Dr.Gift Siromoney's Home Page

Carving out Ph.D's
Motivating Research

I am fortunate to have a long association with Dr Gift Siromoney from 1971 to 1988. Sometimes I wonder whether I was in the front line of his favourite students. The only Master's project he supervised was the one that myself, Dr R Chandrasekaran and Mr R Srinivasan did. The only M Phil dissertation he ever supervised was mine. When I registered for Ph D, he said quite prophetically that I would be his last doctoral student. Soon after the surgery, he told Mrs Siromoney, "Somehow we must see that Huq completes his thesis". It was among his last words. In these days of communal turbulence, those words of a Christian Professor concerning a Muslim student/colleague must shine out far and wide as a guiding light.

In fact, people who knew Dr GS will be upset with such a viewpoint, since communal difference was never an issue with him. When he said it (on what turned out to be his death bed) and when people heard it, this difference was not in the context at all. It is among the many things that one learnt while working closely with him. His guidance was not restricted to academics alone. It transcended all kinds of barriers and touched the core of life. What I wish to concentrate on in this article is the "sidelights" that one got to see while working with him. We worked together on about a dozen papers. The experience I gained in each was manifold. The space here is just sufficient for a part of one such experience.

It was one early morning in 1985 when the two of us left Madras for Bangalore to attend the annual congress of the Epigraphical Society, to be held in Dharwad. Since our train from Bangalore to Dharwad was scheduled for the night, we had the whole afternoon to spend in Bangalore. Left to myself, I would have found a room in a hotel and taken rest. But Dr Siromoney was made of a different stuff. He took me to Lal Bagh and showed me the flowers, birds, and animals. I was taken aback by his uncanny ability to identify different types of roses by name. That day my admiration for Shakespeare took a dent … roses are not just roses; each variety of them has its own name.

When we boarded the train in the night, I was hoping to go to bed as soon as the train pulled out of the station. It was not to be. The train was full of delegates for the Congress. It was like an Epigraphy special. Particularly, Mr I Mahadevan was attending the Congress after a long time. His presence was a surprise for many. When he discussed it, Dr GS listened to him politely without telling him that he (Dr GS) was expecting him. I was puzzled, because I knew that someone has already told Dr GS that Mr Mahadevan would be attending that year. Later Dr GS explained: "I never tell anyone what somebody else had told me about him". Yes, it'll be a breach of confidence. But how many could resist the temptation of flaunting a bit of knowledge?

With so many delegates in the train, we couldn't sleep that night. The whole of the next day was gone in attending the proceedings. It was night when we could get back to the room. As I was looking at the bed longingly, his voice came over: "There is a Karnataka version of puppet show (Yaksha Gana, if I remember right) in the campus. Let us go and watch it."

With growing irritation, I went to the toilet to get ready for the long night. As luck would have it, the room key dropped out of my pocket into the toilet bowl. I came out and told him. How would anybody react in the situation? Get annoyed and angry and launch into useless reprimands: "Can't you be more careful?" etc., But Dr GS was different. He asked me quickly: "has anyone gone into the room yet?"

"I saw some one going into the room just as I was coming out", I replied.

He rushed ahead of me, telling me on the way: "Show me which room." When we reached the place, he knocked on the door, got the guy out before he could do any damage, asked me to keep watch and went in search of help. As I was standing guard at the entrance of the toilet, I worked out the rationale behind his action. If somebody used the toilet, the key would go further deeper and it would be much more difficult to retrieve it. A lesson in presence of mind, control of temper, necessity to focus on what is to be done rather than on what should not have been done and much more.

The help that came turned out to be not much of help. Finally, we decided to break the lock. Half way through the process, the man (who was a peon in the Society office) asked frivolously, "how come the two of you keep losing things?" He was referring to our loss of camera cap at Ellora the previous year. Dr GS replied gleefully, "yes…we have made a habit of it". And it was almost midnight on the third sleepless night in a row.

If it were not for the music, I would have slept through the show. But he watched it with keen interest. On the way back, as I was winding my weary way to the room, he started an analysis of the show and I started praying for deliverance. No one would have blamed me for my flippancy, if he had seen my blood-shot eyes and heavy eyelids. (For the sake of record, Dr GS was twenty-two years my senior.)

Finally, the guest house loomed large in front of us. I took ablution and offered my prayer, while he was stretched out on the bed. As I was inching towards my bed, taking care not to disturb him, he sat up on the bed ( obviously, he was just waiting for me to complete the ritual) and said: "Can we quickly go through the papers scheduled for tomorrow?"

God, how was it possible for a man to work so tirelessly without any thought of even sleep? Is it because he knew a Long Sleep was awaiting him just a short while ahead?

Abdul Huq (B.Sc., M.Sc., M.Phil., Colleague: 1971-88, Ph.D: 1989)