SUDHIR BHUVA - હદયમા પડેલી છબી

Friday, 9 July 2010

 

Whenever I think of Sudhir, an ever-smiling face flashes on the screen of my mind’s eye. His face is structured so naturally that it looks beautiful even when he is not smiling.

I met him first in the first year of our BA in D.H. College in 1998.It was either recess time or a free lecture. Loitering in the classroom, I saw him seated on a bench filling up the verb form gaps in the 12th std. grammar book, surrounded by a host of other classmates who were also doing their bit to this exercise and, by doing so, were displaying their abject ignorance of grammar rules. I, out of curiosity, became a part of the crowd and found that his answers were satisfactory. If some classmate gave a wrong answer, he could easily shut his mouth with an appropriate explanation. I was happy to find such a bright classmate amidst the crowd of mediocrities. The truism that men of equal caliber attract each other found an example in our case. Then came a sentence: Mr. Sharma _______ in this institute for the last five years.(Teach).″Has taught″ said Sudhir. The mediocrities thought better and chose to keep mum. "Has been teaching" said I in a matter-of –fact voice. Sudhir didn’t look up at me. Instead he re-read the sentence and re-affirmed his earlier answer. I Said, "It doesn’t suit the overall meaning of the sentence"
He asked, ″Are you sure? ″ "100%" I said. ″Okay then, let’s meet our professor and ask him″ I didn’t want to go to any professor with such a trivial matter. But I thought It might give me a chance to know more of this tall and lanky classmate of mine. I agreed and we went upstairs, met prof. Yogendra Rathod in the common room and presented our query. He had a casual glance at the sentence and said , ″Though both the answers are accepted as correct, it is Has Been Teaching which is better″

We came out into the corridor and had a close look at each other’s face. He smiled his ever-smiling smile and asked :

″Which school did you pass your 12th std. from?
″I was an external student″
″ Me too. So what else do you do?″
″Teaching.″
″Gosh! Me too ″

Our chemistry clicked and soon we became fast friends. One day, he handed me the invitation card of his elder brother’s marriage. With that card our friendship grew one step further. Now I was not just his friend. I was being taken as a family member. Though I could not go to Movia (In Gondal) and attend the ceremony, I did send my Best-Wishes in the form of a letter to the just married couple (Ajaybhai–Krishnabhabhi). When, after a year or so, a daughter (Shraddha) was born to them, I wrote a letter to her. Surprisingly, after a few days, I got a letter from her. By the time Shraddha was one year old, we had exchanged around a dozen letters and had become regular pen-pals.To date I don't know who wrote letters on her behalf. But I became a homely figure in Sudhir's family because of my letters. Everytime my letter reached movia Chandumasa-Sudhir's father would show it to her and said :"Here come your letter from your pen-friend"

After S.Y.B.A. exam, I went to Movia. It was my virgin trip to any village. All my life I have been city boy. Even if I had seen farms and crops, it was from the squares and rectangles from the bus-windows. So I was a bit nervous about it. I stayed there for days and it was the best hospitality I have ever got in my life. I n the absence of Sudhir, Ajaybhai and Pradipbhai were always ready to entertain me. Ajaybhai is a die-hard chess player and we would often sat down to chess for hours together. If I won the first game, he would press me to start a fresh game just to square the score. And he would keep on pressing me till he won the game. His father took me to their farm and showed me the crops. If Shraddha whined to join us, we would take her too with us. On the way chandumasa would talk about the crops of rain and I would talk about my jobs.

Bhabhi's love showering on devar. That is something that happens in old Hindi films. In real life most bhabhis hate their devars. But that is not the case with Krishnabhbabhi. During my three-day stay I saw that they have their daily quota of criticism, funny taunts and fights. As a kid Shraddha never addressed sudhir as uncle because she under impression that he might be her elder brother. Once when Sudhir got off the Gondal-Rajkot bus, he realised that either he has been pickpocket or he has lost his purse. He met me at university and told me of this unhappy incident. I was going to visit Movia in near future, so requested me not to report this to Krishnabhabhi. I asked : But why? What'd wrong with it?He said: Nothing, but she will start delivering harangue to me :"સામ્ભર્યુ? ભાઈ પાકીટ ખોઈ આવ્યા.ઍક પાકીટ પણ એમનાથી સાચવી શકાતુ નથી...." and so on. As an ideal friend I didn't. If I had and Krishnabhbabhi would have started haranguing, I know Sudhir would have listened to her with his smiling face without uttering one single word.

As a teacher, he is wonderful. Much more than promising. I have a high opinion of sudhir as a teacher .I'd not hesitate to rank him second best teacher among our group of friends (first ,of course, being me). I remember one incident: he was working as an English teacher in a girls' hostel in Gondal five-six years ago. After one or two years he had to leave that job as he got Govt. job in a secondary school in Amreli. Naturally, the owners of the hostel did not like that the teacher of his caliber should live the job. But they were helpless. After some time Sudhir came to Rajkot. We met. He narrated the entire incident and added:

"The last day at the hostel was too tough for me. Girls showed no interest in the study. And when the time came for me to leave many of them could not help but started crying right in the class-room. I was at my wit's end. I could not think of what to do...so many girls crying...whom should I explain....whom should I calm down....After a month I went there again to meet my students. I met all those girls....At last the matron came to me and she said:
"Girls seemed to have no interest in taking food after you left and I used to witness a lot of leftover in the kitchen those days"

I have so many good things about him to say, but that doesn't mean that I have found no negative points in him. His greatest negative point is his smugness. He is happy with what he is and what he has. No grandiose desire to achieve or do something on a large scale. I think he is not developing his potential and does what ordinary mortals do. There is one more thing I don't like about him. It is his habit of not criticising people even when there are reasons enough to do so. He just smiles and keeps his cool. He behaves as if he has signed off a contract with God to love every Tom, Dick and Harry. I don't take this as a plus point. If I don't like someone or if I think someone hurts me, I don't waste time to show my displeasure right in the face of the person. If it makes him/her sad or feel insulted, so be it. Like Ravindranath Tagore,I believe that a man understands himself better when he confronts the pain. If someone receives criticism, insult ,or punches in some case from me, it is all for his own good. Sudhir doesn't think that way and takes care of the innermost feelings of the person and by doing so he has been able to endear himself to all and has got love from a large number of people.

His certain behaviour may irritate me sometimes. But we have never been at loggerheads with each other. We have never had any sort of argument or dispute over any thing. It surprises me now when I think of that. He had so many friends at the time we met. I had hardly any. I considered myself lucky that he considered me worthy of his friendship and accepted me as his friend.