After writing my entrance test for WGSHA, Manipal (For Bachelors of Hotel Administration), I was waiting in the verandah for the Group Discussion to commence. Room in the which the GD was to be held was closed for lunch. While waiting, I peeped in through the glass door: It was a small dark room. A guy, dressed as a waiter, came and opened the door. I went in the room. The room stank stale from the ancient carpet laid. Cushioned chairs, with thin metal legs, were kept in a semi-circle. Some eight of us, pimply faced milk-bread kids, were directed to take the chairs.
All of my fellow candidates in the room were in formals: Ties and Tie pins and Polished Black Shoes; one or two even had jacket and all. I was in a brown half-shirt and a light brown trousers and casual shoes. I took the corner most chair on the left. There was a chair right in-front of the semi-circle, at its focal point. A bright light shone down on that chair.
A man in a brown suite walked in and stood behind the chair; his hands resting on the chair’s metal frame. He was wearing dark-brown leather shoes, the long pointed ones. He had a little bit of beer ponch. He wore a red tie, without any tie pin. His face square. Clean shave. Full white hair. Eyes Red. He looked like a World War 2 Veteran with his white moustache, long and straight and thick moustache. Like blades of a RAF propeller planes. We all stood up, more out of sight than out of habit. He raised his arm and ruddered his palm, signalling us to be seated. We obeyed. He just stood there breathing from his belly. I had never seen any one carry a suit with so comfortably.
The brown suite broke the silence his presence had built, ‘MY NAME IS DALIP SINGHA. AND I DON’T LIKE BEING BORED,’ his voice husky, borderline volcanic; like his throat was bruised by either a lot of smoking or a lot of shouting, or both. ‘SO WHAT YOU WANT TO DISCUSS?’
Now, liberty is something a GD "appearer" never expects. All candidates started staring at one another. One “enthu cutlet” suggested, “Women Reservation”. “Development in Rural V/s Urban India,” said another. I said, “Good and bad effects of Movies on youth.”
‘BULLSHIT! THIS IS ALL BEING DONE TO DEATH. SURPRISE ME.’
No one spoke.
‘Yaar... Kya ho raha hai aaj kaal duniya meain?’ Mr. Singha asked.
No one spoke.
‘YAAR, GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.’
No one spoke.
‘ALL RIGHT, LETS DISCUSS U.S WAR ON IRAQ, SHALL WE?’
One fat IIT aspirant – in India you can always tell an IIT aspirant when you see one – started, ‘Sir, I think it is completely justified. What U.S is doing is completely justified. They want world peace. In the end everyone wants peace,’ The mugged up blah blah blah continued. The fat “IIT” looked at everyone else, nodding for assurance, one face at a time.
Then I started. I was told, if one has to score high in a GD it’s important that something, anything, is blabbered out early on. I was not completely aware what the hell I was going on in Iraq-2003. I had overheard about the Iraq-war-something, but only a little bit and there. I said, ‘I agree,’ pointing at the IIT looking guy, ‘I think he is right, the invasion is justif–’
‘I DON’T WANT YOU TO AGREE. I WANT YOU TO SPEAK AGAINST HIM.’
Unsurprisingly, I was dumb struck. A girl (only lady in the lot) tried chirping in. Mr. Singha ruddered his palm at her. She went silent. The red eyes looked at me. The beer-belly breathing in and out proudly. I couldn’t come up with anything. I mumbled in order to distract myself from peeing my pants. ‘Sir... sir... sir...’
‘I. DON’T. WANT.YOU TO AGREE!’
I took a deep breath. My tongue continued to be tied: My schooling wasn’t exactly convent; my chaddi-friends were sons of soil, and our mother or grand-mother only knew their mother-tongue, which is not English. I clenched my fist. ‘Sir,’ I said, hyper-ventilating, ‘America is wrong. They want oil. Rest is wrong. United Nation’s hands are tied. Because America has money, U.N say nothing. America is showing Power. IRAQ can take them themselves care.’ I crashed my back on the back rest.
The girl chirped again, ‘Sir, I think the gentleman on my left is right.’
I sprang back to attention. Never in my life was I called A Gentleman. And now I was a Gentleman on her left. And I was Right. I was a Right Gentlemen on her left.
I fell in love with that girl. She was my Pam Anderson – though she looked completely opposite. I saw Me and Her having a life together, where I was her Gentleman and she was My Lady; A farm house, with White Picket Fence; Bunch of Kids on bikes; Our little girl playing in the sand; Two German Shepards – Jack and Jill and everything.
