Samuel Godfrey George: July 2018

Monday, 30 July 2018

I first came across the name, Priya Hosali, while I was at the British Council library in Chennai. I saw a book that she co-authored with three other people, “Indian and British English”. The name stuck in my mind, and I also made a note of the fact that she was a professor at the Central Institute Of English And Foreign Languages (CIEFL), Hyderabad, India. Later, when I decided to pursue a PhD in English, I spoke to my M.Phil. Supervisor, Professor V. Saraswathi about Priya Hosali. We both decided that Professor Hosali should be the one to supervise my doctoral research. Professor Saraswathi gave me a letter of introduction to Professor Hosali, which I took with me to Hyderabad, when I went for a contact programme for the Postgraduate Certificate In The Teaching Of English (PGCTE) at CIEFL.

When I stood outside the office of Priya Hosali in the Distance Education Department at CIEFL, I did not expect to see a middle-aged woman with streaming hair. When she turned to me, she gave me a very sweet smile, which completely reassured me. When I heard her speak so gently and kindly, I was convinced that she was the right person to guide me. She had Western manners despite her Indian name and identity. That appealed to me, for I myself was quite Western in behaviour and speech, despite my Indian identity. Later, while I was staying at the guest house at CIEFL, Professor Priya Hosali surprised me by visiting me in the evening. When I opened the door, I found her quite drenched in the rain, which was falling steadily. She gave me a book, which she wanted me to have before I returned to Chennai, my native town. I was very moved by her considerateness and I decided then and there that she would be my PhD supervisor.

When I returned to Hyderabad a few months later for my PhD interview, I was warned that it would not be easy for a non-CIEFL person to enter into the PhD programme directly. But I was confident of my chances. I already had an M.Phil. from the University Of Madras, under the supervision of the great Professor V. Saraswathi, and I had first-class graduate and postgraduate degrees. I believed that I was a pretty good speaker of English and that I would be able to impress those who would interview me. Little did I know that Priya Hosali would be one of those people on the panel of interviewers. Professor Hosali behaved very professionally at the interview, though I knew her pretty well already. She and the other panellists questioned me about the subject of my PhD research. The interview was not very smooth, for the questions were difficult, and my research proposal was not very sensible. However, Priya Hosali spoke for me after the interview and urged the other panellists to consider me. So, I was eventually accepted into the programme. Professor Hosali was even then more than a supervisor. She reserved a room for me at the Guest House and took me out with her to the Secunderabad Club, for a memorable evening when we dined together and took photographs at the magnificent club, built by the British when they were ruling India.

When I think of Priya Hosali today, I remember the times when I would go with her to the Secunderabad Club. We used to spend our time there talking about our lives and discussing world affairs, while consuming delicious food. We also discussed my research, which was an enquiry into the intelligibility of the standard American English accent in India. This was not something that I wanted to do originally, but Professor Hosali and I thought that this would be a worthwhile area of research, given that American English was becoming increasingly popular in India. To carry out the investigation into the intelligibility of General American (GA) in India, I composed a speech that ran into seven sentences. I requested a speaker of GA to record the speech, which I played back to several Indian respondents, varying in age and educational qualification and hailing from several linguistic backgrounds. I analysed their responses and made a list of findings, which helped me evaluate the degree to which standard American English was intelligible to Indians. As I did this, I passed my Pre-PhD comprehensive examination and I even started to write the main chapter of my doctoral dissertation. But as I completed that vital chapter, my father died and it was a shock that I could not easily recover from.

It was not just my father’s death that affected my PhD research. It was also my growing frustration with the modus operandi that I employed. However, Professor Hosali, and my M.Phil. supervisor Dr. V. Saraswathi thought highly of my work. I was also much distracted by my interest in the Bible and a spiritual awakening took place, which totally sidelined my doctoral research. In short, I was not able to complete my doctoral programme. The end of my PhD was confirmed when I fell out with my supervisor, Priya Hosali, one evening in 2007 after we returned from the Secunderabad Club. We spoke bitter words and I put an end to my doctoral programme that very day. As soon as I reached home, Professor Hosali called me and apologized for what she had said earlier that evening. But I was determined to put an end to our relationship as teacher and student. However, I was open to being her friend from then on. Despite her attempt to patch things over with me, I did not speak to her for the next three years.

It was in 2010, when my mother was hospitalised in a serious condition that I spoke to Priya Hosali. This was three years after the acrimonious evening which put an end to our teacher-student relationship. I apologized to her for not being in touch and also for my behaviour that evening three years ago. She responded kindly and comforted me in my time of suffering. After my mother recovered, I met Priya more than once at the club. Our last meeting at the Secunderabad Club did not take place as it ought to have. I was not allowed to dine there for I was dressed inappropriately ( I was wearing a pair of track pants). So, Priya and I went out to another place to dine. There she thanked me for the video tribute I had made for her mother, who had recently passed away. She gave me a small gift as a token of her appreciation. When we left each other that day, we promised to meet again at the club. This was in 2014. But we never met each other again, though we spoke on the phone a few times since then.

This year, I had the idea of calling Priya Hosali with the intent of meeting her at the club, but it never materialised. Even last month I felt an urgent need to speak to her, but I didn’t call her. Earlier this month, my mother was looking at the obituary column in the local newspaper and discovered that Priya Hosali had passed away. When she told me about this, I was saddened and felt guilty for not having spoken to her in the last few years. I knew that I had missed an opportunity to speak to her at a time when she might have needed my spiritual advice. Priya Hosali was not a Christian. She knew that I was a Christ worker, actively involved in speaking a message of love to the world. She believed in the Hindu concept of reincarnation. I don’t know where Priya Hosali is right now. So, I pray for her, and ask God to have mercy on her.

Priya Hosali was my teacher and friend and we had many good conversations together. I admired her style of speech and writing. I also admired her manners and her appearance. I joked quite a lot with her and she was a good sport even when I made fun of her. She was a great friend to dogs. She had her own dog. She loved animals very much. She wrote a beautiful book about dogs and gave me a signed copy of it. She wrote books about English and taught many years at the CIEFL. After retirement she worked as a guest lecturer at the University Of Hyderabad, and was a language consultant at Deloitte, Hyderabad. Above all, she was a woman who loved the good life. She enjoyed eating and watching movies. She liked to speak about her workers who helped her at home. She spoke mildly in a measured way. I liked her very much.

Priya Hosali once described me as her most brilliant student. Before I abandoned my PhD research, she joked about me with a bank official: “Sam is brilliant, so he will not complete his PhD.” On another occasion she observed that I was a brilliant writer. Her final compliment to me came during our last meeting. On that occasion, I was telling her about how people responded warmly to my work on the social media. She said that she was not surprised by that. “Whatever you do , you do it well” she said to me. She was not always pleased with me. Our egos clashed sometimes. She had this impression that I was arrogant and rude and did not respect her age. But I tried my best to apologize when I crossed a line with her. I hope she forgave me. She said that she did, Once when I apologized to her, she said, “Sam, you are a sincere person.” That I hope sums me up.

Samuel Godfrey George