Anant Rai Ahuja
B.Com, 2014-17, Brindavan

I did not want to dilute any of my memories with Ruchir Sir, by giving them a specific meaning or attaching a moral to them. Thus, I have only jotted down all my memorable interactions with him, keeping it open for the reader to find his own inspiration from them.

“Many inspire through their words, some inspire through their actions and only few inspire through their life.”

Guru, in the truest sense – When the SSSIHL, came out with Sai Krishna award for the best teacher, it was only fitting that Ruchir Sir, should be awarded the first award. Everyone speaks about his brilliant mind and academic achievements, but even after being so gifted, he put in his 100% in every class he took. Whether, it was preparing before a class, answering all our queries and explaining the concepts again and again during the class or checking our homework post class, he did all this with at most sincerity. Ruchir Sir also had this rule where any test he would give us, he would first solve it himself, keeping a target to complete it in half the time allotted. If he could, only then he would give us the test.

Birthday Santa – Being part of the Corporate Stores, was a huge deal in Brindavan. Stores Boys could be trusted for their dedication and maturity, as far as the teachers were concerned. However, fellow students had their own drift with stores boys. All students used to envy us for the umpteen number of treats, Ruchir Sir used to give us. We were given ice creams, just for refilling shelves during our mid-term exams, Sunday self-reliance activities would also frequently end with a veg puff or samosa, sometimes just seeing enough number of kocharis left after the Gimmys closes, Ruchir Sir would ask the stores boy to pick one each. However, birthdays were even more special. Ruchir Sir would ask us all to come post night study hours back in stores for a small birthday interview and cake! The story behind this tradition is really heart touching and one which brings out the unconditional love Ruchir Sir had towards his students. Many batches back, there was a student who had been in Swami’s institution right from his first standard and thus was never at home for his birthday. He had never cut a birthday cake, up until college. When Ruchir Sir, came to know about this, he ordered a special birthday cake for him and made him cut the cake in front of all his fellow stores boys. The joy, he saw on the face of that boy, must have stayed with him, since post that he made it a point to order a birthday cake for every stores boy birthday and have a small celebration to accompany it.

Human calculator – Brain so sharp, he could give the calculators a tough fight and even beat them sometimes. I remember an incident which happened once in our cost accounting class, we were supposed to multiple two numbers having decimal up to 4 places. While we all were busy inputting the numbers in our calculators, Ruchir Sir started to right the answer from right to left on the board. He wrote the answer with 8 decimal places while our scientific calculators could not even manage to show the complete answer up to 4 decimal places.
True Sevak – Seva is when, service is done with no desire. In my third year, five of us students decided to pursue CA (even in deciding this career path, it was Ruchir Sir all along who guided and counselled me. He even spoke to my father and made himself available for any doubt we might have). So, we had to go to Bangalore city to write the first set of CPT exams. Another teacher had volunteered to accompany us to the exam centre, and we had planned to take the public bus to the centre. Next morning, we all were ready and waiting, outside the hostel when the teacher who was accompanying us, came out smiling. He pointed to a taxi, which had been waiting there and asked us to get in it. We were puzzled, as we had planned for a bus trip initially, once inside he told us that Ruchir Sir, and suo moto booked this taxi for us, so that we could reach the exam centre in peace. He did this without even asking, further he did not even want us to know about it and so our teacher asked us to not mention it in front of him.

Reason to celebrate – It was in our third year, that Ruchir Sir had bought a new car, replacing his decades old Tata Indica. We all had seen him taking a joy ride in it, that morning during our field session. That day, when Ruchir Sir came into the class all the students started to congratulate him on the new car. He brushed it aside, in his charismatic style and went on to complete his lecture. We had another Ruchir Sir’s class during the second half of the day. This time, Ruchir Sir walked in with a box of ice creams and asked one of the boys to distribute them to everyone. He said, you all wished me for my new car this morning, so this is my treat for the new car, and just like that there was a surge of happiness surrounding the whole class.

Fatherly love – Ruchir Sir was a hard task master and a strict disciplinarian. We could set our watches right basis when he walked into the class. He was also very strict with regards to how we approached our studies, where he did not want us to only study for the upcoming exam, but to grasp the concept and imbibe it. He used to always ask us, about things we had learnt in our previous semesters and chide us for not remembering them correctly. Once, during our fifth semester final exams, I asked Ruchir Sir to please share answers for previous year question papers, since we were finding it difficult to solve and check our practise answers. He got very annoyed at me, since he did not want us to take the easier route of just seeing the answer and learning it, he wanted us to try it out on our own and then come to him for any clarifications. This was the first time Ruchir Sir, had scolded me in front of the whole class and I felt ashamed of myself. That evening, when I went for my stores duty, Ruchir Sir silently came up to me and reasoned out with me, why I needed the answers and couldn’t come up to him for clarifications in the first place. He knew, I wasn’t feeling good about the question I asked in the class, and so he made me comfortable and explained me his point of view. It was his fatherly love, which first made him scold me, but then console me and explain how it was all for my own good.

He never forgets – Being part of stores department, I was privy to many interactions which old alumni brothers used to have with Ruchir Sir. Every Sunday, some old alumni brother, who would not have visited Parthi or Brindavan in over a decade would walk in and say Sai Ram to Ruchir Sir. Sir would instantly recognise him, call him by his name. Even the alumni brothers used to be amazed by the fact that Ruchir Sir still remembers their names. Many weren’t even commerce students or stores boys, but Ruchir Sir would still know them and talk about their time in the hostel.
Corporate world – Today’s corporate world works on the mantra – Each one for themselves, even while working in a team – people like to define individual roles and responsibilities, however with Ruchir Sir all praise you earn was solely yours, but the mistakes are shared. I was part of the stores department and was handling the stationary counter. One of the duties, of those managing the stationary counter is to take birthday bulk orders from students and pass them on to Ruchir Sir, for Sir to place an order with the vendor. It so happened that, I took an order from one of the first year student but forgot to pass it on to Ruchir Sir. The next day, when the student came to collect the order, and was informed that no such order was placed he was dejected. Ruchir Sir, got up and consoled him, he even offered him to take something from the Stores section (chocolates, chips, juices etc.) for distributing it to his friends that day and assured him that he would get him his order the next day. Ruchir Sir not once, mentioned that it was my fault, and that Sir was not even aware of any such order. Ruchir Sir did however chide me afterwards for the carelessness, but only to make me aware of my mistake and learn from it.

Professionalism – Even when Ruchir Sir was admitted to the hospital, he made it a point to inform the Director of the Campus, that his syllabus for the year was completed and so there would be no loss to students learning.

Mothers blessings – During Ruchir Sir’s prayer meet on 18th May, 2021 former director of Brindavan campus Shri. Rangarajan Sir shared an incident where he told, that for Ruchir Sir only three things mattered in the whole world – Swami, Students and Mother. We were fortunate enough to see and hear Sir’s mother speak during the prayer meeting organised. She concluded her address by saying the following lines, “May God bless you, and make you a perfect man”, these lines stayed with me, since I believe it was with her blessings that Ruchir Sir, could become the perfect man that me was and now she wants us all, to also become perfect and carry out Swami’s mission forward.

The only explanation, I can live with for Swami choosing to take Ruchir Sir at this age is that,
Swami after his earthly sojourn, returned to heaven and found himself behind on a lot of work. He tried managing it with the help of the existing Devis and Devatas, but just could not. So, he had to call upon his most trusted project manager to come up and take charge.

I would like to end this, with Ruchir Sir’s favourite advise to all his students: “Do good and good will come to you” Sai Ram.