Image © Pragya Khajuria
بلھیا کی جاناں میں کون
-bulleya ki jaana main kaun-
Letters to
B O S S
Hats Off
“Mil tu kal class mein, teri taang kheechunga,” he hung up, giggling. For someone as miserably failing at life as I was at the time: absolutely incompetent at juggling choir practice and classes, the bane of each of my professors’ and peers’ existence as the worst class representative in recent history, unable to answer calls or reply to messages about setting up classes, and a famously absent friend who would miss every hangout and major life event, to participate in music competitions all over the university instead; I felt strangely comforted by SK’s teasing. For a change, there was but one person in this world who somehow wasn’t disappointed in me, even though I’d given him plenty of opportunities to be so.
I was in the second year of my bachelor’s, and it was the first time he had been assigned one of our papers. I had already missed a few of his classes having run back home right after end sems, because I needed to waste away some days under the humid sun of Guwahati as opposed to the dry one in Delhi. But the way I would sleep through his calls and messages, you would think Assam operated in a different time zone, and I, in a perpetual state of jet lag. When I did come to my senses, roughly after half of our daily class slots had gotten lost between my classmates and professors in utter confusion about whether they were to meet at all, I would apologise profusely as though that would do anything to restore everyone’s squandered time and energy. While most of my professors, peers, and I myself ended up losing faith in my ability to continue as “CR”, for some reason, SK never wavered. He took one look at my incompetence, called me “boss” like it was the most commonly known fact on Earth, and moved on.
Before this particular phone call, I had never seen him in-person. During the call, I remember thinking, “this is the coolest person I’ve ever talked to!”. After the call, with the prejudice of a twelve year-old, I decided, that it is only a professor relatively closer in age to my generation who could be so charming. And when I showed up to class the next day, you can imagine my surprise when this “SK” turned out to be at once, the most majestic person I had ever encountered, and apparently, the senior-most professor in the department. He said, tilting his fedora, his first words to me, “So you are the Maithili,” and went on to indulge in all the leg-pulling he had promised. It was as simple as finally putting a face to a name, and yet, his use of the definitive, gave me a sense of self-importance I haven’t been able to shed still. It is a gift he gave me unknowingly—as I am sure he did to a hundred others, equally lost—and refused to let me drop it for as long as he breathed.
Every WhatsApp correspondence about classes and tutorials ever since, involved the honorific “boss”—the only way he would address me. Among these, there is one I still go back to whenever life gains the upper hand or when I am on the verge of losing all confidence in myself.
“A118 for the tutorial, sir,” I messaged him at 9:43 AM on the 21st of September, 2023.
“Boss,” he replied.
“Yes, sir?”
“Just that. You are the boss.”
I knew I wasn’t the only one to have been accorded this privilege, and believe me, I was jealous about it for the longest time. I was guilty, as we all have been, of wanting to be the favourite student of my favourite professor. But I soon realised that it was the very fact that SK chose not to play favourites, and made us all feel equally engulfed in his swag, that endeared him to me in the first place.
I will never get to sing for him now. “Chal kuch bhi gaa de yaar,” he would say once every month during class and I always turned him down out of some inane timidity, when I had sung in front of a hundred people just the day before, and did so in competitions daily. But he never stopped asking. He never questioned the double standard in my shy deferrals on the one hand, and my bold, exhaustive applications demanding attendance for all his classes that I missed to go sing for judges and crowds, on the other. He would simply say, “De doonga yaar,” and gave me extra attendance as incentive to win more competitions. Now when relentless waves of regret wash over me, I tell myself that it couldn’t have been so casual anyway. If I were to sing for SK, it would have to be prepared, practised and perfect, because singing for an impersonal audience isn’t the same as offering your music, and through it, your heart, to a loved one.
