The principal, Dr John H. Hala, strode into the now-hushed assembly hall. Absolute silence reigned as he cleared his throat and began to speak. "Dear friends," he began. "Welcome to St Stephen's Col-lege. Before I proceed, there's something I'd like you to remember. From now on, you are now no longer girls and boys, but ladies and gentlemen."

It was an electrifying experience, and a moment of revelation. In just one sentence, Hala saab had conveyed to the new batch the essence of all that this college stood for. About what this more than a century old institution was all about that it changed so radically the lives and destiny of so many generations passing through it.

The reason why it attracted the very bestof young blood from all over the land, lending the college a dynamic energy rarely found in other institutions. That's the sort of man Hala saab was: blunt, effectively profound when he chose to be, and intensely aware of the little things that added up to make the college under his charge so special.

In days to come, this awe of Hala saab would only increase as we came to know him in the normal course of things an outspoken, fearless, no-nonsense man if ever there was one. It wasn't long before enough of us experienced how nasty it was to have your heart skip a beat when Hala saab walked into you playing tennis-ball cricket in the residential blocks, or tapped you on the shoulder as you stood chatting in the main corridor. Or get ordered to abstain from lunch because Hala saab found you a mite lethargic during basketball practice, a game he simply loved.

Those sort of things only got you a warning, but a serious breach could earn you a week on the dole, without toothbrush, wallet, or even a pair ofjeans to wear over your sleeping shorts. Hala saab ensured this in a typically brazen manner. What he did was have the errant resident awakened early morning to be summoned to his office at once.

It wasn't particularly cheering to face Hala saab after a late night of biking the city red or playing cards till you dropped dead. He could usually be trusted to tear your flimsy arguments and excuses to shreds st-raightaway. What made it worse was that Hala saab didn't much care for the Queen's English, preferring to engage everyone in chaste Hindi in which he could be quite cutting.

But that was the easy part. Because when the poor smarting soul got back to his room, what he'd find himself staring at was the most dreaded instrument of discipline the college possessed: a little lock on top of your own that effectively sealed access and left all the essentials for survival inside.But nobody really minded. Hala saab was quite clearly an extraordinary man.

One who had this uncanny knack of spotting the one rightcandidate out of a thousand who deserved to walk through St Stephen's hallowed portals. You'd think Hala saab just knew a potential Stephanian when he saw one. Academic merit mattered, of course, but at the interview stage all that counted for Hala saab was overall personality, family background and character. All the rest could "go across the road", as he often quipped.

Such a subjective manner of selection made it inevitable for Hala saab to face wild charges of favouritism from some quarters. Anyone wielding some degree of power must contend with uncharitable tongue-wagging. But the fact was this emanated not from his personal likes or dislikes, or even personal familiarity with a favoured guy's influential parents. No, he set his own code of ethics and formed his own judgments, and all his decisions were for the continued glory of the institution he was in love with. And so firm were Hala saab's convictions in the values his college stood for that he never let such things affect his judgment.

May hisevolved soul rest in eternal peace.