A Natural Genius - Part 1

This article is a tribute to one my teachers - Mangipudi Peri Sastry. We affectionaltely call him 'మాస్టారు గారు', and in the usual Vizianagaram colloquial slang - 'మేషారు'. Many people know him as a great mathematics teacher. I am fortunate to be counted among his 'close friends' - so I know a great deal more about him. He told me some very remarkable stories and experiences of his life. I will try and narrate them in this article - for the benefit of some of his old students who remember him fondly. It is very difficult for me to refer him by his name - so, i will refer to him in this article - with some difficulty - as Sastry Garu.

We used to live in the same street - adde palli vari veedhi. His house was just a few houses away from ours. He is a long term associate and friend of my father - Pappu Parthasaradhi. Apparently, my father typed his appointment letter - as a lecturer in mathematics at M.R.College, went to his house, and handed the appointment letter personally. Everytime I meet him, Sastry Garu refers to this incident. He has a some special soft corner for me probably because of his friendship and association with my father.

The first thing that strikes everyone about him is his charming smile. It always reminds me of a fresh jasmine flower - very simple, pure, warm, affectionate and very intoxicating. Perhaps this is a reflection of his inner beauty. These days, old age claimed all his teeth - and the smile is even more beautiful.

Sastry Garu belongs to a very rare breed of Natural Geniuses - people like Ramanujam, Tyagaraja, Potana and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. According to Shakespeare - some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon themselves. I guess these are people who are born great.

Usually, all of us first assimilate a lot of detail, and by painful process of internalization of the detail, we arrive at understanding. But, there are a class of people - a rare breed - who seem to first reach a very fundamental level of understanding and then they work out the detail as it is presented to them. Because they have a certain deep understanding - they can approach any subject and treat it as mere information. They can pick up a completely new subject, and read it like a telephone directory - just information, nothing else. In Sanskrit - this is called 'sahaja siddi'. Even though, in many stories, it is made out as some sort of wonderful gift, in fact, it involves a very painstaking effort on oneself. I hope to write another article on this theme some other day.

However, very briefly, it involves achieving conscious access to the subconscious structures and circuits. For most people, the subconscious is very random, unorganized and inaccessible mechanism. We cannot toss a problem into our subconscious at will and let it come up with a solution. We also do not know how to 'store' something in our subconscious memory. For most people, it remains an automatic and inaccessible function. We cannot - by our own will - access that function. But, these Natural Geniuses seem to have crossed that 'chasm of fire'. They managed to take a ‘leap of faith’ – very similar to Hanuman’s crossing of the ocean.

Sastry Garu chose to remain an invisible master. There are many people in this world who reach an extraordinary state of development, but remain unknown. It is perhaps not because the world was cruel and indifferent to them, or even because their accomplishments did not receive the due recognition. I have come across many people like this in my life, and my understanding is that they choose a very specific function in this world which necessitates that they wear the cloak of invisibility.

Once I offered to write Sastry' Garu's biography and publish some of his musical compositions - but he just waved his hand, gave one his radiant smiles, and said that there is no need for any such thing.

Perhaps this article is not supposed to be written - but I cannot resist. I cannot narrate some of the miraculous stories of his spiritual attainment that I heard from him, but I will confine myself to purely 'performance'.

This is a three part series. This is the end of Part-1. I will post the other two posts by end of this month.