Janaki Babu

Prof. Janaki Nandan Sharma, better known as Janaki Babu in the academic circles in Muzaffarpur, is by far the most popular and accomplished teacher of Mathematics for JEE preparation in the town. Although he’d come to acknowledge me as one of his all-time favourite students, our first encounter wasn’t as pleasant.

It was already July when it became clear that I was not getting a seat at Patna Science College and had to be content with LS College, Muzaffarpur. While once among leading higher education institutes of Bihar, LS College was no longer a place where one could hope to learn much in the classroom. It was critical for me to find good teachers, outside the classroom, to have a realistic shot at IITs. My father, who worked in Muzaffarpur back then, had already identified the best teachers for each subject. Getting enrolled with two of them, Hasnat Hassan for Physics and B N Thakur for Chemistry, was not very difficult as they ran multiple large batches and one of the batches started around the same time as college admissions. However, getting a seat at Janaki Babu’s Mathematics class was challenging. He had smaller batches and he started early. Unlike the other two, he also filtered the intake by taking an admission test. So, when my father approached him first, he rejected outrightly saying he didn’t have the slots available and the batches had already started. Disappointed, but not ready to give up, my father paid him another visit a couple of days later and requested him to give me an opportunity as I had scored really well in Mathematics in 10th boards. My father also told him that, between the board exams and the admissions, I had also been taking some classes and learnt a bit of advanced trigonometry and basic calculus. Janaki Babu was startled at what he perceived to be a comparison between him and some unknown teacher in Samastipur. He said, “Samastipur? Poore duniya me koi aise nahi padha sakta jaise main padhata hun!” (It may sound like a hyperbole, but those who studied from him, would agree!). Upon much request, he agreed to give me a test. 

Very next day, I visited him at appointed time to take the test in what was my first meeting with him. It was a customised test for me with 8-10 questions hand-written on a paper with spaces in-between to solve. A couple of questions were from topics I wasn’t so familiar with, perhaps due to some differences in syllabi of CBSE and Bihar Board. But, I should have been able to solve rest of the questions correctly, especially since throughout the school to the board, I always had been perfect in Mathematics in all exams. But, on that day, I did get stuck in a couple of questions. In one of the questions, for example, while the ask was to solve a trigonometric equation for x, I didn’t see the instructions clearly and was trying to instead prove the equation. For next 3 days, all I knew was my father was visiting him everyday to check the results and the results were taking some time. On 4th day, my father told me that I could start going to Janaki Babu as he had agreed to give me a trial. Much later, I got to know what had actually transpired.

When my father had gone to check the result, he was surprised to know that I had not done very well and Janaki Babu had decided to not admit me. It took 3 days of persistent requests from my father for Janaki Babu to agree to give me a chance with a condition. He told my father that I could join on trial basis without paying the fee for a month and if my results in unit tests were satisfactory, I could continue.

Anyways, I joined his classes in a batch which wasn’t far ahead in the syllabus. He was very strict disciplinarian and punctual to the minute. I felt lost in the initial classes as we were in between a topic, but with help from some friends I met in that class, I was able to catch-up. I did fairly well in that unit test but Janaki Babu was still undecided. In the next topic, which was the first topic I studied completely from Janaki Babu, I topped the unit test with a perfect score. On the result day of the unit test, Janaki Babu asked me to meet him after the class. Expecting a pat on the back for my performance, I was eagerly waiting for him in the verandah after the class. When he appeared with tea in his hand, all he said was, “You can tell your father that he can pay your fees now.” 

I was perplexed at first and then it dawned upon me – the trial was over and he had accepted me as a student. The significance of this small success was more evident when I saw a sigh of relief from my father when I told him about this. 

Within a couple of months, he had already identified me as one of the 4 prospects for JEE and he taught 4 of us separately for next 1.5 years without any consideration for how much more he could make by running another batch of 30-40 in place of focusing on 4 of us. We didn’t disappoint him. I scored 75% in mathematics in JEE and got a good rank, one got into merchant navy from JEE extended list, one cleared JEE a year later, and one joined an NIT. 

What is noteworthy is that it took immense belief, patience, and perseverance from 3 persons to make this collaboration a success. My father believed in me and didn’t give up until Janaki Babu gave me a chance. Janaki Babu was kind enough to give me a try even though I was late to approach him and didn’t excel at his test. And lastly, some credit to me as well to put in the extra effort to prove my worth when I was given a trial period. 

The sparkle in his eyes when I visited him after JEE result explained everything! For him, teaching is not just a profession to make money, but a passion. And that passion was enough for him to devote more than an hour everyday on teaching 4 students when he could have taught a class of 40, making much more money. I owe a large part of my success to him.