Thursday, May 9, 2013

My school teachers

I remember my life from primary schooling - some parts are vague memories and some others are very vivid! But even today, if some one asks me who is your teacher, I would say two names - Mrs. Sarojini and Mrs. Sundarambal.

Mrs. Sarojini was my first standard and third standard teacher. Such a wonderrful teacher she was. She never scolded any of us, though many of the students were naughty.

Mrs. Sundarambal (I call her Sundarambal athai as she is my mother's close friend too) is an amazing teacher. I would remember the lessons she taught even today. She was very strict but was very fair. Strictly no favouritism at all. She was very kind too. I used to wonder how can somebody be very strict and kind at the same time; kind and fair at the same time. Many people I see today are nice but not fair; fair but not nice.... She is one of the rarest of rare people who could be kind and fair simultaneuously. She stood up against any injustice done to anyone - even if it did not affect her directly.

I read somewhere that from a teacher you learn subjects; from Guru you learn life. If that statment is correct, she definitely is one of my Gurus. She corrected many things on the fly; made me a confident person; not only me, there are quite a number of other students in this category!

Everyday I think of them. Before meditation, one is supposed to think and thank parents, gurus and god. I think of these two teachers every day; I pray that their life gives them good satisfaction that they move towards renounication; then to God and never to be born again (as per Hinduism that is the highest place one can ever get to).

The other teachers were also really good; it is just that I hold the above two close to my heart.

Mrs Kanthimathi was my Tamil teacher; I cried many times in her class; not because she scolded me or harassed me but because I melted down listening to her! If she teaches 'Silapathikaram', you would melt "seeing" Kannagi - crying and running through streets of Madurai; if she teaches 'Yesu kaaviam' you would cry seeing Jesus carrying the cross in front of his mother.

How can I forget Parvathi madam? She taught us maths. She was Headmistress of the school. She would have several other responsibilities also; but she used to borrow time from other teachers to teach maths for some more time (in addition to the time allocated to her as a maths teacher). She would do anything to make us learn maths. Her classes were interesting; her handwriting was so perfect that we used to feel bad to rub it off from the black board after her class.

A few of us went and asked her if she would retire before we came to 10th class! Only after she confirmed that she would teach maths in 10th standard there was a sigh of relief. Not sure how many teachers would have commanded this kind of respect from the students!!! She was too good!!!

I am what I am because of my teachers and my parents (they are teachers too)! I salute the teachers!

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