Where do I even begin? My first glimpse of Manjali Sir was in 2013 when I saw a person with white hair pulled back in a ponytail, a woolen cap that had a style of its own, a brown coloured tweed coat, a briefcase shaped bag in hand, a very specific walking style, a gaze that had a purpose walk into room No.101 in SL-1. During the course of our interaction in M.A., he showed us what JNU really stands for - a quest. While the rest of the courses in our M.A trained us on formal, structural analyses of language on multiple levels, he showed us a completely different perspective - of the futility of placing language within boundaries and trying to make sense of its structures. His classes opened up different internal and external worlds for those who really listened to what he said. He was famous for scheduling his classes during the 4pm to 6pm time slot and never really stopping at 6 before the thought he wanted to convey was complete and before he had answered whatever doubt his students had. His exams were even more unique- our batch has a record of one of his open book exams going on for 5 hours, where the students kept on fuelling themselves with SL canteen’s kachoris, frootis, tea while writing the paper (one brave soul even making a trip to the library to get a book during the open book examination period). All these memories are treasures that I keep going back to time and again. He asked of his students only one thing - to think and not be closed boxes whose minds never questioned anything. For a teacher whoWhere do I even begin? My first glimpse of Manjali Sir was in 2013 when I saw a person with white hair pulled back in a ponytail, a woolen cap that had a style of its own, a brown coloured tweed coat, a briefcase shaped bag in hand, a very specific walking style, a gaze that had a purpose walk into room No.101 in SL-1. During the course of our interaction in M.A., he showed us what JNU really stands for - a quest. While the rest of the courses in our M.A trained us on formal, structural analyses of language on multiple levels, he showed us a completely different perspective - of the futility of placing language within boundaries and trying to make sense of its structures. His classes opened up different internal and external worlds for those who really listened to what he said. He was famous for scheduling his classes during the 4pm to 6pm time slot and never really stopping at 6 before the thought he wanted to convey was complete and before he had answered wh had the daunting task of making his students understand the meta concepts of deconstruction and poststructuralism (as well as the brilliant works by Nietzsche, Focualt and Derrida), he was also the patient one who gave his student space and time to entertain a whimsical query (like whether a paper can be written about a bottle of water that was lying on the table in his o ce, vis a vis a particular philosophy). Instead of dismissing the notion as being stupid, he explained the possibility of attempting that writing task and what it takes away from pursuits that should be pursued in critical thinking. His openness to his students’ ideas (when they had to write term papers) was the reason that I had the most fun while writing a term paper for his class wherein I went around JNU campus, clicking pictures of the posters and writings on the walls of school buildings and hostels and attempting a deconstructive analysis of them. I still remember the joy on his face when we are discussing this one! During paper presentations, he always sat with his students in the audience and carefully nudged us towards learning how to make a claim and stand by it in front of a crowd. These lessons from 101 are carried forward by all his students into their everyday lives. Although he never put any stock on superficial metrics like grades, another fond memory that I have of him is the expression of sheer surprise on his face at a student getting an A+ grade from him on a paper (which was unheard of before) and his appreciation of my use of diagrammatic representations within long pieces of writing to exhibit what I understood of certain phenomenon. His words on that day encouraged me to think out of the box, which I try to till date. As a nonbeliever of Chomskyan vision of linguistics, he was disappointed to hear that I wanted to pursue PhD along those lines and tried to motivate me towards other perspectives on the subject. But after two such meetings, he was eventually okay with my choice and told me to walk that path but to always keep my eyes and mind open for the ‘othered’ questions. During my PhD synopsis defense meeting, he had picked upon Chafe's phrase ‘conscious/mind of the speaker and the hearer’ in my proposal and questioned me about what it meant. Little did I know that 5 years down the line, when I would be submitting my doctoral thesis, I would be making a claim about exactly that point - what happens in the mind of the speaker at the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface. And true to his teaching, I stood by that claim but with a wonder in my heart at that prophetic question and the circle getting completed. I met him last at Mughal Durbar during the summer before the pandemic, where he had come with Manidipa Mam to grab some dinner (we were doing the same). I am glad that that was such a happy meeting and I get to always remember him by his expressions then.
I still remember the half smile that he gave when he saw his students enjoying their student life and how much he could pack into a few lines while waiting for his food - so much so that one is not the same as what they were before their meeting him.
Sir, you were a teacher from your heart and that heart got conveyed to every student who crossed paths with you in all these years. Thank you for always keeping your door open to have a conversation with your students, for thinking about your students through the years and for doing one of the toughest jobs of making a person think and question what they see. You stood for the JNU that we saw a decade ago - the JNU where there were no limits on how much you could learn from everything and anything. Sir, you will live on through your students, we promise you that. Until next time, when we bump into each other in a corridor in SL and talk about what we have learned and unlearned in that period.