In Memoriam; Professor Charu Sheel Singh

Professor Charu Sheel Singh (Photo courtesy: Professor Binod Mishra, IIT, Roorkee)

Saying that I’ll miss him is inadequate. Of course I’ll miss him but there’s more. I know that we are born to die. I was born to die. He was born to die. You are born to die… I totally know that, and I’ve been watching TV a lot nowadays, news, you see. So, one would expect me to be prepared for death. Surprise! I was in no way prepared for this one death, not prepared in two ways. I was not ready for it, and I could not allow that to happen in a world controlled by my mind, if there ever was any such world. Well, there’s no such world. He passed away late at night and I got the news the following afternoon. It took me time to register the full significance of the news. My first response was to make a couple of calls to confirm the news, although I had received it from a very reliable source. I finally accepted it, and let the day pass. Nearly a week has passed since then.

Professor Charu Sheel Singh is one between the two teachers who shaped my life in two different ways. His method was to make one aware of the range of responses hidden deep within oneself, if there was actually something hidden within the person. He did not teach the syllabus. He taught the students. He made them better, if they worked with his plan. He made them stronger, even if they rebelled against his stream of ideas and ideology (and he had a strong stream of ideas and a definite and defined ideology). In fact, he fully expected his best students to rebel. He quoted Blake with twinkling eyes: “…Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s” (The Words of Los). His talks went from literature to philosophy in a blink, and then stayed there for some time. It was digression alright, but it served his plan well. Now I’m not even sure whether it was his plan, or I had assumed it.

I am glad that sometime last year, probably in February; I had called him only to tell him of my debt to him. He was not comfortable hearing my praise. He had never been comfortable hearing his praise. He’d say something like this back in olden days, “In order to praise me, you need to comprehend me. And I am not sure that there are many in the class who can do that. I’ve been praised enough by those whose judgement I value. I know what I am”. So, that was that. He did not take nonsense, neither did he give any. His talk was always pithy and precise. He said what he meant and stopped when he had done that. He always expected the best from us. I remember having called him, informing him of something I saw as my major achievement. His reply: “It was expected of you”. That was all. I have no one now, to call them and expect the same sincere and fulfilling, short reply. Life, my life, lost something deep in his death.