Mr. Mistry was our class teacher in the IXth class in a moffusil town. An old widower with no issues, he was good as a teacher. He knew his facts and had a fairly good delivery. He spoke slowly, in measured terms. Even though his accent was colloquial, his language was pretty good.
Being an old man, he was apt to ignore the boys' pranks. He rarely punished anyone. Once I was caught spinning a top in the class. The only punishment that he gave me was to ask me to sit on the girls' bench. This was a punishment that was not unpleasant to me even at that age.
A classfellow known to the entire world as Jatiya was respectfully addressed as Jatashankar (His real name) by Mistry Sir. Jatiya, apart from being the class monitor was also Aide-de-Camp to the teacher. He helped the old man in household chores. True to the Guru-Chela tradition, Jatiya was always prepared to do any bidding from Mistry Sir, be it cooking a meal, doing shopping or even massaging the Guru's feet.
It was therefore natural for us to make fun of Jatiya. Inwardly however, we feared him. Inspite of his pre-occupation with the teacher's household work, Jatiya was a fairly good student. Those of us who were competing for the first rank in the class were certain that none but Jatiya would get the coveted first rank. The teacher can not but help being partial.
The results were declared and partiality was indeed shown, though not of the kind expected. I was declared first, my close friend and rival Prabhakar, second and so on. Jatiya's name did not appear anywhere. He had actually failed !
In the evening, I ran into Jatiya. while sympathising with him, I expressed my surprise at his failure. Had he enquired from Mistry Sir about it ? Jatiya was reticent at first but finally gave me the gist of the teacher's explanation. The teacher' words were :-
" Jatashankar ! I expected you to understand but it appears that you have not grasped the meaning of your result. All knowledge comes out of committing sins. The more sins you commit, the more knowledge you get. Having known this, how can I sentence you, my dear boy, to commit more sins for gathering knowledge ? "
Ever since, whenever a colleague is superseded, I tell him to treat his bosses as
so many Mistry Sirs and shrug off the event.
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