By Ananya S Guha
The demise of Brother M.G. Shannon, Principal of St. Edmunds’s College from 1977 to 1988 has not only saddened us who were either taught by him or worked under him but has left a void in the academic world. Brother Shannon was an academic administrator, teacher, friend and guide especially to those who needed him the most – the disadvantaged student. For me it is a personal loss, because he inducted me into this college, and whatever little I am today I owe it to him.
SAINT EDMUND’S Shillong, a hallowed academic institution of repute, was a place where I spent over twenty five years, first as a student, both in school and in college, and then as a teacher. My proclivities in the teaching profession or whatever learning I had towards it, flowered when I took over the onerous responsibilities of being a college teacher. Nestled in the picturesque Hill Station of Shillong, the then somnolent capital of Assam, St. Edmund’s had two departments: the School and the College.
The School was established in the year 1915, and the College during the 1930s. It brought in its wake a legendary galaxy of teachers and principals: Brother Leonard, Brother Foley, Brother Vieyra and Brother Shannon to name only a miniscule few. My memories of Brother M. G. Shannon date back to the 1960s when I was a student St. Edmund’s, Shillong. Though he was never my class teacher, he taught Physics to the seniors, and there were many jokes in circulation recounting his ready but acerbic wit.
The unpretentious teacher that he was, while bombarded with questions in the class he would ingenuously say: ‘Don’t ask difficult questions’. But the general feeling was that, although he was not exactly a teaching maestro, he was an affable and essentially a student friendly person. We graduated into the same Institution, that is, St. Edmund’s. And there we had a closer look at Brother Shannon, first as the Vice Principal and then as the Principal of this picturesque college. As Vice Principal, we saw him mainly running around the campus, mowing the sports field with a raucous machine, cutting the hedges which guarded the main entrance of the College.
Then in the year 1977 Brother M. G. Shannon stepped into the principal’s position. Then we saw the ‘real’ Brother Shannon, doing his rounds, ensuring that the classes were taking place. With meticulous precision, he would pounce upon any student he thought was not attending classes, in popular terminology, ‘bunking classes!’ The rounds that he did were immaculate; cassock swirling he would move from classroom to classroom to tether his flock of students, who initially took him lightly, but who gradually understood that his admonitory nature was for their greater good.
One day I was loitering in front of the Notice Board, wondering what to do in the off period. ‘What class do you have now?’ he questioned skeptically. ‘I have a free period now, Sir’, I replied (This was a fact). ‘Oh you always seem to have free classes!’ he remarked rather dismissively. What a strange man I thought, and made it a point never to stand in front of the Notice Board, when classes were taking place, knowing that this would be an eye sore to him.
But my most intimate and friendly moments with Brother Shannon developed from the year 1981 when I joined St. Edmund’s College Shillong as a young college lecturer. I saw the friendly ambience which he created: ‘Classes over?’ he grinned at a student hastily coming out of the class and frantically beckoning to his friends. But the no-nonsense and disciplinary instincts continued.
There is an anecdote of how he followed a student to Police Bazar and brought back a hapless victim from Eee Cee Restaurant to thralldom. Notwithstanding the hyperbole or perhaps the veracity of such a happening, this presented a true picture of the ‘larger than life’ character which Brother Shannon portrayed. Such was his uncanny knack of knowing minds. But this was not limited to classes and bunking them. His comprehension of a student’s profile was breathtaking.
Once, while recording the marks of students after an examination, he remarked: ‘This boy has improved tremendously. He passed in the third division in his matriculation examinations. Now he is consistently getting first division marks.’ Sure enough this boy got a first, in the University Examinations. Such empathy for students is rare, and he had in his heart a quiescent but infinite love for them. His heart went out to the disadvantaged and the less intellectual students and he measured academic caliber in very objective terms.
Brother Shannon’s tenure as principal of St. Edmund’s College bristled with anecdotes-all underlying his facetious personality. There was another ‘story’ of how a ‘fresher’ in order to ingratiate him kept on following him, as he relentlessly went on with his work of mowing the lawns. ‘Anything more I can do for you, Sir?’ the boy queried bravely. ‘Yes, keep following,’ was his terse answer.
In Brother Shannon’s scheme of things ‘bunking’ classes was an attribute not only of students but could be that of teachers as well! I remember one rainy day during the monsoons I got up late for the morning class which was scheduled at 7.30 am. I got up with a lump in my throat and entered the precincts of the classroom ten to fifteen minutes behind schedule.
As I walked in, trepidation writ large on my face, Brother Shannon stalked out of the classroom from his routine but mandatory check. I thought that the heavens would fall. He looked at me grinned and then said: ‘Got up late?’ In my eleven and half years’ stint at St. Edmund’s College, Shillong, I assured I was never late for a class, for the sake of a man who believed in the value of discipline and wanted us to imbibe it.
Brother Shannon was the College Principal, Postman, Gardener, Examination Superintendent all parceled into one. In fact, after every university examination he would personally embark into a taxi and deliver the answer scripts in the North Eastern Hill University. Such was his commitment; such was his love for a system which was an extension of his immutable love for his students and for the higher cause of education. He left Shillong and St. Edmund’s in 1988 or 1989. The lump in my throat which I experienced when I was late for class one day, as a teacher, came back with a force the day he left. He left behind him an abyss, but also a whole lot of talented disciplined and orderly students. The motto of this hallowed institution: ‘Facta non verba’ (‘Deeds not words’) was what he singularly epitomized.
From him, I learnt what punctuality and discipline was all about. From him I learnt that academic administration was not bureaucratic but a measure to serve people who needed education. He was in the truest sense a servant leader.
R.I.P Sir . . .