I won’t get to see his directorial genius in theatre. “Next time, pakka, sir,” was my reply the last time he invited me to attend what would be his final show—a contemporarisation of Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding. Classic SK. The beginning of his ailment had already begun to make its presence known, with sir unable to take classes the weeks leading up to and even after the staging of the play, but it was no match for his energy and resolve to do what he loved, to carry out what he started. And before the waiting for Godot got too absurd, he had pushed past it and was back teaching the text. Little did we know, how big a toll everything was taking on him; how the next time it came for him, he welcomed it with open arms, asking not for mercy but for just enough time to finish Jane Eyre with my juniors. Of course, it wasn’t going to let him have it as easy as being able to come to college physically, so he charmed it into a compromise, and took his classes online from his hospital bed. I imagine Death pacing about with a sour face and grumbling to its ferrymen about how this one dude wouldn’t stop calling it “boss” before making the weirdest requests, like “please let me warn them not to fall for the rich white male: Rochester is a paedophile and asshole, and I’ll be there pakka!” And I have a feeling that one of these ferrymen, rather a daring one, went, “well, hats off to him for making you wait,” to which Death whipped its head around, narrowed its eyes and hissed, “he wears a fedora, you fool.”
We don’t get to hear the dulcet tone of his voice anymore, one that could turn even the most tedious language of The Last Man, and its sheer volume, into something compelling. Or, as those who have experienced it have informed me, be spellbound witnessing his radical, provocative and incredibly human narratives unfold on stage, transforming it into a mirror for the marginalised that dared to disrupt our collective silence. We don’t get to bask in his light any longer. Yet, every time that I pick up my leather jacket when Delhi’s sorry excuse for autumn pokes its head around, and hear his voice in my head: “Arey, Maithili? Tuney apni leather jacket nikaal li? Chal kal se mai bhi pehen ke aaunga!” or I make a clever Marxist-feminist statement that makes a manchild throw a full-blown tantrum, or when I havedebased myself with a cycle of self-doubt I know must have no point of return but suddenly find the strength to do so, I know it’s him. It’s him each time I tear up singing a Bulleh Shahlyric, filling my lungs so I can exhale all the grief I have made them weigh down with. Infact, I am certain that every time I look in the mirror and feel powerful, ready to take on the world head on, it is SK, reaching out from wherever he is, to make sure I don’t only see myfaults. That I believe, if not in myself, then in his untiring belief in me, as I know, that in your
own ways, you do too, boss.
-Maithili Goswami
To say that Sanjay Sir was one of the best teachers in our department would be a huge understatement, because to talk about him as a teacher; one must first talk about the kind of person he was. In a system that is meant to suffocate you and your ideas, Sanjay Sir’s class felt less like a dictation and more like a negotiation. Even though I had only one semester with him, it was enough to understand the purpose he carried within himself. He was never a part of the machinery that creates robotic degree holders. Attending his lectures never felt like sitting in a classroom but rather like standing before a blank canvas where everyone could express themselves. The way he said, “Mai tumhari attendance ka kya karunga? Tumhe dunga toh marks toh milenge,” made us feel more responsible towards ourselves. Sanjay Sir will forever remain one of the best memories of college.
Thankyou Boss<33
-Rainy Vats
Dear SK sir,
Have you ever met someone who made you smile in every corridor that he went in? Have you met someone who sent literal smileys :) in an email regarding assignment marks for the victorian novel paper? Have you met someone who would take zoom classes of Jane Eyre from the hospital bed with the biggest gleam on his face? Probably not, because YOU were that someone.
Your "bear with me, for i speak too fast" in the very first class is what i wish to hear so many times even tho i understood only a tiny bit of what you said in those first few classes. Then, something happened, maybe you changed your pace or i started to grasp it, but i started loving every lecture. I will forever be jealous of my seniors that you taught us for just one semester but I will forever be grateful for that one semester you were with us (maybe by god's grace).
