The class is over

His daughter had made a fuss this morning.”Why do you want to go to Lalbagh now? Just a few days more for you here and then you’re back to America.” . But Krishnakumar  had insisted and finally, she put him on an auto to Lalbagh. His daughter lived in Cox Town, so it took quite a while for him to get to Lalbagh. He got off at the Double Road gate and decided to walk up to the Glass House. 

It had been years- maybe three decades or more- since he had last been to Lalbagh. At that time, he had just got his first job, and he had that thought he should say goodbye to one of his favourite Bangalore spots. Soon he would have to move out of Bangalore, which was a bit of a wrench, for he had been born and brought up here. When he was in school, his parents lived in Basavanagudi  and going to the Lalbagh every Sunday evening had been one of the things that his parents had enjoyed doing.  And then, later on, as he grew up, he began to visit the park on his own, early in the morning, before heading out to college. Once he had finished his education, and found a job, Life took him far away from Bangalore. 

Krishnakumar had studied Mathematics in college, and had gone on to complete a Ph.d, from the Indian Institute of Science, and then he had won a post-doc fellowship in a prestigious University in the US. He did all the things that migrants to the US generally did in those days – he took up a job, went on to get a Green Card, got married and raised a family there. But his daughter married an Indian, whom she had met in college and fallen in love with , and came back to Bangalore with him, which was why Krishnakumar was here now.

He took quite some time to reach the Glass House – the road up to the rock, peninsular Gneiss, as the board of the ASI proclaimed – seemed steeper than he had remembered. He had forgotten that he had aged considerably since his last visit, and that his lungs were no longer what they were.

Once he got to the foot of the rock, he was happy. He thought of climbing up, but then realized that it would probably be too taxing for his knees. So, he decided to go to the Glass House, instead. The trees and the benches that he remembered  – which had lined the road leading up to that edifice – had vanished. Instead, there were these huge sculptures of wood! Why did they do this?, he wondered, as he walked slowly past these creations. 

At the granite-clad steps that led down to the Glass House, he decided that he needed a break and sat down there, in a corner, and then he remembered what he had seen these on his last visit. 

Varadan Sir had been standing there, facing the steps and waving his hands around. He was teaching a Maths class or so he thought. And it was time to teach them-the class-the theorem of Pythagoras. So he drew-in the air-the right angled triangle, and then the squares on each side. And then he proceeded to talk, or appeared to do so, for no words could be heard. He then looked around- to the left and the right-and appeared to be asking his students if they had understood. And then, after  a minute or so, he appeared to take a duster from the table, and wiped the board clean. Only, the board, the table and the students were only in his mind. Once he had done that, he would call out loudly, startling the walkers passing by,  “the class is over.” Some of the people walking would snigger at this, but they were probably newcomers to the park. This had been his morning ritual for many days now and regulars in the park were well aware of this idiosyncratic person, and generally ignored him.  Once he had done with ‘the class is over’ ritual , he would start over again, but first, he would then take another walk around the Glass House, and then begin his class, maybe doing Algebra, this time, and asking his students to take out their Hall & Knight text-books, and turn to a particular page.

Varadan Sir, that was how he always thought of him, had been his favourite teacher in school. Krishnakumar was interested in Maths, and this made him pay considerably more attention in his class that he did in other subjects.  Varadan Sir had sensed this interest, and made it a point to ask him questions regularly, especially questions which the other children did not seem to understand. ”Let’s  ask ASK”, he would say, with a little laugh. There were two Krishnakumars in the class,  A.S, and B.K., and to distinguish between them, he had chosen to call  A S Krishnakumar by the acronym ASK, and this little joke went through the school, and everyone thereafter referred to him only by his acronym, and there were always questions to ask ASK!

Varadan Sir’s classes followed a fixed format. He would begin by taking off his coat, pick up the duster and brush the blackboard clean, saying something like this: “Today, we are going to study the theorem of Pythagoras”, or whatever he had in mind for the day. And when he finished his class – always just before the bell rang to signify the end of the period – he always said, “The class is over,” and with a flourish pick up his coat and stride out, heading for the Staff-room.

Varadan Sir always wore a  cotton-coat, blue in colour,  and patched up at the elbows. His tie, always a little askew, had seen better days. His mouth was a little crooked, and his teeth stained with tobacco. For he was very fond of his “Passing Show” cigarettes, even though the Catholic priests who ran the school frowned at this practice, although many of them indulged in this practice privately. But Varadan Sir was an excellent teacher – he spoke English very well, and he took pains to make sure that his students understood what they were studying. And so the padres didn’t trouble him overmuch over the cigarettes. Besides, he was careful not to smoke in the school. 

He would go off to the nearly Udipi cafe, and smoke there, after a cup of coffee. And if he was lucky, and Bhatta was there, he would get a plate of vada as well, on the house. Bhatta was the owner of the cafe- he had inherited it from his father, who had died young, while Bhatta was still in school. Varadan had helped the young Bhatta in those days, and made sure that he passed the Board exams. In those days, Varadan had still dreamt of making a career in Mathematics.In his plans, teaching had only been an afterthought, a stop-gap arrangement while he prepared to get into the Indian Institute of Science, where he hoped to get his Ph.d, and perhaps even do things that would outshine the work of the great Srinivasa Ramanujan. 

In those days, of course, his suit was in impeccable shape, and his teeth hadn’t yellowed, and he had a choice collection of ties. He had a bicycle –  a much sought-after Raleigh -and this was carefully looked after. He would -for he was a man of punctilious habits- regularly check the air, oil the chain, and make sure that the brakes worked nicely. 

But his plans had come to an abrupt end one evening. He had been cycling home, after an exhausting day at school, when he had been struck by a car coming at speed from behind him. Fortunately, he survived, but his eyesight had been damaged, and his mouth had acquired a permanent slant. He continued working in the school but the zest for his subject had vanished, and all he did was dully go through the motions like the other teachers in the school.

The last time ASK  had come to Lalbagh, he had watched Varadan Sir’s astonishing performance with amazement. He had even attempted to make conversation with Varadan Sir, but his eyes seemed to not notice him at all. The other walkers in the park were completely indifferent to this performance. A passer-by, who had noticed his failed attempt at communicating with him asked him whether he knew who that person was.

When he replied that he had been his Maths teacher in school, the other man said, “Yes, that explains it. He has been coming here for many years now, regularly conducting this class. In the early years, has classes had been more elaborate, and he would even conduct exams, moving between “rows” of imaginary students, and scolding them occasionally. In those days, his voice had not gone, and the walkers could hear what he said. Sometimes he would set them the task of counting the number of glass panes on the glass-house, and ask them to measure a pane, and calculate the total area of glass. But over the years he had slowed down, and his voice too had gone, and now, he would just stand there and ‘talk’ to his students. So sad to see this!”, he concluded.

He could imagine Varadan Sir doing this, for he had been a passionate teacher, and got them to think about numbers in many interesting ways, even describing to them Fermat’s last theorem. “For who knows”, he would say,”there might be a Ramanujan among you”, looking at the students.

But today, Varadan Sir wasn’t there – naturally, for he would have been well over a hundred years old – if he were still alive. Only, for him, the class was finally over.