‘I DON’T WANT YOU TO AGREE WITH ANYONE. I WANT NO ONE TO AGREE WITH ANYONE.’
That girl never looked at me again, and there went my white picket fence and kids and Jack and Jill. I was pain old boy again: not a Gentlemen.
The GD got over – GD and Written test was the first stage. Result came: I passed the first stage, next was Panel Interview. There was more waiting amongst shiny shoes and tie-pines. My turn came and I went in one of the three panels. All the interviewers were old farts; they all wore blue or grey or black suites, and were all seated. Their eyes dull, lifeless. They asked me some philosophical stuff. I answered more philosophical stuff – After all, I was a small town boy, we are big on Philosophy.
Last round was a Personal Interview. It was with General Sarda. He had a big cabin, infact, a big office. He looked like a distilled version of Mr. Singha. He was seated, but one could make out he was tall: his knees came up to his chest. He asked me to speak on Hotesy for a minute. I spoke for two.
Later, after a couple of weeks, the final results were out. I got made: I was in the best hotel management country – apparently.
The first day of college was all about paying fees and filling forms. In the corridor, I was Mr. Singha; and that was the first time I saw him walk. He moved like a Lion, a hungry loin. The Swagger: slow and study, like a beast calculating every step. Eyes red, tunnelled, occasionally looking up. Calm and Composed, he moved. Slow. Everyone stood still and made way as he passed by. He spoke to no one, always kept his head down. Some people wished him, he wished them back: looked up for a second, stopped, kept walking.
It was during the orientation ceremony that he introduced himself, ‘I AM DALIP SINGHA.’ That's it: No designation, no qualification, nothing. We all knew who he was – The Vice fucking Principle of the of most glamorous college in the country. During the ceremony, all faculty member were to perform a five minute gig: Song or Dance or anything. Most of them told a joke, or sang hindi songs; I don’t remember much. But Mr. Singha went all Bob Dylan on the stage with “Blowin’ in the wind” with with hand gestures and all, but he had a bad voice for singing – My God Bad, My god Husky. But he sang, and sang with rhythm and melody. One hand holding the mic, the other, painting a picture in the air.
When seniors joined us, two weeks later, they told us: ‘When it comes to Mr. Singha’s, stay the fuck out of his way. He is a crazy fucker. And will come and hit you if tick him of a least bit.’
No one in my batch got hit.
First two years of college were bad. First year was a one long culture shock – if Manipal is a “forward” place, then WGSHA is a thrust that keeps it forward –, plus, I sucked at studies. I couldn’t understand what was being taught. The medium of instruction was only English, and it was all high-falutin to me. I feared academics and kept running away from it. And, closer the exams got, more helpless became, with the final academic paralysis manifesting itself as I wrote the papers. I just couldn’t express what I knew: I couldn’t find words – and I knew very less. Maybe because I had science in my class 12 and was used to writing technical stuff in bullet points; the Objective type answering was alien to me. I broke my head to get average marks. Also, to add insult to by Academic injuries, the Hotel Management Colleges have a lot of vanity attached to it: Projects and Assignment and stuff, and that meant giving Presentation and stuff in front of the whole fucking class. There wasn’t an excuse I exhausted to avoid classroom dais. I was terrified of the monster called the ‘White Board’ and its ugly cousin, ‘The projector’.
In third year, Mr. Singha had a subject: Dynamics of Human Resource – formerly, Applied Behavioural Science. Simply put: Introduction to Organisational Behaviour. But for the minds of only 19 years, it was anything but simple, and we had had been hearing as to how difficult the subject was to pass and how merciless its teacher was when it came to the evaluation of papers.
First Class, and Mr. Singha goes, ‘WHAT IS OF IMPORTANCE IN A WORK PLACE FOR IT RUN SMOOTHLY?’
No one spoke.
‘IF YOU DON’T RESPOND, YOU GUYS ARE NO DIFFERENT THAN THE FURNITURE YOU ARE SEATING ON.’
We gave some stupid answers.
‘IT’S COMMUNICATION. NOW, WHAT IS EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION?’
Some more stupid answers followed. One of my friend said, ‘Complexity of Words.’
Mr. Singha started laughing. ‘LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, AND THIS WAS TOLD TO ME BY MY PROFESSOR, A BRILLIANT MAN,’
All ears went Sharp like Jerry – of the Tom & Jerry’s.
