"My concern and their concern were totally different – diametrically opposite.

"I was interested in the moment, in the subject; they were not interested in the subject, they were only interested in taking notes, preparing for the future examination. I have never taken any notes; neither have I allowed any student, when I became a professor, to take notes in my class, because taking notes means you have moved to the future, you are not here now, you are preparing for somewhere else, for something else.

"Even professors continually encouraged students – and I think that is the practice all over the world – to take notes of important things they are teaching, without understanding the simple fact that while a student is concerned with taking notes, he is not being totally available to what is being taught.

"I told my professors, 'It is unimaginable for me that you people encourage rather than discourage an activity which is a direct insult to you. You are teaching; the taught should be totally alert, listening to it, absorbing it, drinking it. Not one of you bothers about it. You tell them to take notes; you are teaching them postponement for the future.'

"The teachers were against me, the majority of the students were against me, but these were the mediocre people.

"There were a few students who were immensely in love with me because what they could not question out of fear, what they could not present in an articulate way as an argument, I could. And they all enjoyed. I became, in a certain way, their spokesman. They were more interested in my arguments than in what the teacher was saying, because my arguments were taking the subject to its deeper roots.

"A few teachers were also there who loved me. But very few enjoyed and openly accepted that my argument was weightier than their own argument. They said, 'But please remember that my argument will help you to pass the examination. Your argument will not help.'

"I told them, 'I have no concern with the examination at all. Whether I fail or pass, that is not the point. To me, the point is whether I present myself sincerely, authentically.'

"In my final MA examination, one of my professors was very much concerned because my paper was going to be examined by an old professor of Allahabad University who was world famous as a scholar on Indian philosophical thought – Dr."