Bhatt memories

This might interest you all.

Just as I was about to blog about something, our correspondent TSS comes to the desk with a copy of an article on the Calendar. He tells us that Prof. Bhatt had told him that calendar comes from the Sanskrit word Kala + antara. That is, limited by time. And a few more things that Bhatt sir told him - that there were only 10 months originally, and that August and July were added later after Augustus Ceasar and Julius Ceasar; that September, now the 9th month, was originally the seventh (coming from the Sanskrit word Sapta) month, October the 8th month, November (from nava or 9) the 9th month and December the 10th (dasa/10) month.

TSS tells us how he had literally lived in Bhatt sir's house from 1970 to '85. Then he joined The Hindu and became busy... He rues that he couldnt meet him much after that.

And that Bhatt sir had studied until his SSLC in a Sanskrit medium. He then joined MCC for PUC not knowing much of English other than the alphabets probably. But he went on to score a First Class for B.A. and M.A. English. He finished work on his PhD at the age of 28 but couldnt submit it because his guide Murphy died. He did his PhD much later in his career (I remember he couldnt be my official guide for MPhil because he didnt have a doctorate). Prof. VSV helped him a lot and recommended to Prof. Bennet Albert that he be taken in the English faculty.

I guess we were all privileged to have known a genius like him. And a very nice person, who never spoke ill of anybody.