Professor Manjali, for me, is like mosaic. I have known him for 10 years now, yet I feel there is so much I don't know, and so much I'd love to understand and learn about him. The parts of him I do know are disparate fragments - vivid in their distinctiveness - that have emblazoned themselves in my memory, heightening the sense of enigma and regard with which I perceive him. The first thing I noticed about him was his ponytail. That cute little silver ponytail, wrapped in a little black band or bow, was not just emblematic of his sense of style; in the way it made him stand out in a crowd, it was symbolic of the outlier he was in the Centre for Linguistics at JNU. His ideas about how language must be studied and thought about was at stark odds with most of what was being pursued by the other faculty at the Centre, and he never shied away from remaining a strong critic of those formal methods and approaches of studying language. He advocated for a more holistic, philosophical, and abstract approach that examined language at the intersections of semiotics, society, ideology, and culture. That he was the lone voice of his kind never seemed to faze him one bit, much less deter him. In being himself, he embodied the kind of intellectual integrity, sharp critical mind, erudition, and moral courage that JNU seeks to inculcate in each of its students. In so many ways, he was emblematic of JNU itself. Somehow, in my mind, his ponytail became a symbol of who he was. It told me that one could be unique, critical, irreverent, and completely committed to one's ideological specificities with style, panache, and dignity; that being true to one's individuality would automatically command the respect of others, even if they hardly understood you or strongly disagreed with you. He added a dimension to the Centre that made it intriguing. It is no surprise, then, that when I spotted him one day - perhaps in 2019 - after a spell of hospitalization, and saw that the iconic ponytail had been chopped off, it broke my heart in a way that was inexplicably disproportionate but profoundly meaningful. It felt as though he had lost his spirit. For Professor Manjali to walk around without his ponytail seemed like we had lost something precious in JNU. I still cannot articulate adequately what I felt then, but this much I can say: that day, I felt like we had lost a bit of him that was much more than just hair. The one incident involving Sir that has imprinted itself in my memory took place in the wake of a protest march, in which various women students from JNU were brutally manhandled and lathicharged by the Delhi police. They were then detained by the police for a few hours. One of the few people who was attacked and detained was a peer of mine, and I - along with another friend from the department - landed up at the protest site, worried for her and the others, and trying to find the rest of the JNU protestors (who had been barricaded in the dark at a lonely road near INA). On our way there, we ran into Prof Manjali and Prof Manidipa, who were returning from the protest site and reassured us that most of the trouble was now over. I happened to mention that we were worried for our peer. They nodded, commiserated a bit with us, told us which way to go, and we parted ways. Months later, I chanced upon him at SL, near the entrance. At this point it must be said that I didn't believe he really knew me beyond my face. I'd often have to mention my name when we met, and I hadn't taken too many of his classes (those, too, I had taken a few years back). Most of the time I fully expected him not to recognize me. But that day, at the ground Roor of SL, after exchanging pleasantries, he asked me how I was now and if my peer was doing ok too. I was caught by surprise, but replied in the a rmative that to the best of my knowledge, she was. It needs to be mentioned here that I was not close to this peer; we were barely in touch. And it had been months since the incident. But he remembered. He remarked on how worried I was for her that day, which even I had forgotten about. I was speechless. To remember something that for him, must have been so seemingly insignificant, when he seemed so disinterested in all of us as a matter of course, was mind-boggling to me. That day I realized that one would be hard-pressed to predict what Professor Manjali saw, noticed, and remembered. He chose to see the internal, the unspoken, the emotional dimensions of a person even when she was in extremely sporadic touch with him. Such was his humanity. The other fragment of experience that has stayed with me is a moment from one of his classes, when some of us wanted to get some tea during the mandatory 5 minute lecture break. He insisted that whenever there was a teacher around, we must never pay for tea and snacks and DEMAND that the teacher foot the bill, because we were penniless students and what else were they meant to do with the heavy salaries they were paid anyway? The sheer righteous indignation with which he made this declaration moved me. While it is the norm for teachers to treat us to tea and snacks every so often at JNU, never had anyone snapped at us with such indignation that it was our RIGHT to not pay for tea and snacks during classes and demand them from the teacher instead. It was a refreshing and original perspective. And as is common with him, whether or not one agreed, one was compelled to reRect upon his words for days and months after they had been uttered. There are so many other fragments of his personality that come to mind. We met in class, in his o ce, in my synopsis presentation, in conferences, in other parts of JNU. There was a reassuring air about him - whenever I saw him, I'd feel as though everything would be fine as long as he were around. Though, to be fair, one dreaded being questioned by him in interviews and vivas. Having said that, my experience with him has been quite positive, though never quite easy. Because Professor Manjali wasn't an easy person to comprehend or converse with. He wasn't oriented towards agreeing with you. Intellectually, he'd always challenge you and indicate new possibilities of thought and research. Personally, though, if he sensed you were anxious, he would try to reassure you in his taciturn way. Which would again leave you pondering about the depths and nuances of his words. The final set of fragments that constitute my impression of Professor Manjali are second hand. They come from my senior Nimmi di, who was his PhD student. I know that he was an excellent supervisor from her innumerable anecdotes about his kindness, understanding, and support during the writing phase while keeping with his exacting academic standards. She once told me how his approach towards getting his PhD students to work differed based on their individual personalities and academic habits. It was a privileged peek into his mind that left me amazed, enriched, and full of admiration for the delicacy and precision of thought behind his approach. Because, of course, his technique worked wonders for his individual students. Her stories also made me want to get to know him all the more, as an academic as well as a person. But that was not to happen. We lost him before we got a chance to tell him what he meant to us, how much he inRuenced us. However, Professor Manjali is the kind of person who could only die in the Resh; his spirit and his words will live on in the minds and hearts of all his students, and perhaps even find expression in our attitudes and approaches to teaching and learning in the future. He will be, as he has always been, undeniable.