Anil Wilson - The fighter
Posted on January 25, 2009
Filed Under Blog, Career Launcher, Satya Speaks, Tributes
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Dear Satya,
Thank you very much for your morale booster visit the other day !
I have decided to take your advise and write regularly for blog. My blog id is anilwilson.blogspot.com
Warmly,
Anil Wilson
Jan 24, 2009
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One of the ground rules of communication between two individuals is that the message contents ought to remain confidential between the two alone. However, for every rule there is always an exception that can applied under exceptional circumstances. In the case of Anil Wilson, the same applies at this point in time for the above email.
The message above does not capture the spirit of a person who is battling the most challenging situation any human being can face – A life threatening illness called Cancer!
One where the odds are placed hugely against you. In such a scenario, what I receive from Anil Wilson after my humble and fear-filled visit is a mail such as this. And the man takes the stupid suggestion of blogging seriously.
About an hour before I handed out that irreverent suggestion to AW at his residence, I was pacing up and down the stairs of his flats with more than a hint of doubt in my mind. I had reached 40 mins before the scheduled appointment. I was going to meet a man who is battling Pancreatic cancer and is a few weeks into Chemotherapy. It was a tough appointment that lay ahead of me.
I sms-ed him saying that I am arriving a bit early (while I was already there). I got response back in the form of a phone call at the speed of light. He said in his inimitable staccato style – “Just come over” !!
While his voice had more energy than I had imagined, I was not sure. I did ring the bell with a lot of trepidation. Shortly, I was in and our conversation was underway.
In many ways, I would call this the Chapter Three of my knowing Dr Anil Wilson. He was just about a year or so old as the principal of St. Stephen’s College when I graduated in 1991. All through my academic career, I had nothing to do with teachers (let alone the Principal of my school or college).
The first interaction took place around Oct – Dec of 1994 when I had just started CL and was looking for an evangelist to support me. If the supporter had some say in letting me conduct my PDP at his / her college premises, I would have loved it.
Where would I go ? Obviously, St. Stephens’ College, my alma mater and the best location, perhaps. I prepared a long script I my head, prepared a hundred times and was pacing up and down the corridor just outside the Principal’s office. Dr Wilson was the Principal.
I got the friendly nod with a smile from the ‘Darbaan’, an old friend who was very active at the Carrom Board in the JCR (Junior Common Room) during my days at SSC. He was making me feel that he played an important role in getting an appointment with the Principal of a top notch college (even if that happened to be my alma mater). The lady in the admin office ( Mrs Lakshmi, I think) was the official who had processed my request, though.
I prepared my script one more time and walked in. In essence, I was wanting to play the ‘emotional’ script comprising – Old student, An entrepreneur, And education etc,. I had not even begun when I found myself in the corridor again. I would have spent about 25 seconds in his presence. No seat offered. No coffee offered.
The staccato voice that always speaks in a no non-sense tone simply dismissed my application about two sentences into the petition !! I do remember hearing a few words such as ‘reputation’, ‘institution’ etc,. You can imagine the script! Quite correctly, as the guardian of Stephanian institutional values and tradition, my petition to run my ‘Private’ classes was rejected summarily.
That was the end of my Chapter One of relationship with Dr Anil Wilson. Fortunately for me, Dr Sancheti, the then principal of SRCC took pity on me and allowed me to conduct the first season of class on the college campus in 1994/5. That is another story for some other time.
Chapter Two :
It was around Oct 1996. I got a call from Mrs Lakshmi from St. Stephen’s College to come and see Dr Anil Wilson. I began to wonder about the reason. CL was now about two years old. The first two batches of student had made their way into the IIMs. I was preparing for the second season. We were now conducting classes at a ramshackled primary school on Atul Grove Road, Connaught place.
I went through a familiar tension filled few minutes as before any interview situation. However, this time the reception that I received in the Principal’s room belonged to a different world. I got to sit with him in his room.
Now, almost 4 out of 5 IIM entrants from Delhi were from CL. Needless to say, many students from institutions such as SSC, IIT, SRCC, LSR etc,. About a few minutes into the meeting, I realized that this was a different meeting. Some good word about CL had reached him. I heard many words of encouragement and appreciation for the work we were doing to the students of Delhi University from AW.
Then AW dropped a name and enquired – Do you remember a student called Amit Wilson ? And in a micro-second, the penny dropped for me.
Amit was a diffident yet bright student of SSC. He had a few interview calls. He converted most of those into final call letters. Quite inadvertently, we had developed an ambassador for CL at AW’s home. Anil humbled me with his wholesome appreciation of a thing or two he had noticed in Amit during his short interaction with CL. I felt good about my life as a teacher.
Anil went on and shared that he had visited our rather modest classes to drop and pick Amit, his son, a few times. The class rooms there had the typical sarkari broken school furniture that would sit the primary school students in the mornings and the future CEOs in the evenings !!
He said – “An effort like CL deserves some support…. Why don’t you conduct classes for the North Campus students at our college campus. In fact, I would like it to be made available to the students of all the colleges after college hours”.
Did I argue with him ? Perhaps, in the history of St. Stephen’s College, CL is the only outsider who had the privilege of doing something on campus for a long long time.
