Tikekar Sir

In the last post I wrote about Tikekar Sir. He is no more. He passed away last month. A reader of my blog told me this. Here are the contents of the mail that was sent to me "all I heard was that he was riding his bike, when he met with an accident & was rushed to the hospital…..he was not wearing a helmet & later on suffered a brain haemorage. He was only 35 & is survived by his wife & a 1-year-old son. He had moved into his new house only one day prior to the day of the accident.". When in school, I hated him for being a strict enforcer of discipline, but later I realised how necessary that was to manage a school as big as ours. One incident that I remember about Tikekar happened when I was in standard IX. Abhishek and Gurudatt, who were sitting near one of the windows in the classroom, were talking about something, when Tikekar walked by. Stunned Abhishek, shouted "Tikku". Tikekar sir heard that, but I fail to recollect if some punishment was meted out. Though the incident appears crude now, it was something over which we laughed a lot when we were 15 year olds. Sorry for that Tikekar Sir. A man who loved discipline and taught many NCC Cadets to march, the IES family will miss him.