iii.                Professor Basu

Professor Basu had lectured in astronomy to students of Presidency College at the University of Calcutta and still in his retirement marked student examination papers. He was now an old man, well into his 80's, a version of an ancient Mahatma Gandhi, frail and feeble. The professor had consented to coach me in trigonometry and I would go to his house on the bazaar side maidan (open space) for an hour twice a week. I'm afraid I disappointed my teacher, who told my parents I showed far more interest in the cows that grazed on the maidan than in mathematics.

My want of focus for mathematical reasoning showed up in my lettering of a figure. Looking to put some romance into trigonometry, I used the name of a girl friend instead of the customary ABCD etc. The girl's name was MARJORIE ROBBINS and I used all but one of the letters, but not the repeats of letters. Professor Basu carefully studied my diagram, as though working on a problem I had set him. I had taken the precaution to mix up the letters, knowing that putting them in order might provide a brain like the professor's with too easy a clue. After a while the professor handed me my diagram and without looking at it again went through a long proof. I thought this was quite a feat. On my next visit I told the professor I had not understood the proof. Without asking for my diagram, he went through the entire proof. Had he worked out the Marjorie Robbins solution? Perhaps, but what a power of concentration, and that at an advanced age. The only times his wits would leave him, that I saw, were on his rare visits to my parents' home, when he would drink brandy and pass out and would be carried home on the shoulders of one of our servants.