After seeing the world, I started to believe that God is not real but I was always told that "you have not seen the world", "you are too young to be thinking that" by many. But whenever I met you, whenever I sat in your class, I felt sane. Even without knowing you made me realize that MY opinions makes sense and they probably doesn't have to make sense to everyone else around me. Thankyou for giving me a new perspective to look at people, things, and in larger sense life, altogether.
Your teachings and love that you spread around will always be remembered by my heart. You'll be missed, always.
-Aarzoo. (One fellow kid from the "2nd year")
He entered rooms the way some people enter stories,
already mid-sentence,
already laughing,
already known.
For fifteen years
I watched him move through corridors
like they belonged not to institutions
but to conversations.
Students gathered around him
with the ease of sunlight around old trees.
He remembered names,
remembered anxieties before examinations,
remembered who wanted to act,
who wanted to disappear,
who only needed someone to ask,
“How are you holding up?”
We were, in many ways,
made of opposite temperaments.
He spoke in generous paragraphs;
I survived mostly in pauses.
He carried flamboyance lightly,
I folded myself into restraint,
careful with words,
careful with presence.
He was senior, seasoned, expansive.
I remained quieter,
standing a little outside crowds,
watching them happen.
Yet somewhere between his noise
and my silence,
a small understanding lived.
Not friendship in the obvious sense.
We did not linger endlessly over coffee,
did not exchange confessions late into evenings.
But there are some people
with whom affection arrives without ceremony.
A nod across a hallway.
A half-smile during meetings.
The peculiar comfort
of being treated as an equal
by someone who had no obligation to do so.
He had that rare generosity,
the ability to make hierarchy seem foolish.
I think now
of how stubbornly optimistic he remained.
Even near the end,
when the body must have begun
its quiet negotiations with pain,
he still spoke as though tomorrow
were fundamentally trustworthy.
As though life, despite everything,
deserved enthusiasm.
Some people leave behind achievements.
Some leave reputations.
He left atmosphere.
A campus still remembers
the echo of his voice,
the theatre of his gestures,
the impossible friendliness
that never appeared practiced.
And somewhere, I imagine,
a hat resting on a chair
in a green room after the play is over,
waiting for a man
who has merely stepped out for a moment.
-Prof. Himanshu Kumar (HK)
I still remember the first day of college. Whenever I introduced myself to someone and they found out that I was an English Honours student, the first thing they would ask was, “Have you met Sanjay Sir yet?” No matter the department, people knew the Boss from English Honours. But disaster struck, and we couldn’t meet Sanjay Sir until our second year. Amidst all the confusion and burden of college life, Sanjay Sir was a breath of fresh air. He provided a space where our ideas weren’t curated or opposed, but truly heard. The only regret I will always carry with me is not being able to attend more lectures on Jane Eyre.
-Vanshit Dangi
It feels quite unreal to be standing here, and dwelling on the fact that it has been one year. My mind still wanders through our hallways, half-expecting to run into the man, adorned in his fancy jacket and his signature fedora.
He was a professor who didn’t expect you to stand when he entered the class, who was unapologetic about his ideology, and as he used to joke, ‘The right thing you can do is by being on the left’ . I can boast that he called me as one of his favourite students, and the last memory I have of him was when I messaged him the night before my 20th Century Poetry and Drama exam, to ask a doubt regarding Waiting for Godot. He asked me ‘When’s your exam?’ I nervously replied, “Tomorrow, sir.” He calmly replied with, “Let’s call in 10 [minutes]”. And then we had a ten-minute call where he calmly cleared my doubts, and just ended it with ‘Kal aag laga ke aaiyo mere sher’. That’s the man I remember, a guiding light, the one who always smiled at you, and always found a way to lift you up instead of tearing you down.
The last semester I had with him, despite him being sick, he took his classes; it was almost as if he yearned to be amongst his students, and discuss his love for theatre, and activism, as he used to say “You shouldn’t die for a cause, you should live for one”.
I always fall short on what adjectives I can use to describe him. I have settled on one that I think best describes him – practitioner. The one who truly practised what he preached, who took a firm stance against endorsement theatre, and worked at the grassroots level (from the village of Nithari to Kashmir).
