Student Days

Mother Teresa admiring my watch

In the company of Mother Teresa

Prof. HansRaj Gupta:

One of the earliest memories , when I was eighteen, is of Dadaji, Prof. HansRaj Gupta who was in his seventies and had retired as a Mathematics Prof. He had worked on the theories of Ramanuja. We lived in Mudford Gung in the second floor and he lived in the next house on the ground floor. My mother had told him that he should take me for a walk with him in the morning. He would start tapping his stick at five in the morning and I would just shout wait Dadaji and go off to sleep. Some times this drama would continue till about six thirty but dadaji would refuse to budge. He would keep shouting Rekha, Rekha and tapping his stick. Half the neighbourhood would get up but there was no way Dadaji would keep quite till I got up and joined him. I had no alternative but to join him in his walks because meanwhile in between my sleep I would get a lot of scoldings and shouting from my parents and sister. When I joined him for the walk I refused to talk to him and made a very angry and gruff face for having had my beautiful sleep disturbed. After we walked for five minutes he would say, "Ab Theek ho" and then we would start talking about Politcs, economy, society, ideology. He hada view on every thing and i responded with my own thoughts. He emcouraged me to move beyond my immediate surroundings and look at the larger world. I enjoyed the morning walks but hated getting up in the morning. I had read some where and found this statement so appealing, I wish God had found some other way of starting a day than by asking people to get up. Dadaji introduced me to the writings of Vivekananda, Ramkrishna Param Hans. He made me read Vivekananda's address at the Chicago Conference loudly, more than ten times and as a result though I got very irritated at that time I could by heart it. He lent me many books on philosopy and marked portions which I had to read and explain to him what I understood from that. He would take me to Gandhian Philosopy clasess every wednesday. I was the only girl in a group of twenty to thirty. I tried to ask many of my friends to come but their interests did not move beyond the home and they did not find time to come out of the house. When I told this to Dadaji he would say, you are interested and this is all that matteres, Why do you bother about others. On our way back five to seven of Dadajis friends would join him , all were very old and had retired from various professions, some government services, some University Professors, some business man and some from the IAS. I was the youngest member in this group. I found a lot of interest in their conversations though my friends could not understand and often teased me about my friendship with all old men. My friends teased me and said, what else will these old people talk about except their frustration at the present day world and wth the present generation. However I could participate as an equal member in this group and when I said some thing all of them listened to it seriously and made comments. I became the grandchild of all these old men. I wish I had remembered some of their names. Today I do not know the names of any one except Dadaji but they have all played a very important part in the beginning and in the formative years of my life by making me see things beyond my immediate neighbourhood and inculcating a strict moral values, a sense of what is right and what is wrong. I borrowed a lot of books from Dadaji and what was interesting was that when I returned a book to him I had to tell him what I liked about the book and what I found difficult to understand. I think he was very lonely at one level and would love to talk and teach to who ever came in front of him. All the children were scared of going to him saying he will catch hold of them but I did not mind spending hours with him talking about any thing under the sun. My first interest in religion as an academic discipline really began with him. It was with him that I attended the World Conference on Hindu Religion organised at the Prayag Mela.

Mother Teresa:

Another interesting thing was that the Gandhi Bhawan had organised an International Essay Competition. I won this and got to spend three days with Mother Teresa. This was before she had received the noble prize. From Allhabad , in a car I travelled with Mother Teresa to Lucknow, Kanpur, Benaras. I think a Father from San Joseph also accompanied us. I was very much touched by Mother Teresa and her concern for people. We visitedf many orphanges, schools, homes and in between a couple was married and blessed by mother Teresa. I published an article in the daily Newspaper, Northern India Ptrika on my trip with mother Teresa.