Shyamananda Sapam 

MY MENTOR

Along nature’s creation sprinkled with rustic mountains of poetic beauty beyond the old dusty road lies the old graveyard. I opened the gate and entered the calm gathering up in the ambience. And as I knelt down with my hands folded in prayers in front of the grave on the far end corner, I felt as if I could hear the soft plod of chappals on the verdant green grass of the graveyard. For a moment I almost could feel his presence behind me.

Beside me old Ben whines in remembrance of his master, Matthew.

Matthew. Matthew sir. As I stood engrossed in the warm winter sun my mind drifted away – to him, to school, and to the most significant turn in my life.

School days were really lively, especially so for the spoiled brat that I was back in those days. I could remember the canteen where my sumptuous meal would be masala dosa and juice to wash it down the throat; the fragrant potato mash still stimulating my olfactory nerves. And the days when I would sneak out of the premises of the residential school just to watch Madhuri Dixit’s new releases – it seems too childish in retrospect, but back then I was a young mind set loftily on the budding sprouts of crush.

It was on one of my rendezvous with Madhuri Dixit that I was caught and summoned at Madam Coutinho’s residential quarters. I can still see myself standing in front of Ma’am, shaking in fear of the unknown. She gestured me to take the seat opposite her and we sat in silence for a while. She was about to say something when I heard someone enter the room and turned around only to see a man in his 50’s with a receding hairline and a warm smile. He was Matthew Coutinho, Madam’s husband who had just retired as a clerk from the Revenues Department. That was the first time I saw him and the first line he said was " So this is the little devil." He took the responsibility to change this impish me. And since then we had been the best together.

I spent long hours after classes in his room under the old ceiling fan. Ben, his St.Bernard pet dog became my playmate. And with time his Beethoven’s collection became of my obsession. Even today I religiously listen to them. I learned a lot about life and the packages that come along with it from Sir. He was a father figure to me and he probably could not have loved his own son more had he been alive.

It was on one of those usual Sunday evenings when he pulled out an old photograph from his drawer and showed it to me. It was the photograph of a young man taken beside a MIG 21. David was the name of the young man and he was the only child of the Coutinho’s. An IAF pilot, David was on a practice flight in his MIG under hostile weather conditions when it crashed. Sir had always felt the void left behind by his son until the day he saw me. And when I expressed my desire to join the IAF he almost broke down to tears but he knew it was where my future lay and encouraged me to go ahead.

By the time I left school I was a completely changed person. And I still remember the last time I saw Sir and Ma’am together. They had come to see me off at the station. Sir patted me on the back and said, " It’s time to bid adieu, little devil. But do not forget us. Never." I did not have words to say or maybe I did not know how to react. And Ma’am started crying. I apologized for all those troubles I caused her, to which she said, " You little devil", and embraced me. It was time for me to leave and I boarded the train back home.

He died of a heart failure two years after I left and Ma’am taught there for another two years after which she left for Kerala to work in an orphanage.

Time really flies by so fast. It seems as if it were just a few days ago when I first saw that man with a receding hairline and a smile warm enough to melt the snowflakes of December, and here I stood today in front of the grave where he lay under the green grass sleeping his eternal sleep with an indefeasible calm.

I miss you Sir.

And I will miss you for the days to come.