Lucas D'Silva

Lucas D’Silva: He was the most flamboyant of our school years. He was in his mid- 30s with a walrus mustache, square-faced, and a short man. He taught Hindi to a convent school crowd that had a phobia for any language other than English and god, he was superb!! Even South Indian Tamilians like me owe our better accents to him.

It is strange as to how a pious Catholic would take up Hindi. That language was a bugbear for this English speaking man and he determined himself to teach that very subject. He reasoned: it is the language of the land and his Jesuit upbringing might have always aspired for teaching.  

Since we were weak in the language, Lucas used to write tons and tons of sentences filling up blackboards after another in his neat handwriting and exhausting chalk pieces and creating clouds of white smoke as he rubbed the board to make space for further hard labour. These typical questions at the back of the lesson and we were daft on pen these on our own. Not for Lucas was this easy route of bracketing sentences from the text and present it as an answer. He demanded more creativity there. I distinctively remember sitting on the floor (those days A section boys would go to B section for the Hindi class and a few of us would squat on the floor as all the desks would be occupied) and racing to keep up with him as he wrote on the board. We learnt of all the intricacies with masterful annotates of Tulsidas, Rahim, Kabirdas, and Surdas.  Then Hindi grammar – the sandhis, and samas, then explored the stories of Premchand and other literary giants of Hindi.

He was truly a prim donna; nobody ever crossed him without getting hurt as the cane used to furiously come down. Always impeccably dressed in full hand sleeves and preferring those boots that came halfway up to the knees and he was not averse to boot errant boys. Despite the violence, he would put his hands around the shoulders and become unusual friendly after the class. He was undoubtedly the hero of our growing years. He was a kind of a man you saw in movies much like Clint Easthood in his westerns; rugged, placid exterior, spoke little, and guns boomed more (in this case “canes” and “boots”).  

For the Annual function, he would pen a drama alongwith Raghupathy, who was the Telugu teacher. Raghupathy used to sing the Patrick’s Anthem and “Maa Telugu thali ki” on Monday Assembly.  Raghupathy was also a much loved teacher; he tragically died in a road accident in the 90s and after that Lucas stopped writing plays altogether in memory of his friend and colleague.

A devout Christian, Lucas went to Sabarimala undergoing all the rituals prior to the trip. Not for him are the narrow self-imposed constraints of religion but a big heart to learn and explore. At school none of our Jesuit teachers ever poked fun on Hinduism rather they quoted Bhagwat Gita liberally and always in reverence.  

He was very active writing plays for the annual functions. He was married to an Anglo-Indian who was teaching in the primary classes in the same school. His son is married and settled in Britain while the daughter on a software assignment. I met him after 20 years and age had not withered the lion in any manner. He still joked heartily, smoked incessantly, and showed his family album. He is now the senior-most teacher on roll as he said,” I joined here when I was 32 and now close to retirement. I am the only one allowed to use a cane at school”. When queried whether he had any goals, he quietly said,” I always wanted a basketball court for my kids and a tennis court. Those dreams have come true and now all I want is a swimming pool.”  This is a kind of commitment in these Jesuits.  

            We were too young to appreciate the class and stature of Lucas and Fr. Kadavel. It is only when we grew up and got our tails burned in this rough world that we realized the worth of these individuals. Hats off, Lucas…may you and your family be always happy.

Verdict: Sattwic

Lesson to be learnt: An extraordinaire teacher who commanded tremendous respect and left indelible imprints on young minds. It is possible to be idealistic even in this crazy world.