I remem­ber:

Sis­ter John: She was our Eng­lish teacher at Loreto Con­vent, Shil­long. Orig­i­nally from Ire­land, she instilled in us proper Eng­lish can­not be taken for granted and made sure we’d dot our I’s, cross our T’s and put the apos­tro­phe in the right place! And of course, we had to pro­nounce every­thing cor­rectly. She also often made us com­pete in hand­writ­ing com­pe­ti­tions and we’d all try and outdo each other in that depart­ment. A few of my class­mates had really admirable hand­writ­ing and I still remem­ber some of them! She was an amaz­ing teacher and if there’s any rea­son why my love affair with writ­ing and read­ing con­tin­ues, she’s one of the pri­mary reasons.

Beena Ahmed: She was scary and a tough mas­ter to please. She was the Assamese teacher in school. As if Eng­lish and Hindi were not hard enough, we also had to learn our mother tongue. Added to my woes, I never ever could fig­ure out head or tail of Assamese gram­mar. I would sit at the back of her classes so that I could avoid being pulled up. I still trem­ble when I think of her.

Pant Sir: In Mum­bai, I redis­cov­ered paint­ing and sketch­ing through CS Pant. I found him quite by luck in the Mid-Day. I had to wait for about a year to get into a con­ve­nient class, since he was always full or never had a time that suited me. Finally, one day, he called out of the blue and told me to come over. Two days a week, after work, for more than a year, it was a plea­sure going to his stu­dio, sit­ting on the floor and attack­ing a can­vas with gusto. It didn’t mat­ter how good or bad you were, he always had an encour­ag­ing word for every­one. He made the classes really inter­est­ing as he loved gos­sip­ing and took a lot of inter­est in all his stu­dents. He orga­nized out­ings, where he would paint amidst nature and he loved that so he would try and get us out some­where at least twice a year. He made art come alive and it was a year that I badly needed that dis­trac­tion and colour. If there’s one thing I miss in Ban­ga­lore, it’s his classes.

Mme. Vidya: One of the best teach­ers I have come across at the Alliance Française, Ban­ga­lore. She makes French class come alive with her ded­i­ca­tion and enthu­si­asm. Frankly, I had decided not to con­tinue after fin­ish­ing 3B since my time com­mit­ments to the lan­guage were below what was required. But when Mme. Vidya fought for a week­end batch for the diplôme level, I made up my mind to try and con­tinue as long as I am able to. She makes sure to cor­rect every exer­cise you send her. She takes so much care in every­thing she does, that you auto­mat­i­cally want to work harder for her class (it’s a pity that I still don’t work hard enough!). She takes par­tic­u­lar care about pro­nun­ci­a­tion and with­out a doubt it has been because of her that we actu­ally cor­rect our­selves when read­ing! One look at her arched eye­brow and we know we’ve made a mis­take and then we try again. She also makes sure that every­one is as involved in the class.

For all these teach­ers and many oth­ers who have shaped my life in some way or another: a Happy Teacher’s Day!