The principal said, ”I don’t understand: why two persons? You alone are taking admission.”
I said, ”No, one of my friends is also. He is not expelled, but he never attends. He is not interested
in studying but his father is forcing him. And what can the poor chap do? It is just to console his old
man.”
The principal said, ”But why does he go with you? I see on the record that he follows you to every
college.”
I said, ”I am his only friend, that’s what he thinks. He is not interested in college, he is interested in
me. He comes with me – it is one package. If you accept me, you accept him. I promise you that
your college will get the gold medal. Attendance you will have to give for two persons.”
And all the principals and professors knew that I was continuously winning in their eloquence
competitions. Only once I got a second prize in one eloquence competition, and that became almost
a great scandal against the professor who was one of the judges.
He was in love with a girl, one of his students. The girl was a competitor, and he wanted the girl to
win the competition any way. All other judges had given me more marks but he had given to the girl
a hundred marks completely. She was not even worth ten – because others ... somebody had given
her five, somebody seven, somebody nine; nobody had gone beyond ten. But if one person gives
her a hundred .... She came first, but I immediately went to every newspaper and informed them of
the whole story.
The next day the professor had to resign and escape, because I said, ”He is in love, and it is just
a way of seducing the girl. I challenge – not the girl, I challenge the professor to compete with me
anywhere before any kind of judges. If he can win in the debate I will think it is perfectly okay, the
girl has won. The girl is nobody.”
The scandal became so hot that the principal told the professor, ”You please leave, because it is so
clear: no judges have given her more than ten, and you have given her a hundred, and she is your
student.” I was present when the principal said to him, ”I never thought that she was going to be
even third, and she came first. And you unnecessarily took the risk of making this boy angry: he will
not leave you alone.”
And the next day .... To all the papers I had given their pictures. That was done with my friend: he
was always carrying his camera and his transistor – he was that type. So I just told him, ”You get
me two pictures: one of this professor and one of that girl.”
He said, ”No problem, Together or separate?”
I said, ”Do you have them already?”
He said, ”I have got them together already.”
I said, ”That will do.”
So the professor putting his hand on the girl’s shoulder – the picture was published. The professor
resigned, the girl escaped, and the competition had to be arranged again. I said, ”Just his resignation
does not mean anything; nor does the girl escaping from the city mean anything. I don’t believe in
being second. Either I am nobody or I am first; I don’t accept any mediocre position anywhere.”
Again the competition was arranged.
This boy was handy in many ways. This was a great coincidence that he managed to reach Sagar,
and he filled in the form just according to mine. For two years he continuously helped me. My help
was small: it came only in the end – at the examination time I had to write for him too.
In life I have tried, with all kinds of people to insist that everybody knows deep down that he is a
stranger, a stranger to everybody, even to his closest friend. I told this boy – his name was Umakant
Joshi .... He is now a professor.
That’s what makes me wonder ... this world is a strange place; this planet certainly must be the
weirdest planet in the whole universe. Now, Umakant Joshi is a professor who does not know even
the spelling of the word ”philosophy,” but he is doing perfectly well. When I last saw him in 1965, I
had just gone to inaugurate a social gathering. I had no idea that he was a professor in that college,
and when he greeted me there, I said, ”What are you doing here?”
He said, ”What am I doing here? – the same.”
I said, ”What, the same? Now nobody can help you.”
He said, ”Money can do everything. I never bother to teach, I pay people to teach for me. I never
examine people’s papers, I pay teachers to examine their papers. Money can do everything.”
Perhaps by now he may be a principal, one day may rise to become a vice-chancellor. If money can
do everything, there is no problem. And I have seen people ....
I told this boy when we were departing after six years of being together, ”Umakant, have you ever
realized that we are as much strangers as when we met on the first day, just by accident, in that
college office where you asked what subjects you should fill in on the form?”
He was in a way very innocent and nice. Tears came to his eyes, and he said, ”That’s true. We have
lived so closely that I had completely forgotten that we are still strangers. I don’t know you, you don’t
know me, and whatever we do know is irrelevant.”
If you enquire among your friends you will be surprised: everybody is a stranger in a strange world.
But we have managed deceptions, we have camouflaged ourselves. We have labeled everybody in
so many ways that the person starts thinking that he is that.
In my village there is one man, Sunderlal. I have been surprised ...sunder means beauty, sunderlal
means beautiful diamond; and he is anything other than a beauty. He is not even homely. I have
been surprised again and again that names are given to people which are just the opposite of their
qualities.
I have seen immensely rich people named Garibdas. Garib means poor, das means a slave. I have
been a guest to one Seth Garibdas in Hyderabad. Seth means very rich, super-rich, and garibdas
means a poor slave. I asked him, ”Have you ever thought about your name? Your father was rich;
richness is almost your family tradition – it is nothing new. You are not a newly rich person, that you
were poor and became rich. Then it would have been understandable: you were poor and people
called you Garibdas. But you were born rich; you were born with golden spoons in your mouth.
Then why Garibdas?”
He said, ”You ask strange questions. In my whole life nobody has asked me this. But my father is
alive; we both should go and ask him.”
We both went to his room and asked him. He said, ”It is a protection. The astrologers suggested
giving him a name which suggests poverty so that fate always remains compassionate to him.” They
were deceiving fate by giving him the name Garibdas – so fate thinks he is poor, don’t harass him –
and he remained rich.
This Sunderlal was really ugly. To talk to him meant that you had to look this way and that way;
to look at him made one feel a little sick – something went berserk in the stomach. His front two
teeth were out, and he had such crossed eyes that to look at him for a little while meant a certain
headache – and he was Sunderlal! He was the son of a rich man, and he was a little nuts too.
I used to call him Doctor Sunderlal although he was never able to pass matriculation. He failed
so many times that the school authorities asked his father to remove him because he brought their
average low every year – and he was not going to pass.
How they managed to get him up to matriculation, that is a miracle. But it is understandable, because
up to matriculation all examinations are local, so you can bribe the teachers. This was difficult to
do in the matriculation examination because it is not local, it is state-wide. So it is very difficult to
find out who is setting the papers, who is examining the papers. It is almost impossible; unless you
happen to be the education minister or some relative of the education minister, it is very difficult to
find out.
But I started calling him Doctor Sunderlal. He said, ”Doctor? But I am not a doctor.”
I said, ”Not an ordinary doctor like these physicians: you are an honorary doctor.”
But he said, ”Nobody has given me an honorary doctorate either.”
I said, ”I am giving you an honorary doctorate. It does not matter who gives it – you get the doctorate,
that’s the point.”
He said, ”That is true, ” and by and by I convinced him that he was an honorary doctor. He started
introducing himself to people as Doctor Sunderlal. When I heard this, that he introduces himself as
Doctor Sunderlal .... He was a relative of our sannyasin, Narendra.
One day I saw a letterhead with ”Doctor Sunderlal, D.Litt., Honorary,” printed on it in golden letters,
embossed. I said, ”This is great!” And as time passed by people completely forgot: he is now known
as Doctor Sunderlal, D.Litt. Nobody suspects, nobody even enquires who gave him a doctorate,
from what university? But the whole town knows him. And because he is an honorary doctorate he
inaugurates social gatherings in the school, in the college – now the town has a college – and he is
the most literary figure.
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