The importance of taking notes

D R Karan Singh was to preside over a book release function and I had contributed one of the chapters of this book. I attend his lectures wh...

D R Karan Singh was to preside over a book release function and I had contributed one of the chapters of this book. I attend his lectures whenever I get the invitation. Sometimes, even otherwise. His articulation, the wide canvas of his scholarship, impresses me. I invariably take notes.

I always keep two pens with me, one red and one black. I take notes with the black pen and use the red one for marking important points, particularly the ones that require further action on my part. Sometimes I put some sentences in a box using the red pen. I never move out without my pens. That day I found I had none. Where could I have forgotten my pens?

No pens and I felt miserable. In meetings organised by the government, one generally gets a pen, which never works. In this meeting, even that was not to be. I recalled the first occasion when I was in a similar dilemma.

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I was appearing in the annual examination as an undergraduate student of the university of Allahabad in 1959. I went through the question paper carefully, opened my fountain pen, and wrote three words of an answer. The nib broke. The invigilator was one of my teachers. I could see three fountains pens in his pocket. ‘‘Sir, my pen broke down, kindly give me one of yours’’. ‘‘No’’ was his curt reply. This was a shock deeper than the earlier one. Suddenly, another teacher walked up to my seat, put a pen on my desk, moved on. After the exam, with all the possible affection, he said: ‘‘You must keep two pens with you’’. I have followed that advice till this date. Hence the second pen.

The habit has lasted forty-five years. Things have changed. I do not need to purchase inkpots now. Different pens are now available to choose from. When I joined the Banaras Hindu University as a lecturer, I was told pens are issued from the office, free. I continued to write with my own pens. As I moved up the hierarchy, I became entitled to better quality pens. I did not have to sign requisition slips. Pens were all around my table.

Psychologists will have their own analysis. Whenever even one of my pens is found missing, I begin the process to retrieve it immediately. That I have other pens makes no difference. I must get back ‘that’ one.

The intensity of my interaction with my pens has increased. I always keep a notebook handy in meetings and one-to-one interactions on professional and academic aspects. I take notes from the young and from the experienced and learned. I meet so many regularly, those more knowledgeable and wise.

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The media noted this habit of taking notes when I was in the thick of the debate on the ‘saffronisation of education’. ‘‘The NCERT director dutifully takes notes when his teacher and the minister for human resource development, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi speaks’’ national dailies reported. They asked me: ‘‘Why do you take notes when your minister speaks?’’ That was the media’s way of politicising an exercise in life long learning.

In the Karan Singh lecture, my discomfiture did not permit me to seek assistance from my neighbours who were obviously not interested in taking notes or keeping pens. So I stressed my mental faculties to the maximum to take mental notes. The first thing I did on my return was to put them down on paper.