An Old Loan of Kindness Repaid!

It was the year 1971. I wrote my SSLC Exam. As usual, my performance was average. My efforts to enter a college of repute were unsuccessful. Then, a newly opened college came to my rescue. It was none other than Guru Nanak College, Velachery, which completed its fifty-first year of existence recently.

My father, who was planning to send me to a manager of a hotel known to him to work as a bearer, heaved a sigh of relief when this college took me in. Though I was happy that I narrowly escaped from becoming a bearer, deep inside me, I was sad about having ended up in a new college.

On the very first day, all my misgivings left me. The fledgling institution won my heart completely. I simply loved its location inside Guindy Raj Bhavan’s forest. It was like a big forest lodge. The trees, bushes of flowering plants, lonely paths and game trails, ponds under a clear blue sky, spotted deer, monkeys, and butterflies did something to my heart.

At lunch time, my classmate Sridhar and I used to walk into the forest with our lunch boxes to sit and eat under a jamun tree that stood shedding fat, pinkish fruits, watching a herd of spotted deer in the distance. At times, we ran into Raj Bhavan's mounted police, who scolded us for wandering in the forest instead of attending our classes.

Often, we stumbled upon movie shootings inside the forest. Once, during the filming of a Telugu movie, a tiger brought on a leash made a dash for a nearby bush, dragging its trainer behind. We ran helter-skelter for our dear lives. Had it not been drugged heavily, it would have tasted the lifeblood of one of us that afternoon.

One day, a cobra entered our classroom. It hissed and hissed, breathing fire, its hood trembling in anger. All of us at once scrambled onto our benches. We remained still, holding our breath. The serpent king surveyed the class with its button eyes for a minute before it deflated its hood and headed back to the jungle.

On another occasion, a doe, pursued by a pair of dogs, came crashing into our classroom. The frightened doe remained at the back of the classroom for some time.

Those days, students mostly covered the four-kilometer distance from college to either Guindy or Saidapet on foot. One afternoon, my classmate Sridhar and I were walking down Velachery Road when a sudden thunderstorm started to rage. We took refuge under a roadside tree. Then, an Ambassador car drove up to us and stopped.

A bespectacled, middle-aged man from the driver's seat gestured to us to get into the car. Once we were inside, he explained to us the risk involved in taking shelter under a tree during thunderstorms. “Don’t do it in the future. Trees attract thunderbolts,” he said. He dropped us at Saidapet Railway Station and left with a friendly handshake.

After this incident, this gentleman started to stop in front of the college gate to pick up and drop at Saidapet as many of us as his Ambassador car could hold. This compassionate person was none other than the late Mr. Gopalakrishnan, Ex-Chairman and Managing Director of Indian Bank. He was the Manager of the Velachery Branch of Indian Bank when he helped Guru Nanak College students by giving them a lift in his car almost every day. Even now, I continue to hold him in high esteem. Basically, he was a kind, humane gentleman.

Who among us is flawless? A great many of our parliamentarians and legislators have criminal backgrounds. When they are accepted and respected, why should I hesitate to remember Mr. Gopalakrishnan for the act of generosity he once performed in my life?

While expressing my indebtedness to Guru Nanak College, let me also repay with interest this banker for the loan of kindness he extended to me and my fellow classmates—without any collateral—50 years ago, through these columns.