Journey with Dr. Jay Mehta Sir

"ज़िन्दगी क्या है जानने के लिए

जिंदा रहना बहुत ज़रूरी है

आज तक कोई भी रहा तो नहीं"

- “Triveni” by Gulzar.

I want to start this blog by any poetic lines because on whom I am going to write he his die – heart fan of poems. He also uses poetry in his teaching. The big thing is he taught us Poe’s horror story with poetic lines. Yes I am talking about Dr. Jay Mehta, who has this ability to teach anything with poems. Our sir and head of the Department of English, Dr. Dilip Barad, MKBU, has invited Dr. Jay Mehta, who is working at Ahmedabad, to talk on the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. He has talked about short stories like…

1) The Tell Tale Heart
2) The Black Cat
3) The Fall of the House of Usher
4) The Cask of Amontillado
5) The Purloined Letter
6) The Gold Bug
7) Session on Poems (Creative Writing)

When he first came in our class, he said that I make you assure that I never let you feel boar in my class, and he proves this words, because of his teaching style we have not get bored in his class. His teaching style is very unique. When he was teaching us, he often gives example from movies and also recite the appropriate lines of poems, when he read the stories we can actually feel the emotions which those words conveys and he also make us understand by doing some of acting. With all these things he take us to the flight of Poe’s world of horror, fear, intrigue, unusualness, death, terror, mystery, puzzle, detective and most importantly the animal like face of human.

First Jay sir has started teaching us horror stories of Poe. Very first thing he says that,  “Poe has believed that not a single word should be wasted.” Sir has made us realize by reading original stories that every word has some thing to convey and every word is connected. In horror stories of Poe, he shows us the human beings who has over acuteness of senses, who are cold blooded murderers. They don’t have guilt on their acts. They called their act of murder a task, an assignment, a project, which are used in positive sense but they are using it differently or they are trying to make us think positively on their act. Most of stories have first person narrator but some also have third person narrator.

Jay sir has told us that all science of mind disease are developed after the time of Poe and without knowing anything about this Poe has successes fully leads us to the dirty roads of human mind and because of this Poe’s story has universality. With the use of psychology and Freud, sir make it easy to understand. “The Tell Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, and “The Cask of Amontillado” these are the horror story and “The Purloined Letter” and “The Gold Bug” are detective and treasure hunt stories. In his detective and treasure hunt stories also he don’t write things which are unnecessary.

On the last day we have session on poems, where sir has told us to bring our creative writing if we are writing and then he will give us some guidance. So first sir start with his one of poem, as he is also writing poems and then some of the students from which I was also one who choose to read their own creation. Sir has liked every poem and then he suggest us some of structure of poems to follow and gave us some big names of poets. He also told us to watch the video of poet reciting their poems because it is very necessary to learn, the audience don’t have anything and by words only we have to convey our feelings so the art of reciting is very important. Jay sir has that art of recitation. He also has read some of his poems from which one has phrase like, “હુ જાતે જાદુગર” and on this I want to say that indeed sir is magician. He has very good ability to teach effectively and also remembering, writing and reciting number of poems by heart.

With all these things our four days journey with Jay sir has become precious. Indeed what he taught us about Poe is going to help us in our study. Jay sir has said that, “A poem a day keeps psychiatrist away” he make us fall in love with poems. We are very thank full to him to come at our department and share his knowledge with us and also to Dilip Barad sir to invite him for us.

Thank you.