A mentor who lit torch of learning

Sanjeev Suri

It is to state the obvious that the alumni visiting their alma mater get nostalgic and eloquent while highlighting the role of their institutions in moulding their lives. Such an emotional moment was experienced at an annual prize distribution function of MCM DAV College, Kangra, where an alumnus, Dr Amarjeet K Sharma, Director, Higher Education, Himachal Pradesh, was the chief guest. He gave the entire credit for his success to the vision of the founding principal of the college, RC Jeevan. Detailing various anecdotes, he narrated how the lives of many students of the college from far-flung areas of the state were illuminated by the Midas touch of principal Jeevan.

The college shot to fame in the very first year of its opening in the 1970s, when principal Jeevan’s indefatigable efforts notched the college five merit positions in the pre-university exams of HP University. The university authorities suspected that the college had used some unfair means to excel. Consequently, the next year, the HPU stationed its officials in the college all through the exams. And lo, that year the college captured all 10 positions on the merit list!

When principals of other colleges would pull out all the stops to fill their seats, principal Jeevan had to handle a heavy admission rush. Once, a senior bureaucrat from Shimla came to get his son admitted to the college. He was quite hopeful as his son had studied in a reputed convent school of Shimla. But the principal refused as all seats were full. ‘There is no seating capacity in the classroom. Where will I make him sit? Please don’t insist on admission,’ he said firmly. ‘I don’t demand a desk for my son. Can’t you permit him to sit on the floor, sir?’ asked the worried father. The unusual request made the principal emotional and the admission was granted.

Another former student recounted how the principal had taught them a lesson in rationality in a very interesting manner. He told them in a seminar how one morning he found some jadoo-tona performed on his doorstep, with some coins loosely tied in a bright-red cloth. He picked up the coins and pocketed them. An old woman who happened to pass that way advised him to throw away the coins as they could bring him ill luck. He did not. The next morning, too, he found some coins. He again took them. This continued for a couple of days, and then, stopped altogether. ‘It helped the college financially, as I bought four boxes of chalk with those coins!’ he concluded humorously.

One incident runs through my memory with intensity — accepting a prize on behalf of his granddaughter, an elderly man reverentially took the principal's hands in his, and drawing them to his forehead said, ‘Yeh roshni bantne wale haath hain.’ Indeed, principal Jeevan, hailing from Qadian at Gurdaspur in Punjab, had lit the torch of learning in Himachal Pradesh and became a household name across the length and breadth of the state.

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