From Jabalpur University to Sagar University there is not much distance – one hundred miles. But
Sagar University was in many ways unique. It was a small university compared to Benares University
or Aligarh University, which had ten thousand students, twelve thousand students. They are just like
Oxford or Cambridge – big universities, big names. Sagar University had only one thousand students
and almost three hundred professors, so for every three students, one professor. It was a rare place;
perhaps nowhere in the world can you find another university where there is one professor for three
students.
And the man who had founded the university was acquainted with all the best professors around
the world. Sagar was his birthplace; Doctor Harisingh Gaud was his name. He was a world-famous
authority on law, and earned so much money – and never gave a single pai to any beggar, to any
institution, to any charity. He was known as the most miserly person in the whole of India.
And then he founded the university and gave his whole life’s earning. That was millions of dollars.
He said to me, ”That’s why I was a miser; otherwise there was no way – I was a poor man, I was
born a poor man. If I were doing charity and giving to this hospital and to this beggar and to that
orphan, this university would not have existed.” For this university ... he had carried his whole life
only one idea, that his birthplace should have one of the best universities in the world. And certainly
he created one of the best universities in the world.
While he was alive he managed to bring professors from all over the world. He gave them double
salaries, triple salaries, whatsoever they wanted – and no work, because there were only one
thousand students, which even a small college has in India; one thousand students is not a large
number. And he opened all the departments which only a university like Oxford can afford. Oxford
has nearabout three hundred and fifty departments.
He opened all the departments which exist anywhere in the world. There were hundreds of
departments without students but with full staff: the head of the department, the assistant professor,
the professor, the lecturer. He said, ”Don’t be worried. First create the university – and make it
the best. Students will come, will have to come.” Then all the professors and all the deans were
all in search of the best students. And somehow this professor, S.S. Roy, who was the head of the
department of philosophy, got his eye on me.
I used to go every year to the university for the inter-university debating competition. And for four
years I was winning the trophy and for four years he was listening to me, as a judge – he was one
of the judges. The fourth year he invited me to his home, and he said, ”Listen, I wait for you for one
year. I know that after one year, when the next inter-university debating competition is held, you are
bound to be there.
”The way you present your arguments is strange. It is sometimes so weird that it seems ... how did
you manage to look from this angle? I have been thinking about a few problems myself, but I never
looked from that aspect. It strikes me that perhaps you go on dropping any aspect that can happen
to the ordinary mind, and you only choose the aspect that is unlikely to happen to anybody.
”For four years you have been winning the shield for the simple reason that the argument is unique,
and there is nobody who is ready to answer it. They have not even thought about it, so they are
simply in shock.
”Your opponents – you reduce them so badly, one feels pity for them, but what can we do? And I
have been giving you ninety-nine percent marks out of a hundred. I wanted to give you more than
a hundred, but even ninety-nine .... It has become known to people that I am favorable to a certain
student. This is too much, because nobody goes beyond fifty.
”I have called you to my home for dinner to invite you to leave Jabalpur University and come here.
Now this is your fourth year, you are finished when you graduate. For post-graduation you come
here. I cannot miss having you as my student; if you don’t come here then I am going to join
Jabalpur University.”
And he was a well-known authority; if he wanted to come, Jabalpur University would have been
immensely happy to accept him as head of the department.
I said, ”No, don’t go to that much trouble. I can come here, and I love the place.” It is situated ...
perhaps it is the best-situated university in the world, in the hills near a tremendously vast lake. It is
so silent – such huge trees, ancient trees – that just to be there is enough education.
And Doctor Harisingh Gaud must have been a tremendous lover of books. He donated all his
library, and he managed to get as many books as possible from every corner of the world. A single
man’s effort ... it is rare; he created Oxford just single-handedly, alone. Oxford was created over
one thousand years; thousands of people have worked. This man’s work is really a piece of art.
Single-handedly, with his own money, he put himself at stake.
