The Man with the Golden Stick

This post is not about an Ian Fleming created James Bond adventure. Its rather about a personality who has touched the lives of many a Loyolite in one way or another.Sumod Mathew (1991 I.S.C) had written a poem in the "Loyolite" magazine on this very person with the title I have given for this post.

The first thing that comes to the mind of any Loyolite when he hears the words "Fr. Mathew Pulickal" are not that of a serious, dull and boring preist but rather that of a lively, friendly, jovial and at the same time a no-nonsense person. Fr.Pulickal was indeed all these rolled into one.

He first came to teach us English Grammar at the 6th Standard. Till then the way most Loyolites learnt grammar was to take the wren&martin one day before the exam and go through the usual chapters. How were we to know that the term "parsing" would make us study English Grammar more than physics and chemistry in the coming years!!! The real test was only going to come.

Usually any 8th standard student would say that the toughest subjects to learn were physics or maths. But at Loyola the 8th standard students feared only one subject. "History"!!!!!

Any senior Loyolite would give a wicked smile and say 'Wait till you come to the eighth standard and start learning history'. Me and my classmates learnt the meaning of that statement after Fr.Pulickal started teaching us. Though i was miserable when it came to getting marks in his paper I knew that the subject was being taught exactly the way it should be. He taught it in a very logical way and didnt believe that a student could never score 100/100 in a subject like History. But we knew that the final exam marks could spell history for us if we didnt clear this subject. Luckily all of us did with Sahasranaman Anand scoring the highest (If i am correct).

His history lessons save for the exams which came after that were a treat to be a part of. He encouraged students to think for themselves and gave his frank opinions on whatever part of history he used to teach us.He taught us to be happy and most importantly to laugh at ourselves. I remember the time when he collected the entire fine amount (for not talking in english) and treated the whole class to sipup from the canteen. Even now whenever i see kids buying sipup from the bakery shop I am reminded of Fr.Pulickal and the canteen at Loyola School. He had a vast array of knowledge on various topics right from the speeches of Alexander to the happenings of the second world war, Indian politics and the latest articles appearing in the Readers Digest.

When he taught us History during the 8th Standard he came to our class one day and announced that in our best interests we had to write sensible things in the exam paper. Otherwise, he said he would put up a list of all blunders we wrote in the exam paper on the notice board with the Title "Wisdoms from students of Loyola in the final exam". All of us laughed that day since we though that he was making a nice joke and that no teacher in any school had done that sort of thing.

But surprise surprise!!! after the final exams we had to face that very thing we dreaded. I remember all of us rushing to see whether our names had come up in that list. I felt lucky that day since my name was not there and there was much to laugh about reading other's blunders. Some of the blunders i remember are;

1. The battle of Plassey was fought at Panipat.

and courtsey Jiby I have two more

2. Rani Laxmi Bai had no male natural hair

3. The 1857 war was fought by British to get independence from India.

I would definitely like to get my hand on the rest of them. :-)

When we were to begin the first computer class at 8th standard by Mr. Sunil Prabhakar he came down to our class and told us that though he didnt know the "ABCD" of computers he expected all of us to get proficient in it since he believed that they were going to shape our future. His words certainly make a lot of sense now considering the fact that the majority of us work in this field.

He spent his last days at Calicut and those days were the days of decline of his health. His demise was mourned by many including the large family of Loyola School (teachers, students, non-teaching staff and many more).

He was the first to introduce us to the term "AMDG" literally transalating to 'For the greater glory of god'. It is the very term the Pope uses to end all his writings and the same term like Jiby said 'countless students of history under Fr.Mathew Pulickal used literally hoping for a miracle to happen so that they could pass their exams'. The only tribute that I could give right now to a man who taught us the importance of laughter and more importantly to laugh at ourselves.

AMDG