University, the vision of its founder Vice Chancellor Prof RK Singh to invite the teachers who were the best in their subjects. I have been a student of History (I continue to be one today). I wish to acknowledge with gratitude that it makes me feel proud that I was an ordinary student of Prof SR Mehrotra and his wife Dr Eva Mehrotra. Many of us might have forgotten that Dr Eva Mehrotra taught with dedication accepting an honorarium of rupee one till her retirement. The department owes so much to both of them. Prof Mehrotra used to carry a number of books for us from the Indian Institute of Advanced Study to ensure that we prepared for the exams from standard books. HPU was the first university to introduce semester system.

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Prof Mehrotra and Ma’am helped us to accept it mentally and prepare well. It was Prof Mehrotra who brought Prof Ravinder Kumar to head the Department of History. Both Prof Mehrotra and Ma’am dedicated themselves to teaching and research. Prof Ravinder Kumar was able to provide academic leadership to the department with dedication. I learnt from my teachers to work hard with commitment, the value of participatory teaching and always striving to learn more. They never bragged about their achievements. I tried to be like my teachers in my different assignments in Punjabi University, Patiala where Prof Amrik Singh and experts selected me for the Department of History, not because I was brilliant but because ‘I was a student of Prof Mehrotra and Prof Ravinder Kumar’. In Teen Murti Library where I worked with Madam Aruna Asaf Ali, in MHRD when I worked for the National Perspective Plan for Women and then for 23 years in NCERT, I was taken seriously because of my teachers, and my training under them. My national and international exposure made me realise how great my teachers were and that I would never be able to rise to the level of my teachers in terms of intellect and exceptional contribution to enrich the academic world. I feel proud that l am a student of my teachers. I owe a lot to HPU which got the best of teachers for its students and provided a well stocked Library within a year of its inception with an introduction of an Inter Library Loan facility and purchase of the best standard books, journals and newspapers etc. I am unable to come for this meeting due to my Spinal problem but would like to assure that I will always like to come to do whatever I can for my University. l wish this meeting a beautiful experience of meeting old and not so old alumni. - Kiran Devendra

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Prof SR Mehrotra

I became your student in 1974 to do Masters in the Department of History. You had returned from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London University. I was totally unaware as to how well accomplished a historian you were. I learnt about you gradually and knew that it would always be a matter of pride and satisfaction for me to be your student.

Teaching was your passion, being well organised was your habit. You encouraged each one of us to do well academically. You never looked tired. You had ‘a typically British Professor’s style of delivering lectures with your research cards’. You never forgot to smile. Each one of us was trying to focus, many a times without blinking our eyes! You never gave notes. We learnt to make our own.

When I joined Punjabi University, Patiala as its faculty, I wanted to be like you, never going to a class without preparing, engaging the students, trying to understand them by maintaining a regular eye contact. I also learnt that as a teacher one needed to have patience with questions from students even if they were irrelevant or untimely, because ‘as a teacher I had just started building up a convincing argument!’ This helped me at a young age of 25–26 years to understand and get comfortable with participatory teaching, realising that students can contribute to our meaningful classroom interactions, and, build a healthy rapport which is an essential part of teaching learning process and pedagogy.

I remember your concern for my health. You were upset that I had missed my classes for a week. You said to me with a smile, ‘Kiran, you need to be regular, this is a semester system!’ When I informed you that I had very high fever and the university bus had stopped coming to pick up students from Auckland House bus stop, you literally ran to the Vice Chancellor’s office, to question, ‘I want to know whether the university buses are plying for our students? Your answer should be yes, please instruct your administration that no student should be deprived of his/her right to avail the university transport, with an instruction that my student Kiran Sharma should be allowed to travel from today itself, the bus needs to pick her up from and drop her back at Auckland House stop only!’ It is so fresh in my mind.

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I learnt that one needs to take a stand and be firm about it. I tried doing it for my students in Punjabi University, Patiala, and now do it at Amity University. When I was in NCERT, I never forgot to support my younger faculty and staff.

