Originally published in the Motif of September 11, 2006.

Reynold C. D'Souza

Although Mr. D'Souza was to add lustre to many an educational institution in the Steel City, it was Loyola School, named after the founder of the Jesuit order, that he gave the best years of his life. I consider myself extremely fortunate for having witnessed such a fine teacher and gentleman in the prime of his life and career. It is not given to many to gave such acknowledgeable and generous and, when the occasion arose as it inevitably did once in a while, stern guide.

Vidyarthi Chatterjee as a young boy

Mr. D'Souza would cause an epidemic every time he took our classes. His love of life, regardless of season, would never fail to infect us. He was always full of cheer and good humour, and these he would religiously pass on to us. As and when we had our black moods these would simply evaporate one 'Sir', Caesar-like, made his triumphal entry into the classroom. Every encounter with him, whether in class or on the playfield (he was a consummate sportsman) or in the school auditorium (where he seemed to be at his blossomest), was a delight.

But great as Mr. D'Souza was as a teacher, sometimes I have the feeling that he was greater still as an individualist and a citizen. Perhaps the two avataars made for a single whole, one complementing the other and finally fusing to form the total persona that was Reynold C. D'Souza. The courage of his convictions and the strength of his character are revealed in his deliberate and conscious choice to be a teacher, to be the moulder and nourisher and kaarigar of tender minds, when he could have easily opted for a more lucrative and visible profession. But the trouble with 'Sir' was that he never considered teaching to be a profession; unbelieving as it may sound to  cynical ears, teaching was to him a mission. In truth, he was 'suited-booted' missionary carving his unique path among so many white-robed missionaries, many of them from distant Maryland, USA.

Given his outstanding qualities of head and heart, Mr. D'Souza could have been anything for the asking. As a journalist of some experience, I know he would have made an excellent editor of a big-city newspaper. Again, he could have easily been a successful lawyer, bureaucrat or a career diplomat and risen to be an ambassador or a high commissioner. But, no, he had to be a humble teacher in a growing school in what was then a small industrial place. It speaks volumes about the man's almost rishi-like disinterest in worldly success, that he should have made no professional use of the diploma in labour relations and personnel management that he took from the reputed Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI).

Comparisons are odious, they say, but what they don't say is that they have made it for no other reason than to retrieve the nuggets from the heap. Many of Mr. D'Souza's faculty colleagues at Loyola proved how different they were from him when, at the first opportunity, they left teaching for careers in steel, cable and the like. For them Loyola was a stepping stone in their personal quest for 'success'; for Mr. D'Souza Loyola and later other schools in the city was the quest, both the journey and the destination. As a teacher who was, I figure, defining himself anew every day even as he was discovering fresh tender minds to mould in his own image of inventiveness combined with playfullness. Mr. D'Souza was in a state of perpetual grace.

I would hardly be wrong in saying that if, despite all the erosion that teaching has suffered in our consumerism-afflicted times, it still remains the noblest activity on earth, it is because of the likes of Mr. D'Souza. He gave abundantly, expecting nothing in return; and hence received manifold what he had given - not in cash, not in kind, but in love, respect, in gratitude, which no amount of filthy lucre can buy.

There is a saying in Bangla, Jotoi koribey daan toto jabey berey, meaning  the more you give the more you get. This is specially true of knowledge. I am certain that there are equivalents of this saying in every other language. Mr. D'Souza took the core of this truism to his heart and held it there for as long as he lived. Neither public injustice nor private sorrow could rob him of this life-affirming treasure.

With his death, a visionary and  quiet dissident departed from our midst. A good man, a good teacher and a good citizen who steadfastly refused to encourage in himself the narrow, acquisitive instincts that every man or woman has to some extent, is no more around in person to let us know the difference between right and wrong; between the ideal and commonplace; between the material success and inner fulfilment. But, inexorably, in departure he lives on more vividly than in life - at least for some of us whose pleasure and pride it was to have known him and partaken of his insight, his imagination and his capacity to inspire even the mediocre among us to levels that we never know existed.

Citizen D'Douza is dead! Long live Citizen D'Souza! Centuries ago such cries were customarily used to honour the royal dead. Reynold D'Souza was nothing less than a king, albiet in a flowing black gown that a Loyola 'Sir" wore in those days over his shirtsleeves and trousers. The bearing was regal; and the head and heart were joined in a perfect marriage to produce the kind of character a repetition of which I have in vain looked around me for years.