Hail Master

A long forgotten experience was remembered in the most unlikely circumstances.

It goes back to days when I was a student (and still had ambitions of being educated and before I decided to stay illiterate by shifting to management from science) we had a gentleman called Prof Deb (his Bengali roots are not unimportant but definitely incidental to this story) as one of the teachers.

Prof. Deb was an acknowledged genius world-wide in his chosen field of Physical Chemistry (theoretical Chemistry) with expertise in some abstruse dense field of quantum chemistry.

But even with his awe-inspiring stature, he probably was the most humble and accessible teacher I have ever studied under (and there were other towering personalities in our college - he was the BIGGEST - but none as approachable ).

Anyone could go up to him and ask the stupidest, dumbest, most basic question and he would explain patiently the query till the student was satisfied. Howsoever busy he could be, no student would ever get rebuffed.

I am probably unable to explain what a stalwart he was. And the questions which he answered probably were a waste of his time and an insult to his intellect and time.

Enough ambling, coming back to the story.

So one day I was having a discussion about him with another professor and I happened to mention to him that I find it so surprising the fact Prof. Deb is so very humble.

Prof. Laltu said something which probably I should not have forgotten but would remember for the rest of my life.

He said “The branch that bears fruit hangs low.”