SK really flipped the script (I apologise for the pun) on how I saw theatre. That the script in itself is always half complete, and can only be completed by its production. To quote him, “Theatre is an intensely political and communicative genre which, both as text and performance, remains incomplete and open to constant reappropriation of meaning and understanding”.
I’m tempted to quote my favourite playwright, Bertolt Brecht who famously said, “Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it”. And SK, you knew and understood theatre as a way of resisting the injustices of our time, how it “...acquire[d] a razor edge in showing the political through the prism of the peripheral”.
SK, if I could go back in time, I would sit in all your lectures once again: Marxism. Jane Eyre, The Awakening, Bartleby, The Last Man, Heart of Darkness, Waiting for Godot. Thank you for believing in me, for being so patient and understanding. Here’s to hoping you were my prof. in every timeline.
Cheers boss.
-Prateek Arsh
In my first year, I used to often notice this man walking through the corridors of hansraj college always dressed so perfectly, with a hat on his head and such a charismatic presence around him. He had this aura that naturally caught attention, and I always wondered which department he was a part of , when i eventually found out that he was from our own department, English, I was genuinely over the moon.
I did not interact with him much during my first year, but whenever I did, he always greeted me with such warmth and kindness. Even the smallest interactions with him stayed with me. Later, it became an absolute pleasure to be taught by him during one semester in our second year, when he taught us Jane Eyre. And honestly, he gave us one of the most radical readings of the text that I have ever come across.
As a radical feminist himself, he completely challenged the structures of oppression within the novel. He never approached literature passively instead, his approach was direct often asking uneasy question about power, patriarchy, and every form of injustice present within society which we choose to subvert and within the text itself. His lectures were passionate, thought provoking and deeply engaging.
What I admired even more was the way he treated tutorials. For him, tutorials were never just a routine academic formality. He turned them into arena for genuine conversation and reflection. I still remember one tutorial where he simply asked us, “What does love mean to you?” Every student had a different perspective, and he valued each one with equal sincerity. I have rarely seen teachers create such an open and thoughtful atmosphere in class.
By then, I already knew he was special not just as a teacher, but as a human being. There was something very different about him, but in the best possible way. He carried himself with such grace and warmth that his presence alone could lighten the mood around him. It genuinely felt like he could sense when someone was having a bad day, and even a small conversation with him would somehow make things feel lighter. To me that was a rare gift.
I also remember when he gave us an assignment on Jane Eyre. I wanted to rewrite the entire story from the perspective of Bertha Mason, but I was hesitant because most teachers are usually very strict about what students are “allowed” to write. So I went to him and asked whether it would be acceptable. And he simply said, “Write whatever you want baccha. I’ll read all of it happily. I just want your creativity.” That freedom, that encouragement, and that trust in his students is something I will always remember.And honestly, that is the boss man and sanjay sir that I know.
Thank you for everything boss
- Saif
To the man who taught me to dream big,
I had just entered college on the day of my orientation when you walked into the classroom, the classic hat in style, standing mum except when called upon to introduce yourself. I think you had left a part of your enigma right at that moment with me, left me in this strange wonder that there is something in this man I would wish to know more about.
Cut to my first creative writing class when you introduced me to the ‘open corridor’ exercise and by the end of it I understood a little part of what you were trying to preach, the psyche of an individual grappling within the tumultuous bickerings of an indolent society and I knew you were not one of the conventional professors I would have but rather someone who has much more to offer to me than what was limited within the thresholds of the books and indeed every single creative writing class with you felt like finding myself over and over again, ignorant of where those four hours went, always wishing for more.
And I feel that is the state you have left us in, always in awe of your shining brilliance and wanting more of it because you had so much to offer. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to learn more from you, to walk and be directed under your shadow because you really were a star to be remembered forever and ever.
With Love,
Anushka.
