A tribute to Prof. Ram Nath Koul

A tribute to Prof. Ram Nath Koul

Sham S. Misri

I knew Prof Koul for the last more than five decades. It has been since my education days in S.P.College that I had an honour of being his student for four years till I completed my graduation. As a student I was introduced to Prof Koul by my father (Late Pt. Janki Nath Misri), who was also an educationist and knew each other well.

Prof Koul was one of the most interesting and honest people I’ve ever known. His being there in the college at that point of time was pure heart-swelling pride for me. In my inner heart I had a feeling that there is someone to look after in the college. I now realize he had an increasingly hectic pace of life. My young mind was fertile ground for him to plant ideas and dreams, which I lapped up with the eagerness of a beginner. He wanted me to follow his footsteps as well the footsteps of my father-‘to be a teacher’. He wanted me to go in for higher education, complete my masters’ course and take up teaching profession, being the noble one he would always say.

All of us have had a teacher who has made a profound difference in our lives—someone who changed our lives, made us think more deeply, set our feet on the right path. For me, it was perhaps Prof Koul. He had become a huge success as a teacher. His teaching was full of creative writing.

I remember, Prof Koul often told students as a class to be in the open ground during autumn season and have a class in the shade of a tree. It used to be a sort of a solitary place in the SP College grounds. He was teaching both prose and poetry.

That day it was a poetry class. The topic most of the students including me appeared like dry.  It was something:

“La Belle Dame sans Merci”

It was a ballad by John Keats.

‘I see a lily on thy brow,
            With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
            Fast withereth too.’

And how Prof Koul explained the words still echo in my mind…

“La Belle Dame sans Merci” has its Romantic precursors. That day professor was experiencing in his love life … just to make the ballad interesting and the whole class gripping.

We all thought, ‘He’s such a genius, what’s he doing just teaching us?’ Everybody thought he was destined for bigger and better things. And when he became a State phenomenon, we felt it was justice. After his retirement he had joined D.A.V. College Jawahar Nagar, Kashmir, where I too had joined as a lecturer and had god days to spend.

Many of his former students became writers, and many kept in touch with him. I had an occasion to see him a couple of years back at Delhi. I wished him well. His instant reaction was –Had you been my student?  Very humbly, I said, “yes sir.”  Professor was weak and frail but with all his wits in high order. At that age he was working hard, he told me that he had edited some book…

The great professor, author, writer, and luminary is no more. My heart prays for the departed soul to lie in peace. His final abode is Vaikuntha.

Sham S. Misri