Illustration/Uday Mohite

I did not study literature at St Xavier's College, but such was poet and professor Eunice de Souza's aura, that I had smuggled myself into a few of her lectures, and was dazzled. I had always been an ardent admirer, from afar. Legend has it that she called her students "blobs of protoplasm", and, at the funeral, good friend and mid-day columnist Meher Marfatia told me she also called them "you slow puddings." She once asked a distracted student, "Are you here or are you having a mystical experience?" Now, how can you not adore someone like that?