The End of A Captain’s Innings
The 4th
September 1981
I was hurriedly coming down the
stairs from the library when I caught sight of Prof. B. Prasad looking very
tired, holding on to the railing for support.
“Good evening Sir”
He acknowledged my greeting with his
inevitably folded hands, “Where are you coming from doctor sahib?”
“I had gone to the library to wish
the PGs good luck”
“I am also on my way there, I hope
the gate is not yet closed.” Saying this he again started his weary climb up
the stairs, but there was a strange sparkle in his eyes.
“May I help you Sir?”
“Thank you, doctor sahib. I hate
sympathy. This is one thing I hope I shall never need.”
In the meanwhile several of his
colleagues, also on there way up, greeted him, “Sir you have been advised
complete rest, you should not be straining yourself.”
“You people can’t avoid me. I shall
keep coming. So long as I don’t see my PGs through, I won’t be in peace. After
all I love my PGs.”
The professor was very fond of his
students. Even when he was in the ICCU of the HEC plant hospital fighting the
grim battle between life and death, his heart was with his students who were
appearing at their final exams. He made persistent queries about the way they
fared and repeatedly expressed his worry, “I hope in my absence the examiners
are not taking undue liberties and harassing my students.”
The exams are over. The students
have gone home for their vacations. The college will reopen, results published
and like every other time students will rejoice over them. But, for the first
time the professor will not be there to share their happiness.
May be it was for this occasion, the
famous poet Walt Whitman had written…..
‘Exult, O shores
!... and ring, O bells
But I, with
mournful tread.
Walk the deck my
captain lies,
Fallen cold and
dead.”
K.K. Lohani
then Final year student, 6th Oct.’81
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