Dear SK,
I do not really know if I believe in fate. But sometimes I think about that classroom, that ordinary day I walked into it without expectations, on a suggestion from a friend, and I wonder if some things are too carefully written to be accidental.
I did not know then that I would walk out carrying memories that would stay with me forever. I did not know that somewhere between lectures, laughter, conversations, responsibilities, and ordinary afternoons, I would meet a professor who would quietly change the way I looked at myself and at life.
For the longest time, I had only known people who pointed out flaws, things to fix, things to soften, things to hide. But you had this rare way of making people feel like their imperfections were not burdens to carry, but parts of themselves worth understanding. You never tried to make anyone smaller. You simply taught people how to exist more honestly.
And maybe that is what made you unforgettable.
You believed in people so naturally that they slowly began believing in themselves too. A little more courage, a little more confidence, a little less fear and lots and lots of love, you left those things behind in ways I do not think even you realised.
Sometimes I think grief is strange because it is not just missing a person. It is missing the version of yourself that existed so effortlessly around them.
You were what Morrie Schwartz was to Mitch Albom for me, not just a teacher, but a reminder that gentleness and wisdom can exist in the same person. The time we had was brief, unfairly brief, but it became one of the most beautiful chapters of my life.
And even now, there are moments when a classroom falls silent, or a certain kind of conversation happens, and I suddenly remember your words: “Tu karlegi”. Not with loud sadness, but with the quiet ache reserved for people who leave too much light behind when they go.
Maybe fate is real after all.
Because meeting you never felt ordinary.
Yours always
-Priyanshi Kohli
To Boss,
Entering C104 on 12th September 2024 honestly felt like a dream. Had heard that you only take 2nd years and 3rd years and were retiring in 2025, which made me lose all hope of ever being able to interact with the coolest person ever, with whom our class interacted during orientation for mere five minutes. It was tough finding a place in college, but those five minutes calmed down all the chaos in my mind, all the uncertainty, every “did I make the right preference list?” and every “am I where I belong?”
In words, it truly cannot be expressed how grateful I am for being able to attend the Creative Writing SEC in sem 1 (100% attendance btw). Honestly, I took it for you, Boss, but ended up learning a lot about myself.
You were literally in the hospital and would still ask us to send our attendance in the group. “Oh, I’m just a little groggy right now, won’t be taking class.” What a lie, honestly, and what fools we were for not catching it sooner. You were so honest with us all the time and would say things out loud that would leave our mouths open, so why hide this? You concealed all the pain so well, I never realised you were smiling through it all.
I remember you once mentioned in one of the classes that you would love to work with all of us and create something together. I think I’m still stuck there, waiting for us to begin.
-Aarushi
A poem to boss
Not many classes,
But all fun.
Two truths and a lie,
That's how it all began.
He wasn't a believer,
Perhaps a good liar,
Really Great God denier.
He knew how to say hi,
With a style that was his own,
But maybe not good-bye,
For he left us to mourn.
I don't wish him anything,
No peace, no solace,
For he's gone without a trace,
Into the void,
Into the end.
With nothing to be done,
But he was so fun!
Adieu, adieu,
From land,
From sea,
From heart,
From memory,
Adieu.
I think that's how he would've liked it,
And I think it's true.
So adieu,
With a thanks for lack of story review.
-Raghav Pandey
I search the quiet corridors,
For whispers carried soft in light,
Your chairs sit still, your voices gone, Yet in my heart, you live on.
The stories, laughter, gentle hands, Still guide me through life's shifting sands.
I miss the warmth, the steady care, The way you made the world feel fair. Though time has
taken you away, Your love in me will always stay.
So when I stumble, when I fall, I hear your echoes through it all. You taught me strength, you
taught me grace, And carved your light in time's embrace.
Until the day we meet once more, Beyond the sky, on some far shore, I'll carry you in all I do,
My heart forever bound to you.
-Mahima Arora
