The vice-chancellor just jokingly had mentioned to me…. We used to meet almost every morning because we were the only two persons going for a morning walk. Slowly, slowly I was no longer a student, he was no longer a vice-chancellor; we were simply two persons going for a morning walk. And just as it happens to all morning walkers – they become friendly, they start gossiping…. And two years is a long time – slowly, slowly the partitions, divisions, dropped, and as the examination was coming closer, my vice-chancellor asked me, “I will be present in your viva, in your oral examination; whom would you prefer to be called from another university?”

I said, “Find the toughest guy!” He said, “I knew you would say that, and I have also been thinking about finding the toughest guy, because I would love to see how you manage it.”

And they found him. In Aligarh University there was a Mohammedan professor who was known all over India as the toughest professor of philosophy. For years he had not passed anybody, and in his whole life he had never given the first class to anybody. Third class was the highest that he had given to anybody.

One of my professors had been his student and he used to say, “I am one of the persons who passed from Aligarh University. I am only a third class, but a third class from Aligarh University is far better than a first class from Oxford, because that man in his whole life has been continuously failing people. Nobody comes up to his standard.”

So the vice-chancellor said, “I am thinking of calling this professor from Aligarh.”

I said, “That’s the right thing!”

That professor was invited. He was rarely invited; he was very happy! The head of my department, S.K. Saxena, told me, “Be cautious, because that man is absolutely destructive.”

I said, “You don’t be worried; he cannot be more destructive than me.”

But he said, “You cannot do any harm to him, you are not the examiner; he can do harm to you, he can fail you. And he is well-known for failing; he simply puts zero.”

I said, “You don’t be worried. If he gives me zero then I have achieved my goal, because that’s what I have been working for – to attain to the state of zero-ness.”

He said, “You are incurable! I am not talking about that zero.”

I said, “You just wait.” He said, “Remember, I will be sitting by your side, and if you go off the track I will nudge you with my feet, or I will pull your kurta. That is an indication – ‘Come back, come right to the point.’ And that means just be within the limits of the textbook.”

I said, “You need not be worried.”

But they were afraid. Even the vice-chancellor that morning said to me, “Although I have invited him, now I feel concerned. That man is really hard, he has no compassion.”

But I said, “I don’t need anybody’s compassion; he will need my compassion.”