Teacher

by admin

September 5, 2019

443

Young laughing faces. A guitar playing. Voices singing. These are early memories of open house at my childhood home. My mom’s students, far from their homes in the North Eastern states, would gather around her, she their teacher, mentor, counsellor. I remember her discussing a couple of them with Dad, worried about them, so far from their families. My mom, three of my beloved aunts and my uncle were teachers. Two taught at primary school level, the others were university professors. Though I was very young, it was already clear in my head that teachers were people to be loved.

When I was three years old, I moved from my hometown of Baroda with my family. Speaking only Gujarati and a smattering of Hindi, i was enrolled in a nursery school in a strange new town called Ernakulam. Here, the children and the teachers spoke incomprehensible words. It frightened me and I would regularly run away from the little school to my aunt’s house just across the road. But the mysterious link between language and human brain soon turned the key in a lock. The incomprehensible became words, then sentences, then thought. Soon I was dreaming in English.

First standard meant a new school, new classmates and a new teacher. K Miss was young, freshly graduated from teacher training college. She spoke the most beautiful English – clear diction, enunciated, articulate. I fell in love with the language, listening to her speak. She sang to us too. She had a guitar, covered in stickers and it seemed the most delightful thing to my eyes. One day, she said to us, “Read something everyday.” Her word was everything to us. I misinterpreted her advice to mean Read one book everyday. And I did. I have. Ever since. I read everything I could lay my hands on, simply because my teacher had told me to. I read encyclopaedias and dictionaries when I ran out of Enid Blytons and Frank Richards. One morning, I stood up in class to refute her story of storks bringing babies to hopeful parents. I proceeded to give a garbled biological version of the truth to my bewildered classmates. K Miss called home that evening and begged my mum to put the medical textbooks at least out of my reach.

I was her favourite student. Or so she always made each of us believe. She spoke to us about all kinds of things we had never thought about or experienced, and showed us by example to be kind, funny and sensitive to others. She stuck to her principles, even when intimidated by management. She taught us to stand up to bullies in the nicest way possible – lovingly yet firmly. When the school decided to switch her class and give us another teacher, we barricaded ourselves in our classroom and defied (with quaking hearts) our super strict principal until she agreed to let our class teacher continue with us. She was our class teacher from Standard one to three and these were magical years of singing on the school terrace, creating our own theatre group, class projects on Food and such, concerts of great organisation and ingenuity.

She became a close friend of our family. Her uninhibited laughter rang often in our home. She was irreverent, often making my dad blush with her wisecracks and jokes. He informally adopted her as his younger sister and thought nothing of advising her and reading her a lecture or two. This, in spite of her having a large family of her own. My mother loved her, saw in her a more untrammeled version of her younger self – a carefree, young teacher, enthusiastic and innovative. All the things my mom had left behind in Baroda along with her career when she moved to Ernakulam.

After Standard three, my family moved to Madras. My new school teachers were nice but I missed my K Miss dreadfully. A year went by. Then one morning, in the passage outside my classroom, I heard her voice. Usually the most docile and respectful student, I bolted. I might have stammered some explanation to my teacher on the way out but the only thought in my head was getting to K Miss. I ran into her arms and some part of me felt put back to rights. It turned out that her niece was being newly admitted into my class.

K Miss moved to Madras and has been a part of my life ever since. All these years later, she is a friend and caring critic. She never hesitates to tell it like it is. Her cheery greeting (Hell-lo, Sa-na-ya!!!)on the other end of the phone line always lifts my spirits. When my brother died, it was to her house I went first, searching for the comfort I knew I would find there. She cuddled my son when he was a baby and will always want to know what he’s up to. Her niece is a dear friend. When my Mum lay dying in hospital, K Miss held her hand and sang Broadway show tunes to her. My dad and she stay in touch, flirting with each other in five different languages.

The only thing I find myself unable to do even today is call her by her name without attaching the Miss to the end. For me, she is my first and best teacher. I am an articulate speaker today and a writer too, because of the fine examples she set me and the advice she gave me. I often catch myself thinking, “What would K Miss do?”, especially when confronted by tough choices. I may not always know for certain, but she taught me an instinct for right and wrong very early on. I rely on that instinct to help me decide.

I am fortunate to have had wonderful teachers all through my life. Most of them were young women, brimming with ideas and ideals, energy and enthusiasm. There were older women too, tempering their enthusiasm with experience, their idealism with intellect.It all started with a young woman in an Ernakulam school though. She set me up for a lifetime of learning. That first impact – of a teacher who loved her students and loved to teach – was the key. It made me approach all my future teachers with the same expectation. The majority of them delivered on that early promise K Miss had made. -Teaching really is a work of Heart.