‘SIMPLICITY... IS THE ULTIMATE FORM OF SOPHISTICATION. SIMPLICITY. IS. THE. ULTIMATE. FORM. OF. SOPHISTICATION.’
He went on to explain what it meant in a few simple words. We all understood or at least we nodded like we did.
All of his lectures were interactive, made us think about ourselves.
For the first time, I did not doze off to sleep in my Air-Conditioned Classroom – Initially, I used to get sleepy out of habit, but during Mr. Singha’s class I did not so much as yawn: I was afraid he would shoot me if I did.
I wrote the first "quarters" (sessional exam) and passed border line. I was good at his subject, I understood it; but didn't manage to get marks. Story of my life, I cursed. I wanted to improve, I knew I wanted guidance, but had always felt ashamed to go a professor and ask for pointers - smart phones and laptops, and God Google had not caught up on life full throttle to go online and check everything up - plus, I always thought, profs will dip my dignity like a biscuit during their pretty little tea time and have an educated laugh over it; but Mr. Singha didn't move in a pack. And with the year already three months old, time was running out. And, regardless of teachers' degree of willingness to genuinely help, I had calculated: I will only approach them once - that was maximum number I could pump-out from within myself to hold my faith. So I decided to seek help from the man himself, Mr. Singha. I had one shot, So What the Hell, I thought. I gathered all my boota and went to Singha sir's cabin - It was just like the Principal’s cabin, but no one went there unless called in. Till the last moment I was having second thought on approaching him - I used to think the Mr. Singha has a dungeon under his office where he stuffs and displays the heads of annoying students. I took a deep breath as I reached Mr. Singha’s secretary’s table. She gave me very warm smile; a very nice lady, she is. ‘SEND HIM.’ A scream came thought the glass partition. Had it not been for the window blinds segregating his office space and that of the secretary madam’s, I would have never found the optimal “blankness” to zone-out and ponder on the moment for a moment: Mr. Singha had once told us, “On the other side of fear is freedom.” ‘SEND HIM!’. I gulped some more air. The good lady smiled again and nodded her eyes in assurance. It was time to roll the dice: I knocked.
Mr. Singha offered me a visitor’s chair. I looked around, there was no other door in the room, you know, for dungeon or something. I felt OK. He was reading something, he finished with it, closed the book and asked, ‘Yes, tell me.’ I told him my dukha bhari Kahaani. He heard it out without interrupting, even with a nod. When I was done, he placed his hands behind his head, pushed back on the chair’s back rest and stretched himself out while letting out a yawn. He came forward - eyes red - and said, ‘Abe Yaar...’ He gave me pointers.
I followed them.
Mr. Singha used to conduct extra classes, in the college, after college hours for students who couldn’t pass DHR. He asked me attend those. He knew his subject was a motherfucker, and that some students needed more inputs. I had passed – with fuke, I guess – so I attended the extra classes, with all optimism and rainbows and sunshine. And I felt good, not because I was the only “pass”; and neither I was taken as a condescending pedant, but because there, in the evening classes, no one was a “convent background” or a “vernacular background”. All the confidant kids had passed, the ones who did not, were no longer had their supply of confidence in that class. Therefore, in the absence of over-confidant kids the concepts of insecurity ceases to exist; just like, the concept of light without darkness. Everyone was comfortable being their ownself. We were new born’s: open to everything, uninhibited to learn, un-bothered about the ways of the world, naked. No topper or sixer (Sixer is a student who has failed in all subjects). We were all Failures, We were all Equals, There was no judgement in anyone’s eye; only empathy for one another. We all asked doubts fearlessly, without being concerned as to how silly the question might be, or, how incorrect the syntax of the question could have been. It’s only amongst the down-and-outs, one gets to recognise, and cut the bullshit, and work towards things that matter – in this case, learing.
In next quarters, I passed with a decent margin. I understood concepts more clearly and my performance in other subject improved. For the first time in my life I knew what I was reading. I could hear it in my head.
Third year came to an end. It was the last class. Mr. Singha came and sat amongst us, on the bench, and gave some gyan on life and everything. None of the Professor had done that. He was the first one to come down and sit amongst us. For other professors – I felt – we were a nuisance, a chore, a "good-for-nothing". But Singha sir came down and sat with us. Eye-to-Eye Shoulder-to-Shoulder.
He told us, ‘You know you are living it right when people don’t come and suck up to you. All sycophants can recognize a man with integrity. And Everyone, deep down, hates that man. Mostly because, people don’t have any in them. Go on, have a life. Have all the success. Be a big man. And if you happen to bump into me sometime, and if you forget to call me “Sir” or “Mr. Singha”. I will shoot you in the head, twice.’
