hardly any Marathi students used to study. Sydenham College, established in 1913, was the first Commerce College not just in India but in the whole of Asia. Principal Dr Sumant K. Muranjan was a renowned authority in economics and young Sharad was quite enamoured by him. Dr Muranjan had written two books on global monetary systems but he deliberately wrote both in Marathi. When some people suggested that he should have written them in English so that he would have got much bigger readership, Dr Muranjan’s prompt reply was, ‘If anyone is really interested in studying this subject in depth and is curious to know what I have written on it, why should he not learn Marathi?’ Sharad loved the self-confidence of that response. He wrote later, ‘With that one sentence Dr Muranjan captured our hearts. That one sentence wiped out the poverty of a Marathi student which used to prick and hurt us every now and then.’ Almost all other professors were also amongst the best in their respective subjects since it was quite prestigious to teach at Sydenham. Most of the students came from business families. In 1951, the year when Sharad joined this College, the chief guest for the College annual day was C. D. Deshmukh, the first Indian Governor of Reserve Bank of India who later became Union Finance Minister. In his address Deshmukh had mentioned that, ‘Twenty five percent of the income tax collected in the entire country comes from the families of the students of this College.’ In the beginning, Sharad found it rather tough at this College. Hardly ten or twelve students of his class were Marathi speaking. Many of the other students came from wealthy families and had a car to drop them and pick them up. They spoke English fluently and were sophisticated. In that cosmopolitan atmosphere Marathi students seemed somewhat backward; often they became subject of ridicule. But soon Sharad overcame his initial diffidence and got well-adjusted to this new milieu. He used to spend a lot of time in the College Early Years
Q
27