The difficulty with which you wrote your research based books, considering your recurrent surgeries for Retina detachment and your breathing issues, gives me hope that I too can keep making an effort. You give me strength whenever I feel disheartened. I learnt to publish for intellectual satisfaction, not to increase the number of papers, but was concerned with the quality of whatever I do.

You took pride in telling university people, judges, senior administrators that Anand has made Himachal known in the world. He is not an upstart but has been in politics as a student leader. He used to get emotional narrating visit to his office when Anand was Commerce & Industry Minister. ‘He interacted with me for more than an hour, noticed my nearly torn plastic bag, quietly took it to keep it on the table, put all my papers and books in a new leather conference bag. He folded my plastic bag to keep it in the new bag. I felt so proud and was overwhelmed as he saw me off’.

Every year when I come to see you, you don’t let me go without a warm hug, cups of black tea with orange and honey to take care of my fatigue. I was not able to visit you early last year due to my health issues, but I did manage in September 2017. I prepared myself mentally by thinking that even at the age of 88, you travel to interview people, for getting documents and information and consult libraries in Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta!

Thank you for being my loving, inspiring and a learned teacher! I will miss your presence as you are now in the better world.

Prof Ravinder Kumar

You took over from Prof Mehrotra as HoD of History Department. I was initially registered for PhD with Prof Mehrotra. When you came, I became your student. I had known Prof Mehrotra for three-four years before that. I came to your office to know the reason for the change of my supervisor. Prof Mehrotra was sitting in your office. He said ‘Prof Kumar will be the best person

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to guide. He too is an internationally renowned historian. He has come from the Australian National University after teaching there for years. He will be good and gentle to you as you are a very sensitive person’.

Within a month, I was comfortable with you. Prof Mehrotra gradually withdrew from the University’s History Department. He began to focus on his books, lectures and talks in the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (the old Rashtrapati Niwas). I was getting a University Research Fellowship to do my PhD. My presence in Shimla was mandatory. You realised that after my marriage it was important for me to be with my husband and his family in Amritsar. You found a beautiful way to address the academic issue, keeping in view my situation by suggesting that I could work in a library in Amritsar and visit Teen Murti Library once in six or seven weeks for two-three days.

I came back to the University after six months. You signed my Fellowship bills and ensured that I got a cheque before leaving for Amritsar. Meanwhile, you realised that I was expecting a baby. You were worried about my travel. You said, ‘don’t travel, no need to go to Delhi or come to Shimla, just be in Amritsar and decide for yourself how to keep working on your thesis. There is nothing to feel guilty about. I will find a way’. What a relief and blessing it was! Without your support, I could have never finished my PhD, stayed in Amritsar with Devendra’s family for so long and had a safe delivery. When you became the Director of Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, Delhi, you called me to visit you. I felt very nice. I was proud of you and continue to feel so!

Whenever I came to consult Teen Murti Library, you always took care of me, my problems, never forgetting to tell me that you will always be there for Devendra and me. There were days and days when I would find nothing related to my thesis in the Library. You never asked me to look for any particular books, journals, manuscripts etc. However, when you found that sometimes I was taking too much time, you would say, ‘the reading that you do, even if it is not related to your work will help’. You never showed any urgency, you wanted me to discover myself and learn to manage. When I did, you appreciated. You were against those supervisors who spoon-fed their students. You believed that by doing so, they

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were limiting a students’ ability to explore and learn, and, that their students will remain dependent for everything on their teachers. I learnt from you that giving notes to students should be avoided. Encouraging them, motivating them, addressing their issues, letting them ask questions, following participatory teaching-learning, all these actually help students. I also encourage all the students to explore, to become confident and be each other’s strength.

My years of long interactions with you made me grow as a teacher with a passion for teaching and my students. I encourage students and believe in participatory learning, giving time to every student who needs it while keeping the others engaged to encourage peer learning. I never give notes to my students, gradually they come to terms and share how they prepared on their own, reading books and noting down my discussions for concept clarity and arguments to support different viewpoints. They tell me that they enjoy their freedom and the fact that I never impose myself. I never forget how you used to allow Devendra and me to borrow your books. I tell my students to pick up books from my room, share them, use them and then keep them back. I am happy that a lot of students from other departments also come to share with me what is bothering them. I feel good as they unload their worries without any inhibition and walkout with the belief that I would be there for each one of them.

