To Sir with love

Let me take you back to my engineering college days, when I was studying at the Mechanical Engineering Department at IT-BHU. Our department was (in)famous for very strict and disciplinarian teachers, and their high academic expectations from the students. They were known to be very serious and grim instructors in the institute, who expected utmost discipline and academic rigor from the students. However, during my initial years, I always heard the name of Professor B B Bansal, as one of the most responsive and expert Professors. It was a dream we all cherished for 3 years, to be able to attend the course being offered by him. The anticipation was largely created by seniors, who would go all out to appreciate his style of teaching and also his humane attitude.

The long wait did come to an end, when we were in our B Tech 3rd year and he was supposed to take our course on IC engines. I forgot to mention that apart from his appreciation as an excellent Professor in class, we also were warned about his unrelenting expectation on commitment from the students, in attending classes and being punctual about their learning. The seniors clearly warned us that any trial on testing his patience for an irresponsible student would expose us to his other side, where he could go to any extreme to make us behave well as students. But the solace was that all that would happen only after class and the students were never reprimanded for anything academic participation they made in class, no matter how “foolish” they were. Yes, I am using a word as strong as “foolish”, since that is the level to which some of us pushed our point in the class, when grilled/enquired by the Professor.

When I reflect about his classes, I feel like appreciating all my seniors for the exact feedback they gave, and the pen picture they sketched before us. Professor Bansal, who always seemed very snobbish and haughty in his appearances, was actually very empathetic at heart. The way he conducted the class was a strange enjoyable experience to all of us. Let me share it how.

He had a unique pedagogy of putting forth questions open to the class. The questions could be concerning any remotely unknown topic from his course content, which probably all of us may be experienced, but never explored technically for sure. The course was intellectually so complex, that had someone tried to memorize all the possible technicalities in engines, it would have been a temporary nightmare and an easily forgotten knowledge in the long term. Instead, he made us think hard on the reasons of all practical problems, through his participative teaching style. He was never a typical lecturer, but more a facilitator and an instructor. He defined his job very well; that it was to make us think, and further assured us that all of us had the answers, some right and some wrong. He believed that his motive was to channelize our thinking in approaching the right answers from within, and to even explore them practically from outside the books or in the books itself. This was an experience none of us ever had. We were all used to the absorption-assimilation-reproduction methodology of teaching that most professors usually adopted. This participative style of teaching that made us learn by correlation and exploration of facts was indeed very interesting and simulated interest in even the most “not-interested” type students. He never mentioned attendance as his priority, but still the attendance in his class was always 100 %, since everyone had a take home at the end of the class, and so nobody wanted to miss the learning. He was highly responsive to our learning difficulties, and expected us to participate in class by providing our analysis informally. At times, none of us was even remotely correct, but then that’s how we learnt what was wrong, and so it made looking for the right very easy. He never mocked any of our answers and would simply reject it and move forward to look for better answers from amongst us. That gave all of us the courage to think and express our thoughts, even if they were incorrect. And soon most of us realized that majority of times, we are nearly close to the facts, it’s only because of our inhibition that we would not express it, and thus suffer. He attached this inhibition, and got rid of it from all of us very soon. Once we were in the participative learning mode, a lot of interaction and churning of thoughts followed. This was the beginning of building confidence in all of us, and we never looked back.
Even when I sit today to think about any problem, specially on the subject of engines, I feel to proud to say that I do not give up easily, even if its totally new topic. The continuous treatment to thinking in the class has made me to explore the logic behind the problem/phenomenon, and then try and educate myself with the actual reasons. I attribute this paradigm shift in my approach towards academics, and maybe in a broader sense towards life, to Professor Bansal. If I ever get a chance to imitate anyone as an instructor, maybe I would like him to be my idol in life. We always loved to hate the way he scolded us for insincerity, but cherished the way he nurtured us for imperfections. He is one Professor who is a “performer” in the class, and used to mesmerize us all, always. And as I always say about him, not everyone is as lucky to be able to attend lectures by him - We mechanical engineers were!