Eagam Khaling
I was a school student. One of my friends suggested me to read a book that he had just brought from his maternal uncle. The name of the book was Bhavana Gangeya, written by Dr. Moti Bir Rai. Later, I came to know that his uncle happened to be a student of the author. He was so impressed by the author’s way of presenting the subject matter in the book. I took the book from him and completed reading the book within two days. I kept the book with me for more than a month and read for more than another three times. Then again, after fifteen years, I got an opportunity to borrow the book from the author.
I could not meet Rai, even when he was the Head of the Department of Philosophy at Darjeeling Government College. It was in July 2010 (when I started working as a Part-Time-Teacher, in the same department of the college) that I met him at his house. Since then, I was making frequent visits and having conversations with him on different topics. But unfortunately, that ended in April 2013. He died in a private hospital, in Siliguri, on 6th April 2013.
Rai’s that bright face and brimming eyes often make me reminiscent of him. As I entered his house after his wife opened the door, I was directly inside the sitting room. His wife requested me to wait for him in the room. I think she informed the professor he came to the room to see who the stranger was. I saw a short-height man in a suit looking at me, putting his hands inside the pockets of his pant. He directly asked me, “Who are you?” I took no time to introduce myself and express my desire to meet him in person. I started to eulogize him through my collection of information about him and reading his books. After hearing me, he said, “But I am not the type of person that you have thought.” After then, I could not say anything but remained silent, just staring at him. I thought that I unintentionally hurt him in some way. I did not dare to speak out for a moment. After some time, he started again, “The appearance of a person is not the guarantor of knowledge, and the height has nothing to do with measuring the knowledge that a person has acquired in his brain. And the brain is always inside the head. From the outside, you cannot see it.” I do not know how, but in that meantime, I could not stop laughing. Rai also laughed with me. That day, I managed to make a cautious kind of talk with him. I realized that there was a big gap between the two of us in regard to age, experience and knowledge. I was always interested and excited to meet him. Our relationship soon turned into a relation of teacher-student.
I worked as a Part-Time-Teacher in the Department of Philosophy of Darjeeling Government College from 1st July 2009 to 2nd March 2013. During that period, I had managed to visit him several times. I was privileged to share my thoughts with him. He was like an institute for me. Every time I meet him, I learned something from him. It was like I have got such a guide with whom I can have a comfortable share of my thoughts on any subject and topic. I was so interested in him. He was so authentic in his intellectual occupation and deliverance. Not only that but for me, he was an honest person. We lost this quiet and studious professor on 6th April 2013
Rai taught philosophy for about thirty-three years in Darjeeling Government College. He was a symbol of inspiration for many of us. He was a good husband for his wife and an honorable father for his two sons, a scholar-uncle for his nephew-nieces and an extra-ordinary person for his students. He was interested in Literature, Linguistics, Logic, Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Some of his published philosophical essays are in Nepali. Of course, they should be collected and brought to the readers. He was an authority in Kantian philosophy. He had obtained his doctorate from the University of Calcutta, and the title of his thesis was “Kant’s Philosophy of Mathematics: An Exposition and Defence.” It has been published in a book-form by Nirman Prakashan, Sikkim, in 1999. He has so far published three books, and they are (1) Bhavana Gangeya (Essays/1990), (2) Kant’s Philosophy of Mathematics: An Exposition and Defence (Thesis/1999) and (3) Visvaka Mahan Kathaharoo (Translation/2012).
Rai was an admirer of the two great German philosophers Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He was interested in scientists like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Neil Bohr, Arthur Stanley Eddington, Henry Poincaré, Thomas Kuhn and Karl Raimund Popper. He was a brilliant Kantian scholar, and this can be known from Professor Kalidas Battacharya (the former Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati University), when he writes, “I have very carefully and with great interest gone through over two hundred pages of your thesis. You are a brilliant Kantian scholar, and I wonder how alone at Darjeeling without discussion with any other persons you could understand Kant so thoroughly and so well, and particularly so with Kant’s notions of mathematics and physical science.” It was feedback given by Battacharya in a personal letter sent to him after examining the thesis.
Rai’s research article ‘The A priori and the Analytic’ was published in German’s bilingual journal Kant-Studion, in 1983. Later, the abstract of the article was included in America’s Dialog (Retrieval System). Based on this article, his name has been collected in America’s Philosophical Index and Who’s Who in the World (Marquis Publication). More significantly, he was possibly the first Indian Nepali Gorkha to do a Ph.D. in Philosophy.
[Eagam Khaling hails from Darjeeling. He has published an anthology of poems in 2001. Since then, he has been publishing his articles in local, national and international journals (and e-sites).]