The rustle of dry mango leaves that littered the yard gave away the approaching footsteps. A pause and then a booming voice from the porch.
“I am Thankamani teacher’s classmate. I was in her class at Pallikunnu High School during 1950-52.” David opened up on the purpose of his visit.
“Is this Thankamani teacher’s house?”
That must be the visitor. I put the newspaper down and stepped out to greet him.We were expecting a stranger to show up at our house that day. “We will have a visitor this afternoon,” my sister had cryptically said. That’s all she could say because all she got was a short phone call.“Is this Sudha?”
“Yes,” she had answered.“Thankamani teacher's daughter?”
“That’s correct.”“I am coming to meet Thankamani teacher this afternoon. See you.” And he hung up.I opened the door to the porch and saw him standing several feet away, watching the paddy field in front visible through the stand of slender areca palms. It is a sight that every new visitor is struck by and comments on.“Ah, it's quite beautiful out here,” he said without breaking his gaze. “Rare to find these days.”He turned around and looked at me.“Teacher's son?”‘Yes,” I said.He was tall and lean, dressed in a checked shirt untucked over loose grey pants, with a pair of casual slippers. The shirt pocket hung out, weighed down by a pen and a notepad stuck inside. Bushy eyebrows showed from behind thick black-framed glasses. A respectable crop of tousled grey hair made his age hard to guess. A retired government employee, I thought.
“My name is David,” he said. “Retired Assistant Executive Engineer, KSEB.” His voice was loud and firm.“Oh, yes, we were expecting you. Come in Mr. David, please sit down.” I invited him and showed him to the sofa in the front room. David sat down and I sat opposite him. Sudha walked in from her room.“You must be Sudha. Isn't the teacher here?” he asked.
“Yes, she is. She will be here in a minute,” Sudha replied and called out to the caretaker Bhama to bring mother to the front room.
Mother walked in slowly step by careful step. She stopped in front of David and looked at him, realizing an unfamiliar face was amongst us.
“Who is this?” she asked gently, her face beaming with an innocent smile. At 83, her memory was fading. She forgot names and mixed up past events. But every time she did this, she immediately realized the folly and broke into peels of mirthy laughter. “Oh, what foolish things am I saying!” she would mutter. She was weak but cheerful.Sudha got up and spoke loudly into her left ear. “That’s David, your classmate from Pallikunnu High School.”Thankamani’s face strained. “I don’t know,” she said. “Don’t remember.” She bent down, held the arm of the chair by the window and slowly sat down in her usual seat.David’s eyes lit up. He leaned forward. “She was the most brilliant student in the school. She had the answer to every question at her fingertips. She sat on the front bench, first seat by the aisle. Her hands shot up any time the teacher asked a question. Didn’t matter whether it was mathematics, science, or … what’s that subject that talks about places and location? Yes, geography. She had the answer. She was the most brilliant student, … a genius!” David earnestly began to lay out his case, becoming almost breathless.Sudha looked at me and nodded. “We knew she was a good student. She wanted to go to college after matriculation and cried for days when she was denied. Muthachan didn’t have the money …, ” she recalled the family lore.David wasn’t listening. He was looking off into the distance intensely focused on his memories. “Thankamani! She was different, in a class by herself. You know, we used to call her kaithapoov!"Sudha and I looked at each other, equally surprised. "That's interesting. What a sweet name. She'd never mentioned that. Why?" Sudha asked.
"She used to keep those flowers in her notebook," David explained as he sipped tea that Bhama had brought. "She had such good handwriting. When it came to studies she wasn’t shy. She readily shared her notes. Anyone, including boys, could ask her their doubts. She didn’t chitchat much otherwise and stuck to giving precise answers to questions.”“How did you get Sudha’s number?” I interrupted, still struck by David's sudden appearance.“Oh, it was a two-year effort,” David recalled putting down the teacup. “When school ended, we lost touch. But after retirement, I have been meeting some of my classmates. And we started talking about the most brilliant student in Pallikunnu school during our time, Thankamani. That’s how I learned she was a teacher at Chengaloor.”“I went to the Chengaloor High School and they said she lived near Mupliyam,” David continued. “I went to Mupliyam but couldn't find anyone who recognized her name. I recently went back again and this time I met an auto driver who recognized teacher's name. He said she had been one of his teachers. He made some calls and got Sudha’s number and address.”“You certainly went through a lot of trouble to find her,” I said.“Oh, that was no trouble at all. I have always wanted to meet Thankamani, the most brilliant student I have ever met. She was the first in class in every subject. I thought she might have gone to college and become an IAS officer!”Thankamani’s husband suddenly looked up. He tapped me on my shoulder. “Who’s this guy? What’s he talking about?” he asked, the growing irritation showing in his raspy voice.Our father had been sitting in his chair in the room all the while, absorbed in the book he was reading. He had looked up at David when he came in but otherwise had said nothing other than occasionally giving a bemused look. David’s unbridled praise of his wife was beginning to rub on him. I bent over to explain, but he dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “Classmate or not, he’s not making sense,” he said.“What’s dad saying?” David asked.“Oh, he doesn’t talk much,” Sudha answered. “He mostly reads.”David looked at me. “Why did she become a Hindi teacher?”“She used to write Hindi poems. She mailed one to the famous Hindi poet Yashpal and was shocked and surprised when he replied her,” I recalled one of Thankamani’s favorite memories. “That might have been a reason for continuing to study Hindi.”“She wrote to Harivansh Rai Bachchan too, you know, Amitabh Bachchan's father, and got to meet him when he visited the Hindi language school she went to,” Sudha added.David’s attention wandered back to his memories. “She would have made a great maths teacher,” he said. “She always scored 100%. I can’t recall when she couldn’t answer a question correctly. She was the most brilliant student,” David repeated, seeming to feel we weren’t fully grasping the import of what he was saying.Father looked up again, turned toward me and shook his head as if asking “Why is he still here?” I shut my eyes hard and nodded toward his book, suggesting he go back to reading.“Well, she didn’t pursue mathematics but raised two bright students who did,” I said. “Her younger sons. One is a computer science professor and the other an electrical engineering doctorate who heads his own firm.”David’s eyes brightened as he broke into a smile. “I am not surprised. I was going to ask what you all do,” he said. He took out the notepad and pen from his pocket and began taking notes as Sudha gave details about each of Thankamani's children.David stood up. “I have to leave now,” he said, putting the notepad and pen back in his shirt pocket. “Oh, before I forget, please take this,” he extended a bag he was carrying as he walked down the steps to the yard. Sudha took it. “Mr. David, thank you for the oranges and grapes,” she said smiling. "We will drop you in the town," she offered.“Hope teacher has a long and healthy life,” David said, looking at Thankamani. “Teacher, I am leaving.” Thankamani smiled. “Okay then,” she said. “I don’t remember anything.” Her husband looked up from his book. He appeared relieved.Mr. David delivered a lifetime of happiness that day. He appeared out of nowhere, a man on a mission to spread cheer by digging up the past. We drove him to the town and dropped him off at his bus stand. As we watched him walk away waving goodbye, my sister turned to me. “What made him take the trouble to find out where mother lived, track her down, and show up with a bag of oranges and red grapes after all these years?” she wondered.“She was the most brilliant student,” I said.
