TO SIR, WITH RESPECT

In life we sometimes meet few people who though meet you by chance and yet left indelible impact on your life journey and have positive impact on your thought process. I consider myself one of the fortunate man who has been provided such an opportunity to meet several such personalities. One  such personality  is our teacher  Upendra sir , away from coaching  “mandi” of Rajendra  nagar who make students love sociology. I have used word love rather than teaching, because this is what seems a fit and anybody whom I met has same thing to say, if he ever met Sir . Though, I must confess that I wasn’t lucky enough to attend his lectures due to my official duties but yes, due to his kind gestures, I had few interactions with him in the course of preparation for mains 2011 and following discussions on tests. When I first met him, my voice was almost blocked and I thought of him as some colonel of NDA.  So followed the discussion which started by lambasting aspirants who wrote previous tests and then followed his presentation of answer which was so perfect  that I was reading it again and again and forgot what he had to say on another question. Then followed his advisory for sociology answers writing which is equally true for all humanities optional and even general studies.  

What turned to be most important was most feared by examinees ie answer checking which was best part as copies were evaluated in your presence which was  both healing and killing as I was listening it from my later turned friends Ali Abbas,Bharat Bhaviskar,Khusboo and Umesh  who were my companions on road to UIAS.  After some wait, came turn of  my copy and when my eager ears were waiting to listen some praise, (as I’ve written some seemingly good answers, which later turned out to be my subjective perception) ,after my previous companions who now were down-to-earth after “advisories ” of sir. He gave a look on answers  and said “not up-to the mark” and nodded his head, giving  negative signs,  then he gave some suggestions on how to improve which proved beneficial as even after my silly mistakes in mains in which in my zeal I over-wrote and thus failed to attempt 36 marks questions and yet got 176/300.

There is an interesting incident to narrate, on constant listening of Upendra-“gatha”   between me and Ali , my friend Anjaneesh decided to take sociology as an optional and after several deliberations we decided to call sir, and so as instructed reached before time to meet him. When he met, he asked what is “agenda ”  for the day, at the same time there was some frequency gap between us and I thought Anjaneesh will speak and he thought that I will respond, creating a lull, which we recovered and after brief introduction, we were again eating sandwiches  in adjacent bakery with a book of David Mandelbaum.

If I am within the list it is only due to sir as after clearing mains’11, I approached him again for mock sessions away from popular “shrines” in Delhi which we can  we see in the newspapers of that reference period, we find that somebody is conducting it free of cost, some on nominal cost, some boast of “eminent” panels while few non-sense even go to the extent saying  that they have predicted questions for interview. So on due date and before time , I was in front of sir and what followed was only further replicated in Dholpur house. My experience of mocks in 2011 in V&R was utter distasteful and I could get only 129 in 2011. But as is personality test, so it also depends on your personal factors, boards attitude , so am not blaming anyone for that fiasco.  But yes, credit for this years improvement definitely goes to Sir. Though am not sort of Eklavya as such but yes his notes ,guidance, tests and suggestions have helped me a lot in this journey  along with my other friends. And I must extend my regards to him, for being such helping hand to me and many others like us. and today when i join service, am again saying...

Thanks SIR.