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When my father taught international #law, the overflow was so huge that students requested he leave the windows open so they could hear him. This included students from other universities, and they all stood outside, even in torrential monsoon rain, to hear his lectures. 1/n
I was too young to appreciate the enormity of such reverence and adoration: for him, the subject, and the idea of #education itself. All I saw was the practitioner who, after full days of court appearances and client meetings, graded papers into the dawn. 2/n
As his practice got increasingly busy, my mother would gently suggest he reconsider his commitments. Each time, he insisted it was the least he could do for the profession. He’d sooner take on fewer cases than give up teaching, which he loved, and which energised him. 3/n
When he passed on, people I didn’t know lined up to tell me he was the best professor they’d ever had. Some were high court judges and attorneys general, others practised at the Supreme Court. But they all said “I was his student” & “I wouldn’t be who/where I am but for him”. 4/n
As I prep for class tomorrow, by Zoom, I think of a world - and especially, an India - where institutions of learning and scholars were so central to people’s lives, opportunities and purpose. I don’t have overflow rooms, or monsoon rain, but I have dad’s values to live by. 5/5
