Kaushik Sir

Everyone wants to learn
the sorcery of superiority
How ordinariness blooms into
something unique
bigger, stronger and better than before
But none teaches anyone
how to hide your struggle under
butter paper bag
and to wait for God’s mercy
to be dusted over it
What’s the cost of that wait
Many mornings when coffee tastes bitter
like that of hopelessness
Many evenings when your hope sounds like
a prayer in the mouth of an atheist
How skilfully you have to blend efforts with opportunities
How to consistently care for the sustenance
of the result
But he does
with his achievements shown or hidden
with his words spoken or unspoken
He teaches all these
not as a professor of plant breeding & genetics,
he does it as a persona
who holds kaleidoscopes of splendor
so gracefully

Amidst the cobwebbed lights, creaking fans
& dusty blackboards
when half of the heads were carrying
the weight of what ifs
after shedding the feathers
of a future in medical college,
when one-fourth of the hearts were making
paper planes of love
to fly from zero point to infinity,
and when the rest pair of eyes were having
lunch with the moon in the drowsy banquet,
we met him,
an assistant professor who can compete
with first-year college guys
in the game which has a rule of
confining your barefooted age
inside the sack of youth
and to run the race of life
He used to tell us a lot of things
A lot about not caging the career
inside the cabs
and letting it board the flight
A lot about learning the language
of love & loyalty
without caring about the mocking of society
A lot about fighting like Bhagat Singh,
exploring like Vasco da Gama
and painting life with all shades of
Van Gogh’s palette

A teacher he is
Who wants his red ink to cause vital mutation
in the bunch of answer sheets of students
without dripping an iota of lethality,
Who functions like lactose of a lac operon
by fueling the peeps
to synthesize confidence,
Who becomes a molecular chaperon
in the thesis works of many
serving their purpose
without sharing recognition at the end,
Who doesn’t claim codominance
while sharing the same sphere
with that of his teachers,
But along with his students
he prefers to walk as an Okazaki fragment
instead of behaving like
a supreme leading strand,
he prefers to stay
as a metaphasic chromosome
instead of being a mighty centromere
Sometimes his friendliness with students
seems to be in the shape of a balbiani ring
Big
Conspicuous
Misfit in the row of typicals
But the site of active student decrypting

From gifting roses to her
to promising her to turn into maples together
From writing love poems for her
to reading, decoding
and accepting her bit by bit
From roaming together in the mall
to bringing her to a home whose walls
are meant to witness a lovestory,
Crossing many interrogation & exclamation
successfully he settled
as an apostrophe
after the name of Ayesha madam
A husband he is
whose love for madam sings the lyrics
of a vegan romanticizing chicken
whose care for madam tells the tale
of the fine pieces of bone china
someone who respects, supports
and acknowledges her
being saturated with every pinch of her love
Megalith of
ceaseless coherence they are
before, now & beyond

A proud papa he is
celebrating the Almighty’s blessing
and cherishing the tiny tot
sometimes with much grandiose
by making her crown with flowery headbands
by making her dress like a sweet princess
by making her pose like a cute celebrity
and sometimes with much simplicity
just by making her sleep on his shoulder
It’s not just him, but everyone
who comes across
can’t stop adoring
that entire cosmos of cuteness
signatured as Kritisha

The gene of his happiness is pleiotropic
Sometimes looks like
poems & photography
Sometimes travel & guitar
Sometimes sports & drive
The pedigree of his success
is long and lavish
still short and deficient enough
to be added with
Foreign lab
Double doctorate
And a radiant tomorrow for the tiny one
For him, all these are not too much to ask for
not too big to aspire for
Because he builds aquarium
from the pebbles of criticism
that others throw
and he wears the jealousy of others
as a medal of appreciation
And all these words applaud him
for simply being cool & composed Kaushik sir

May the universe deliver to him
lots of love and light
peace and delight
fitness and success
for today and ever…
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIR🙏

©ruchiabhisikta