Rendezvous with Lawrence pinto

“Physics is my religion”. This is a  line which many of us wouldn’t have heard of. But this line defines this person and his personality who iam talking about. I was at home for the festival and I don’t know why but my instincts made me come back to mysore by Thursday itself even though I didn’t have classes until next Monday . But it was all clear to me when my cell phone received a message from Lawrence sir that he was in mysore. I called him right away and made an appointment with him.

It was almost a year since I met him last at his residence in mangalore. He himself gave me a call and asked me to meet him in his hotel room. Over the last three years his visits have been fairly frequent, once in a year at the least. It can never happen that he is in mysore and I don’t know of it. He greeted me with his disarming smile. We sat on the sofa in the porch of his hotel room. After all the usual exchange of niceties we would just sit down to talk about all random things going around in the world. Great thing about him is that when you are with him he ll give you all the freedom in the world to talk, anything under this sun and even beyond. We would talk about Indian economy, he would advice me about the job sectors, we would talk about making India a superpower, he would tell me about few of his students. He would tell me how fulfilling it is to be teacher, to be with the young minds all the time, the young minds being  the pulse to of the society, whom you can guide to a better future. We would talk about the new things in mangalore and about mundane activities of life. The reason,  why chatting with him is so fulfilling is because he listens with his heart not just his ears.

He helped me to get outta a lotta dilemmas, to choose the best of the available options. For me especially at this point of time he was god sent.

Lawrence had a class to be taken up in the marimallappa’s college which was just a couple of blocks away. I even attended his class. I could not miss such an opportunity. Whomever he met in there, he introduced me as his friend. It was an honour. Iam not even half of his age, forget that iam not even as old as his teaching career is. That’s a sign of greatness.

During his class I was transported into my past 4 years back. I wondered that the four years which have passed in the meanwhile had no impact on this person standing in front of the class but have only improved him exponentially.

He can phrase so complex of a situations in so simple a ways. He is one of those ppl who have taught me to learn, to teach, to listen, to talk, to laugh, to contemplate, to THINK.

We went back to his hotel room after the class. I even met John Sherra sir. It was totally unexpected. He doesn’t seem to have changed a bit. A soft spoken, ever smiling math prof whom we had in first pu.

I dropped him to one more class in the evening. Was supposed to meet him later that evening but couldn’t as he told me there wasn’t any need. There are very few ppl on this earth with whom you can sit and talk your heart out and be sure of getting a good advice. For me one of them is Lawrence sir. I thank the almighty for it.

May be there are things which are predestined, the one like this rendezvous with Lawrence pinto.