The White Knight and the all time Honorary Mighty

"Eco..... Eco...... Eco (the third time would be in his trademark crackling and mocking voice)..... Hmmm......don't think I do not know the name all of you have given me", he said suddenly one day in the middle of the class, almost innocently. (An adverb that I never thought I would ever use it for Mallayya Sir). Sir went on to explain, there was this girl, 3 years our senior, who was passing a piece of paper to her friend across the aisle in my class. He saw it and she dropped the paper on the floor. He went over to pick it up and took a look at what she had written - "Eco, your voice is Echoeing". We did not know if he wanted us to laugh for this apparent joke or keep quiet. The consequences for either would be disaster. In that one moment of truth, I guess we all learnt a lifetime of diplomacy and to keep a straight poker face that I still use during negotiations.
Sitting in the first row, as I was for most of my 9 and 10 standards, and facing Mallaya Sir for as many as 3 subjects - Economics & Accountancy, English and Civics - was some education in crisis management!The ambience in his class would always be volatile if not electric. We would live every second for what it was - never thinking of of the one before and never wishing the next. Anything could happen.... there was no telling. One second it would be a lovely soft-voiced intonation of a William Wadsworth or a Keats verse in the Queen's English resplendent with the accent, lilt n the works and the next would be an extended tirade of "Orre Rashcal...... Orre Rashcal...... Orre Rashcal" with a noisy gritting of the teeth. He would go from a symbol of deer-like benignity to a hungry feline ferocity in plain 2 seconds!!! And then sometimes it would be a soft, doting father-like "Orre rashcalooo", when I guess we all would break into a careful smile, forgetting the moment before and unworried about the next.
Clad in white n white with exquisitely polished black shoes, he had the look of the vestal virgins. His tummy lent credence to his often stated love for his staple grain - rice. His face had a certain mischievous look to it, what with a "Brijesh Patelesque" handle-bar moustache on an otherwise neatly shaven face. And his form of corporal punishment was quite benign , reserved only for the boys - the deadly squeeze of soft cartilageous tissue at the lower part of the ears till they smelt of blood or a quick pull down and a punch on the back.
There was a palpable inner softness in this man when he recited a Frost or a Tagore verse. He would hardly look up from the textbook but we knew he would never have to read from it because every word in the poem he knew by rote. No one could tell to this day whether he loved Frost more or Tagore. I would argue for the latter, as sitting at my perch, close enough to hear him breathe, he had so many times hid a tear well up, belying that carefully built-up facade during a Tagore read. Just a micro momentary loss of bearing in the middle of "...... where tireless striving stretches it arms towards perfection...... " or was it the memory of his beloved hero, Pandit Nehru, during the last 2 verses of Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening ...... or when he read aloud to the class the immortal prose of "The Light has Gone Out".
The love for poetry and impeccable prose was equalled by his love for socialist thought - Marx, Engels, even our own George Fernandes and Jaiprakash Narain. He had an unparalleled disdain for the white man only to be equalled by the one he often reserved for Madaam Gandhi, as he called the then PM. He simply hated her and it did not matter that it was middle of the Emergency or that he worked for the Government. He would take offence to her standing up in Paliament in 1971 to announce the capture of Dacca by Indian troops - a privilege rightfully hers as PM of the country - but somehow lost on Mallayya Sir as he would say her contribution to it was negligible, if any. It was as if he knew this piece of historrical fact even in 1976. (Recent books on the subject have indeed vindicated Mallayya Sir and his assessment of Mrs. G contribution to this event.)
Some of his other thoughts were quite revolutionary for the times. He would often speak glowingly of the student leaders of Warangal, Khammam, Karimnagar and other such areas. He would relive the plight of weavers of India post the Industrial Revolution. He would act it out by stretching both his hands forward and shaking and shivering and would scream - "Lancashire...... Manchester..... Spinning jenny" - halfway through the class in economics and would say these two English towns were the nightmares and daydreams (sic!) of our weavers in the 19th century. My mother would listen to these stories from me each day and worry that he would "convert" me to communism. Coming from a landed community in the rice bowl of Tanjore delta, my mother would not take lightly to such beliefs in socialism. She would often urge my father to go to the school and speak to the Principal about this "communist teacher". I am glad my father never gave in to those pleas.
The most memorable moments for us with Mallayya Sir were when he asked each one of us to stand in the front of the entire class and recite 2 of 3 poems - The Solitary Reaper, Stopping by Woods..., and Where the Mind is Without Fear. Among the first ones who volunteered, Jasjit Kaur and Sitaramaraju came out being truly outstanding and Mallayya Sir was pleased beyond his self to see 2 of the most unlikely people performing better than all reasonabale expectations. I was one of last one to go up on stage and with legs shivering throughtout those 5 long minutes, that felt like a lifetime, I made the most creditable rendering of the Solitary Reaper and the Frost poem (I liked Tagore better but was afraid I would choke up mid-way unable to contain my emotions). He came up and almost hugged me by putting his hand around my back and I remember to this day the warmth of the man in spite of his ever serious demeanour and imposing presence.
Even now, when I see a man in white dress, I do strain my neck to catch a glimpse of his face, almost half expecting to find Malayya Sir's face. It is a momentary lapse of rationality and an inability to accept that only his spirit lives on in our midst but the flesh is long gone.
I am sure he would be there on 27th Dec during the honours ceremony - his voice once again echoing in those hallowed hallways...... at least in spirit. The heart refuses to let go what the mind has reconciled.........
Sreeram. S (1980)