My former colleague
and friend Prof A Sreekumar is no more. His sons took him to the US and the best doctors there, could not save him. Cancer ultimately conquered him today in the
wee hours of the morning. But he will live on in the memories of the hundreds
of students and academics he touched in his life.
Though born
of royal lineage of the Kochi maharajas, he was always humble; almost
self-effacing. He trained to be an
engineer, became familiar with the leftist ideology in his college days and as
was wont by the Keralites of his times, grew a beard. The time he spent as an
MBA student of the School of Management under the tutelage of doyens like Prof
MV Pylee and his merry men was another life changing experience. Sreekumar started working in the same school
as a teacher- a junior among the men who taught him but a giant intellectually.
Somewhere along the line he was joined by Raji (Rajashree) his wife who lived
with all the idiosyncrasies of a man in search of a different meaning in life. Not the conventional life for him! He then went off in search of more meaning to
the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad; another mind broadening
experience.
Each class
which he taught was an odyssey for him to plumb deeper depths. He would spend hours in his preparation for
class. He would try to be as innovative
as the circumstances would allow. His
ideas were lofty; even as his personal bearing and his clothes were modest. Many are the academic battles in committees he
has won on the mere merit of his arguments.
He would spend hours reading the answers of the students and grading
them even as administrative tasks piled up and ate into his time. Truly
admirable qualities.
Even when he
was afflicted with the life threatening illness, he would still be on emails
and Facebook keeping up with his interests on all things academic. Even travelling after a serious surgery. Just
recovering from the after effects of the surgery, he would be often commenting
on events. It was in the last two months
that he became too ill to be active. His
last post on FB was a video of the NY Marathon taken from his bedroom window. Rather symbolic for a man who ran an academic
marathon for all his life- irrespective of whether he was rewarded monetarily
for it or not. It didn’t matter whether he got the medal or not. Ultimately, it was the race one ran that
mattered! I guessed that things were not going well when the video came up. There was no way he would have watched it
from the bedroom window if he could have stepped down and watched it at eye
level. I knew he was too ill.
A life well
lived. Proud to have known you, Sree. Great to have learnt from you. Wonderful to have shared life with you. And
to have fought with you on matters academic. Happy to have lived life with you
and laughed with you. Go in peace, knowing
that you have left the world enriched. And
given so much more than you have taken………
Bala@Goa
