The professor greeted me with a tome in hand. Somehow, I was reminded of the legendary crooner Bing Crosby’s song that included the line, ‘like Webster’s dictionary we are Morocco bound’. Indeed so was the binding of the dictionary the professor carried in his hand, which was of course a Webster’s.
My visit to his sunny, suburban home was to congratulate him on his attainment of the grandfather status. “But, sir, is it a boy or girl?” I asked. His eyes danced in merriment. “It’s a boy and so I have become a grandfather. If it were a girl, I would have become a grandmother!”
As if on a cue, both burst into laughter at this puerile witticism. His exhilaration at having a new arrival in his family seemed to have unwound, more importantly, mellowed him. He looked relaxed, very rarely observed in the past, his erudition making him look almost always grim, but not uppity. Though sky bound, the grand eagle has to briefly touch earthly base once in a while. I met him after about two months in a Book Club event. Having arrived early, we had time to chitchat. “How is your grandson, sir?” I asked.
“He is fine, shaping well, thanks to the parental care.
Of course my wife pitches in if the young parents want nuggets of advice that may not be taken. Apropos of nothing, my grandson, almost always cries, especially during nights, when the whole world sleeps. The house no longer has the sepulchral silence I valued and enjoyed in the past.” I pitched in. “Sir, I was born into a big joint family, there was hardly a time when a lady was not pregnant or a baby did not bawl its throat out.”
“You said it. Indeed yes, the young one does not seem to bother to exercise any control on both ends. But though its cry, bawl, bellow or howl is mere sound exceeding the decibel limits, the words are yet to come. Mercifully that would take time.” “But such a sound, not restricted to any predetermined periods has conditioned my attitude towards my students in the college.”
“Yes, nowadays, markedly after the arrival of my grandchild, I do not get hot under the collar, if the hyperactive boys made zoological ruckus in the classroom. To put it in a nutshell, I am shedding the image of a teacher with a short fuse. You may as well ask, I should have felt so when my daughter was a baby. But no, sir. I realise there is lot of difference in the attitudinal approach of a dad and a granddad towards the noise made by a baby. Or a grown up.”
J S Raghavan
Email: writerjsr@gmail.com