We all nodded.
After our batch, the next batch came in, the 19th "Course". Mr. Singha taught them for about 4 months. Then the 19th course ran out of luck: Mr. Singha got admitted for slip disc.
Students were rejoicing.
I went and met him. Heavy weights,attached to his legs, suspended down. Our job placements had started, he knew. He joked about here and there. He said, ‘You know the other day....’ He told me a very graphic joke about placements. I laughed, my eyes went moist. Mr. Singha kept laughing. He was soon discharged, may be after a day or two.
In about a week's time, he had a paralysis stroke and was hospitalised. He had to immediately under go a major brain surgery. Coincidently, I was hospitalised a day before, in the same hospital – there is only one major hospital in Manipal, Kasturba Medical. There was nothing serious with me, the hot NRI post-grad-docs at Kasturba had kept me under observation. Thank God they do that – Else, one has to be back in the WGSHA hostel at O’2200 hours – the principal was a Retrd Maj. Gen, don’t ask.
When I got the news, I was strolling around the hospital in the night. I went and saw him. He was in ICU, just out of surgery. He was silent. Unconscious. Quarter of his head was missing. There were tubes and wires coming out his nose and mouth and from his arms. His head was covered in gauge. For the first time I had seen Mr. Singha quite. I thought he was playing a prank or something and that any moment we will get up, pull out all the tubes and say ‘Got you. Ha!’
I stood there for a minute, he didn’t wake up. I knocked on the glass door. He didn’t respond. The nurse gave me dirty looks. I went back to my room, and stood next to the window as I waited for the toilet to get vacant – the student room is on sharing basis. My college was visible under the moon light.
I got discharged the next day. In college, not many students spoke about Mr. Singha’s health; and those did, spoke bad about him, cheerfully. “That Bastard Met his Fate.” “Nice happened.” “Let's see how he flaunts his style now.” “I bet he can’t really womanise now, can he?” Some of them were my classmates and some were juniors.
I knew, Mr. Singha had never done any wrong to them - if any one did any good or bad the word spreads in a residential college, and I had heard nothing about him. He is a good man. I don’t know if he Womanised or not because not a single lady thought so, or complained or commented. Yes, he has style and Hell Yes, he has panache. But it isn’t hallow. There is enough and more substance to support that gait, that lion’s swagger.
A while ago when I quoted him on my FB status, some people commented negatively on it. There was a time when even I was jealous of Mr. Singha, but that was before I got to know him. Once, in the course of the conversation, a beautiful lady in my class said, “Singha ki to baat hi alaag hai, Yaar.”
People who speak ill of him might have had a bad experience with Mr. Singha, so did I, and on many occasions. Initially, in “failures’” class, he constantly dismissed all answers as “BULLSHIT”. Even in my answer sheets he wrote “B.S!!” in big red capitals and “THIS IS NON NONSENSICAL!!!” “WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY???” “STOP WASTING MY TIME!!!” I took a minute to reflect, got in his shoes, and checked. He was right, rather accurate.
But whatever the reason, no matter how harsh and raw he came across as, no one should celebrate a person’s misfortune and wish for his death. Singha is a state idiots can’t even imagine to realize. May be that’s why they curse him: It’s either out of their insecurity or maybe that’s the maximum numb-nuts can do for the sake of excitement with their other-wise empty lives.
After he discontinued teaching, a junior asked me, ‘Who was Singha? How was he? Thank God we didn’t have that asshole.’
I told him, ‘Singha was the Return on Investment that your parents have done so generously for your education here at WGSHA, you dumb fuck.’
Mr. Singha is NOT a life guru or a preacher or any of that pseudo-psychological faggoty charade. He is just a man who lives his life on his own terms. A walking id. He speaks his mind and always tells the truth. He loves his family a lot. And unlike his haters, is unafraid and unapologetic about his existence. There is nothing wrong in that. I guess some people never get the point, the point he was trying to make. Not by his words but by his behaviour: Be yourself, otherwise there is no point.
Even after college I go visit him every year at his home in Gurgoan. During my visit, he got me drunk in the middle of the afternoon!
He can’t walk the way he used to and now carries a stick, but walks on his own. He can’t speak the way he could, but laughs out louder than ever before.
I was about take his leave. He said, painting a picture in the air, ‘You know the other day...’
