Guest column | To Shomie sir with love: From cosmos to computers
The perfect studying takes place not from books, however from life itself! Nature is the best instructor. And, when one is blessed to have instructor, it goes with out saying that the educational is for all times. As college students at Sanawar within the 80’s, we had been blessed to have a digital galaxy of stalwarts whose very presence was a life lesson. And, indubitably, the easiest, brightest and the kindest of all these legends was Shomie Ranjan Das.
The heartfelt condolences of generations of former college students from Mayo, Sanawar and Doon went out to the household of Das on his premature demise.
Shomie Ranjan Das was an integral a part of The Lawrence Faculty, Sanawar from Might 1974 to March 1988 because the headmaster. He’ll endlessly be remembered with love and respect by generations of Sanawarians. It was well-known that he had been the tutor of King Charles, whereas at Gordonstoun. What was not so well-known was that he was instrumental in bringing the Spherical Sq. motion to India. Certainly, life at Sanawar was an embodiment of the beliefs of Kurt Hahn, who based the Spherical Sq. motion.
Of the numerous issues that had been method forward of its time at Sanawar, was the immense studying that passed off on our 139-acre sylvan campus in our pure environment. Nature was our unspoken curriculum and the good open air our syllabus. Really, it taught us classes for all times! Among the biggest classes can’t be learnt solely from books and what you study from mom nature is studying for all times and these are classes which can not ever be forgotten.
It was however becoming then that physics was what he formally taught. The pure world is however the bodily world! It was the 12 months 1986 and college students had been making a beeline for Heady’s Home as he had invited all of them! Not solely boys however women as effectively. It was heady stuff! On a fantastic balmy spring evening, via the clear sapphire blue evening sky, we had been proven a hazy blob. It was Halley’s Comet. After which, a line of scholars fashioned as much as view this celestial spectacle via a telescope that Das had arrange.
His was a thoughts that was merely incomparable. Within the 80’s, he was offered an Apple laptop. That was in flip handed over to a scholar who used it to review synthetic intelligence (AI). And that was earlier than AI grew to become a topic!
Potential profession. He introduced in laptop engineers from HCL to arrange the pc division at Sanawar. Such was his imaginative and prescient!
As a schoolboy, when one chanced upon him taking a stroll he would all the time ask “How are you?” Neither did the reply matter nor how one was, what mattered was that one instantly felt higher with this human reference to him.
He served with distinction as headmaster of a number of top-ranked legacy boarding faculties, together with Mayo School, Ajmer; The Lawrence Faculty, Sanawar; and The Doon Faculty, Dehradun.
Simply the opposite day, I occurred to remember a random reminiscence of Das quietly standing, fingers behind his again and gazing out from the birdwood cloisters. And I’ve all the time puzzled what precisely was occurring in that good thoughts. What precisely may he have been considering of? And what was it that the gaze was seeing. Tonight, the penny dropped- he had been seeing the longer term!
He can be remembered with nice respect and love for his futuristic imaginative and prescient, real concern for the well-being of scholars and distinctive management method.
himmatdhillon@yahoo.com
(The author is headmaster of The Lawrence Faculty, Sanawar)
