An extract from my latest book, Autumn Shadows: Memoir
Sawan had a lot of Sharmas among the staff in various positions. In my
first year at the school, I took a team of debaters to Punjab Public School at Nabha
in Punjab whose principal made a flippant remark about my school being also
known as Sharma Public School. Though I thought the humour was a little out of
place, it drew my attention to the many Sharmas in Sawan whom I had not even
come to know until I returned from Punjab Public School.
The Sharmas played a major role in Sawan. They had a peculiar penchant
for tugging history to themselves. They shaped the history and the destiny of
Sawan to a great extent. I should have considered myself fortunate to be invited
into their company. But unfortunately my personal proclivity was to keep a safe
distance from people if not run away from them altogether. Thus my probable
opportunity to be a more significant part of Sawan’s history and destiny was
lost though my palate learned the delights of tandoori chicken. Losing possible
conquests to flimsy delights was my substantial destiny.
The Sharmas knew what they wanted and how to get it. I knew neither. It
is more correct to say that I didn’t want anything more than a job that paid me
sufficiently well, a secure accommodation with good water supply, and enough
leisure for reading the books of my choice. Sawan gave me all of these. Unlike
the Sharmas, I had no big ambitions.
It is not their ambitions that set the Sharmas apart, however. Most
people are not much unlike Salvador Dali who at the age of six wanted to be a
cook, at seven wanted to be Napoleon, and ever since the ambition grew
steadily. Ambition is a good thing too as long as you know how far beyond
Napoleon you are capable of growing. Had they been in Europe, the Sharmas of
Sawan would have pre-empted the Battle of Waterloo by not letting Napoleon grow
beyond the territories they granted him. When Dr S. C. Biala succeeded Mr D. P.
Sharma as principal, that is exactly what happened. We will return to that in a
little while.
What really set the Sharmas apart is not their capacity for Machiavellian
schemes either.
It is their ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’ life position (to borrow a terminology
from Thomas A. Harris, psychiatrist and author) that made them a different
breed. They possessed an exemplarily positive attitude to life and the whole
cosmos. They embraced life cheerfully as it unfolded itself to them each
morning and grappled with its ruggedness and torridness which they reshaped to
fit into their paradigms. What could not be reshaped was accepted heroically.
I’m OK, You’re OK. If you’re not OK, we’ll make you OK. If you don’t let
us make you OK, we’ll make you pay for it. That was the basic Sharma paradigm.
I admired that paradigm and the strategies they employed to enforce the
paradigm on the community. My admiration did not become emulation because of my
personal drawbacks. I was happy, however, to be left alone by them most of the
time. I think I fit into their paradigm like the familiar mad man on a village
street: often innocuous, funny at times and nuisance once in a while. They let
me be though I was not really OK.
It was when Dr Biala took over after Mr D. P. Sharma’s retirement that I
got such a clear glimpse into the Sharma psyche. Dr Biala was an imposing
personality with a slim and vey erect physique. He was a mountaineer as well as
a poet. He was a good administrator who could easily identify the strengths and
weaknesses of the given system. On top of all that, he carried the Doon school
tag; he was a teacher of that Eton of North India.
Like any new comer to a seat of eminence, Dr Biala tried to assert
himself by appearing to be a strict disciplinarian. He soon made his mark among
the students. But when it came to the staff, the Sharmas stamped their mark on
him sooner than one would have expected.
You can order your copy of the book at Amazon.
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