So I loved the place. I said, ”You need not be worried, I will be coming – but you have seen me
only in the debate competitions. You don’t know much about me; I may prove a trouble for you, a
nuisance. I would like you to know everything about me before you decide.”
Professor S.S. Roy said, ”I don’t want to know anything about you. The little bit that I have come to
know, just by seeing you, your eyes, your way of saying things, your way of approaching reality, is
enough. And don’t make me frightened about trouble and nuisance – you can do whatsoever you
want.”
I said, ”Remember that financially I am always broke, so I will be continuously borrowing money from
you and never returning it. Things have to be made clear beforehand; otherwise later on you can
say, ‘This you never said.’ You will have to lend me money whenever I want. I am not going to return
it, although it will be said I am borrowing – but on your part you have to understand that that money
is gone, because from where can I return it? I don’t have any source.
”Second, you have to make arrangements in the university for my free lodging and boarding. Thirdly,
you have to ask the vice-chancellor, because I don’t know him – or you can introduce me to him –
for his special scholarship. He is entitled to give one special scholarship. Other scholarships are
there, which are smaller scholarships given to talented people – first class, first gold medalist, this
and that; I want the special scholarship which is three times more than any other scholarship.
”It is special because the vice-chancellor is entitled to give it to anyone talented, not talented, in the
good list of the university, not in the good list of the university; it does not matter. It is his personal
choice – because if they start thinking about my character certificates and this and that, I cannot
produce a single character certificate.
”I have been in many colleges because I have been expelled again and again. So in four years time
.... People study in one college, I have studied in many, but all that I can bring from them is expulsion
orders. I cannot produce a single character certificate – so you have to recommend me. You are my
only character certificate.”
He said, ”Don’t be worried about that.”
So I moved to Sagar. This is the coincidence that I was going to tell you about. When I was filling in
the form, the same boy appeared again! He said, ”What subjects?”
I said, ”My God! Who told you that I had come to Sagar?”
He said, ”You are asking that? For days I never see my car, my driver; in my house strangers come
and live. They say they are your guests, and I have to make arrangements for them. And you think I
have to know how you have come to Sagar? My driver has brought you here; he told me.
”So I said, ‘If he is going to Sagar what am I going to do here, because who will write my papers?’
So I ran fast and I have caught you in time. Just exactly four years ago, in the same way we met.”
I said, ”That’s true. So you are going to fill in these subjects again?”
He said, ”It’s perfectly okay, because I have nothing to do with the subjects. I don’t know anything
that happened in these four years because I was engaged in drinking and in gambling and all kinds
of things. And you managed well; two first classes by one person – you did well. Now once more
you will have to do it.
”And as far as things from my side are concerned, I am ready to double them. Everything that you
want you take, but just don’t try to leave me, because without you I am nobody. My father gave such
a great party and all the relatives gathered, and it was such a celebration. And I was only thinking
of you – that this whole celebration should be for you.
”Do you know what my father said when I came home and I told him that I have topped the university?
He said, ‘That means in that university all kinds of stupid people must study; otherwise how could
you have got the gold medal? That is a simple proof that all the fools go to that university. You
change your university.’ I said, ‘I am going to change it but the same fools I will meet anywhere.’”
This was the only celebration for me. To my father it was impossible that I would get even third class,
because I was never going to the college and was continuously being expelled from one college
after another. Finally a college accepted me with the condition that I would not attend the classes
because the same will happen again.
”You will fight with the professors, argue, and we will have to expel you. So the best way is –
examinations are close – you simply do whatsoever you want to do anywhere else except the college
campus. Don’t come to the college campus. As far as your attendance is concerned, I will take care,”
the principal told me.
”But,” I said, ”you have to take care of two persons, because wherever I am expelled my friend has to
move from that college too because he can not live without me. So as many times as I was expelled,
he also had to move.” I said, ”You will have to take care of two persons.”
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