You felt proud in introducing me to everyone as your first Indian PhD scholar. You were also Devendra’s PhD supervisor. However, when both Devendra and I shared our professional anxieties, you would patiently listen, a message you eternally gave to us was that, if need be, you would support us!

You came to deliver the Keynote Address for the Punjab History Conference 1981. It was annually hosted by History Department of Punjabi University, Patiala where I was working as an Assistant Professor. A senior colleague had gone to receive you at the Chandigarh Airport. I was waiting outside the University Guest House with Manu, who was four years old then. The moment you spotted us, you got the car stopped, got down and hugged both of us. My senior colleagues did not, till then, know how much of affection you had for Devendra, Manu and me. Devendra was undergoing surgeries at AIIMS and I used to be travelling in buses

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almost every alternate day from Delhi-Patiala or Patiala-Delhi, coming to finish my courses for MA students. I could not present a paper for the Conference. During lunch, you were surrounded by so many, you sat down with your plate and made Manu sit next to you and helped him to eat. My HoD came to you to complain ‘Kiran Devendra takes lot of leave, teaching suffers’. You were upset. You told him ‘Prof I expect you to see Kiran’s strengths, how effective she is as a teacher. She was teaching HPU’s MA History class as a PhD scholar. Please don’t bring her into the fold of rigid rules to overlook the fact that her husband is having surgeries at AIIMS!’ When a senior colleague got into the car which was to take you to Chandigarh Airport, you politely told him that you wished Manu and me to travel with you to Chandigarh’. We did.

You suggested my name to Ms Aruna Asaf Ali, for her nationally important project, by telling her, ‘she is responsible, committed and academically sound, I vouch for her’. It was because of you that my dream to get a glimpse of her was realised.

I was discussing with you some academic issue when your staff came to inform that Manu got stuck in the lift. You rushed with me, instructing your staff to send for the engineer from Connaught Place. It was 10.30 am. You stood with me for an hour and a half till the lift was opened. You told me later that you were relieved that I did not break down or panicked but kept on talking to Manu, who was then seven years old! I wonder whether a Director would now find so much of time, cancelling an important meeting to ensure that I was not alone. Devendra had this kind of sensitivity!

You were so proud of Anand’s intellect and academic orientation. After listening to his lecture on South Africa at the India International Centre you said, ‘he speaks better than a University professor. He will contribute significantly’.

You came to NCERT twice to deliver lectures, on both the occasions you picked me up from my residence in your staff car. You introduced me proudly to everyone present there as ‘your student’. You were so proud of Manu when he began to come to you as a student of History at St Stephen’s College.

I am eternally grateful to you for your love, affection for me and my family and for treating me as your third daughter!

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Prof Owen W Cole

You visited Punjabi University, Patiala, almost every year for years. You were an accomplished scholar of Sikh History at Sussex University. You were staying in the University Guest House and our house was next to the Guest House. We would often meet at our place. You grew very fond of our son Manu, who was four years old when you first met him. You found him to be intelligent and well-behaved child who conversed with you comfortably. I moved to Delhi in 1984 to work with Ms Aruna Asaf Ali and Devendra moved to Kurukshetra University. You made an effort to meet us in Delhi whenever you visited India. You dedicated your book on Hinduism to Manu. He was seven years old then. It surprised us pleasantly when we received its first copy. You and your daughter Sian visited us at Anand’s house three times where we were staying. You were happy to meet us and you were always keen to meet my brother Anand. Later, you started visiting us at our Asian Games Village residence. You were touched when Devendra paid for your very expensive medicine and refused to take the money from you. He ensured that you came over for meals and gave you our car to take you around. You were sad that Devendra left this world untimely.

You remained very ill for more than a year. I kept in touch with you on the hospital phone number. The nurses were kind, they made special effort to connect us, each time I called. Later, when you could not take calls, Sian would. We remained in touch till you passed away. It was a blessing to know you as a great scholar and a great human being.