Chapter Three :
Over the past decade and a half, I have followed the stories of his efforts at SSC as well as at HPU, Simla. Given his high energy and the restlessness to do things, he ran into challenges more often than not. He was successful on many occasions and surrounded by noise on some.
I, for one, always looked at him in a positive frame of mind for his innovative approaches. For his younger-than-his-age outlook. For his decisiveness. AW went on to serve as the Vice Chancellor twice at Simla. Reached his superannuation at a rather young age (mentally) when he still had a huge amount of creative and institution building urges left in him.
I managed to catch him for a casual conversation a few months ago when I learnt that his professional innings was at an interesting cusp. I felt good that he remembered us and also continued to hold CL in a reassuringly positive frame. I shared about our dreams of IWU (Indus World Unviersity). AW’s excitement was very heartwarming.
Shortly, he was joining us as a full-time member on the Executive Board of the proposed IWU. In the week that he was supposed to join, I was to travel on a two week trip to the US. Hence, I proposed that we meet up to plan his two weeks of kick-starting a new innings at CL…nee, Indus World University.
We met at Crown Plaza in Gurgaon for a cup of coffee, poured our creativity into our scrap books about the road ahead, made a bunch of action points for the coming few weeks.
As we left the venue and were standing at the exit waiting for our cars, I remarked to AW that he has lost a lot of weight and looks a lot fitter. AW responded enthusiastically – ‘Yes, I have been exercising a little seriously, of late. I am glad it is paying off’.
We did not know the real reason, then. A couple of days later, Suzy (Sujit Bhattacharyya) informed me that AW has called to say that he will join a couple of days later as his physician has recommended some tests since he was experiencing ‘some pain in the abdomen’.
We learnt a few more days later that the challenge had been identified. As I write this, AW is undergoing the painful process of Chemo every week on Fri/Sat. He is coping with a lot of pain – physical, mental, emotional - with his usual defiance and optimism. The partial loss of hair and the loss of physical energy does not seem to put him down, mercifully.
He now feels that he can spend some time productively when his body permits between Monday and Thursday after a hellish weekend. I am certain, Mrs Rita Wilson’s support and coaxing from the family to get going is a huge booster for AW.
As I pray for his recovery so that he can contribute more to education and to the society, I do feel like urging you too to pray for him and his family. May Anil come out trumps in this battle with a story of inspiration to share with us and the next generation…..Amen!
And of course, please do go on to his blog when you are on the internet next – anilwilson.blogspot.com
Affectionately,
Satya
Comments
12 Responses to “Anil Wilson - The fighter”
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Dear Satya,
Congrats. Very nice write-up, remembering your Gurus. Keep it up.
We also pray for speedy recovery of Dr.AW.
With love,
D.Ramakrishnan.
Dear Satya,
I loved reading this article ,it brought back old memories of my days in college. Even I graduated fron St. Stephens in the year 1996.Dr. Anil Wilson used to teach me English in my final year…What i remember about him is that he had a soft heart…I could listen to his lectures for hours because of his powerful voice and his passion for teaching.I am sad to hear about his illness ,will pray for his recovery.
Looking forward to more such blogs …you are an inspiration for many…I feel proud to be working in an organization which happens to be a brain wave of a Stephanian.
Bhavna Sharma
dear sir
i do not more about mr anil wilson but i used to be class mate of her daughter in CLC law faculty. But what ever i heard about his personality from my friends who used to study in stephens college that always makes me feel unhappy why i had not studied form stephens college.urs article had enriched my knowleldge about him. thnks
may god give me strength and soon he recover from his illness
dinesh miglani
yesterday only I came to know that he is so unwell. And today while browsing the Internet, I read your article. May God let Mr. Wilson get well very soon.
Taruna joshi
Librarian
Ramjas College
(Univ, of Delhi)
As someone who finished from St.Stephens in 1972, my acquaintance with Anil Wilson began only in 2003, in his capacity as a member of the Board of Governors of the school I happen to head. He stands for a lot of things we grew up believing in, not least of all to stand up for one’s beliefs & convictions, no matter what the odds. We are all rooting for him in his fight against the odds this time as well!
tributes are always better late than never .. and so too is the case with writing / reading them..
It is sad & ironical that I am reading this article today, morning of 25th June 2009 in New York,when AW passes away that very morning in India.The news came to me as a jolt inspite of the fact that we had been waiting helplessly for this inevitable to happen for the last few months. We knew AW before Satya or any Stephanian knew him.A fitting tribute to that excellent human being will it be if we collect and compile the reminiscences about him and publish it in the form of a book.
SIR MAY YOUR SOUL REST IN PEACE
hi
I did not know Dr. Anil Wilson personally but one of his speeches at a prize day at our school completely changed my life. I would be extremely grateful if you could forward me the email address of his wife, son or daughter so that I could email them telling them how much I respected Dr. Wilson and how sorry I was to hear of his death.
May his soul rest in peace.
Just read your blog today.Thanks, Satya, for your kind words about Anil. Believe me, they mean a lot to me.
Gratefully,
Rita Wilson
Lovely words about lovely person.
Thanks
Kulwant