Shri Sivadasan Thirumangalath, our Mathematics teacher was the house master of Mahanadi House. When he used to visit the house in the evening for the routine check-up, first he would queried about Arabinda Mishra and Bikash Pandey ( it was like this: where is Arabinda Mishra and Bikash Pandey ? It was so typical that some time Bikash himself was mimicking in the evening and used to make us frightened.
In his visit he used to ask about our problems. There were some mischievous boys. They were not harmful but for the sake of fun they planned certain things. Sivadasan Sir is basically a Keralites. He does not understand Kosali. He was interested to learn Kosali. And so he told to boys that you talk in your language with me.
So, few seniors, planned to replace English name of a things with vulgar words of Kosali. For example, Sir we need a BULB for this room. BULB would be substituted with a vulgar Kosali word ( I cannot write the exact word which was in use those day). You just imagine how funny that would have been while someone would be saying to his house master in a serious note, or just in a grievance tone surrounded by other juniors who were just mute spectators. Later on he learned about this joke played with him.
He was a very student friendly house master. Sometime he used to sit with us and he was exhibiting his knowledge of palmistry (donot know that was for fun or he was serious). I remember one day while he entered the room, my drawing copy was opened on the table. He started sketching some ladies figures with wax crayon.
As a teacher, he was the best. What you can say about someone who can spell log table just scraping his beard.
