My work at School 10 (1979-1985) gave me a chance to meet with Hamo Sahyan, the master, poet, Man, yes, Man with the capital letter. Then I was organizing meetings called “Lessons are conducted by writers, literary critics, linguists” in our classes of Armenian studies. Together with Gegham Sevan, a bright man, teacher of Western Armenian Literature in the classes of Armenian studies, were making a decision on the next in turn writer who was to conduct a lesson. Then together with Ms. Gayane Mkrtchyan and other young colleagues met them one by one and made a decision on the date of the lesson and way of discussion to prepare for the lesson. We also presented the activities of the classes specialized in Armenian studies (we were inspired by the idea of creating a whole school specialized in Armenian studies). In this way we looked for and found already well-known exceptionally good specialists in Grabar (Old Armenian), folklore, folk trades, national music, architecture, ethnography-archaeology. Throughout this search period I encountered dozens of well-known figures: these were discoveries of people who had a great influence on me, among them there were the ones who are known to the Educomplex: musician-Komitasologist Arthur Shahnazaryan, architecture Hamlet Khachatryan, ethnographer Arusyak Sahakyan, anthropologist Artsrun Sahakyan, People Masters of Armenia Vano Dadoyan and Lala Mneyan.…
It was either in 1981 or 1982 that I had the courage to telephone and arrange a meeting with Hamo Sahyan, and then bring him to our school to conduct a lesson, and then have a talk with him at table, and then accompany him to walking quietly snail-paced, and then, being persuaded by Hamo sahyan, go up the stairs to his flat, and then sit and keep silent in order to listen, listen to the Master.
“You can listen, and you are greedy: life is your school…”, these were the approximate words of how Master liked me…. Then once, being already a younger friend of Master’s, I took part in his meeting in the Union of Writers, and then after several years in 1988-1989 I stood beside the Master in Freedom Square as he said: “Not to feel lonely”, and then smiled, took me by the hand fatherly pressed it, “Dear Ashot, you convey me confidence.”
I will never forget my Master… I am moved…He was to take me to his birthplace, to his father’s home, what prevented him from doing it? Now I have got an amnesty of forgetting it; It was delayed… it couldn’t be done. Delaying is not a good thing: what you can do the day after tomorrow, do not leave it for tomorrow; did you hear me, Sebastatsies of all ages? The best day is today, and a day’s concern is enough for a day.
Between those meetings I used to read Hamo’s literature and everything about Hamo… The way Hovhannes Tumanyan used to appraise Ghazaros Aghayan, in the same way I afford speak about Sahyan; Being that much great a poet, Hamo was а greater person, so humble, so calmly influencing, so fatherly!
He used to smoke very much, too much… and once he turned to me: “Do not scold me much, spare me…”
Two stories which I have told orally many times to a limited circle of friends, should be included in my diary.
Hamo Sahyan was reading aloud: “And I don’t understand anything: neither in what I have left, nor in what I have taken away.“
I asked him at table:“Don’t you really understand at your mature, wise age?“
“Well, I understand quite well… It was just a poem…
Then I continued our conversation when we were alone… What was it that remained incomprehensible to Sahyan?…
This is what he told me: “What close and indispensible people my parents are for me! At whatever age I have been, wherever I have been, whenever I have heard that they need something, medicine, headache, I leave everything and go to them to sit beside their beds obediently. What have my parents done for me besides giving birth and bringing me up? I spent all my childhood working in the village, in the fields, in the barn, in mud and cold. Do they know how I have come to town, gone to university, studied, settled, made a name for me, written books? …Have they given me a hand in anything? Whereas I have done everything for my offsprings. Education, housing, everyday care… I myself take the rubbish out, every day, at my age and having this name. When I get ill they aren’t aware… This is what I can’t understand…”
The Master was a contented man, he was of course pleased with his family: he was presenting a pedagogical problem to me, to a person who was making independent eminent steps in pedagogy.