Remembering The Mind Benders – I

“The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you”

A journey towards knowledge start from the day you are born. I realized this while watching my five-day old nephew, who was born six weeks ago. How, step by step you unfold the mystery of life, peel its hidden layers and try to live your own version of it.

The first step of this odyssey is about finding the right hand to hold your finger, who can help you understand the marvels of this mortal world.

Now imagine 25 years back, a two and half-year old kid with a worn out old school bag, standing at the door, waiting for the chance to enter in the universe of the insightful elite people.

Yes, that’s me 🙂 and this is how my curiosity for learning, took me, to my educational Mecca.

Today out of all days, I have chosen as a day to write about people who have been my teachers, till now:) I won’t be writing it in a chronological order, as that would become too predictable for you to understand my life and also because some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Ambiguity is delicious,isn’t it?

So right here, I am serving this flavourful platter of my learning’s to you.

I was never an intelligent student, just an average one, neither too much noticed nor ignored. Still out of cream loving teachers, there are few who notice your strengths and pushes you towards the next plateau. Apparently, I too found, few such teachers, whose leap of faith in me, gave me better opportunities 🙂

First and foremost for the teacher who introduced me to the charms of English. He was 5’3” tall, blazer wearing teacher, which was so uncommon in those days. He never taught us from book, instead he use to draw the story on the board. I was never his favourite student, nor do I think he ever noticed my existence in his class. But his passion towards language, made me passionate about it. Thursday, was a no lecture day, he use to pick up random novels and use to illustrate the stories on board. He is the best narrator I ever known. So thank you sir 🙂 it’s because of those beautiful literary classes I am a voracious reader now.

So behind every writer there is one wonderful English teacher who tugs and pushes,them in bringing out the best words. This is about my literature teacher who brought back the lost faith in my writings . She taught me only for a year or so. I remember writing since I was kid, but as I wasn’t a brilliant one, my articles were never published, instead I was told to improve. Until she walked down into my life. I vividly remember that day, she was distributing our unit test papers , she announced my name and came to my seat, handing me my paper, she said “that was an amazing article”, I looked down at my sheet, where Excellent was written, just above my article. I don’t remember what I wrote or what topic it was but what I remember is her words. For the first time in my life, the teacher of the subject I adored, adored me back. That’s what restored my faith back in my writing skills, after umpteen rejected articles for schools,college and various other sites, I am still writing, so thank you mam for that strong and wonderful comment 🙂

We had four houses in our school, mine was RED house. This one is for my house in-charge. This was my first in year in this school, I was 11-year-old, shy and uncertain kid. When one day while going back home, she randomly picked me out of student’s line, asked me to read few lines from my English book. Yes, that’s how I landed up with my first stage performance as Alexander-The Great . And from there on, started the series of participation in vocal extra-curricular activities.Thank you mam for giving me first stage appearance.

This one is for the teacher who not just helped me in winning the challenge my dad threw at me but gave me my national level participation in an event when I was just thirteen. Total Quality Circle(TQC) is society where group of people be student or working, pick up a problem from their workplace or daily life and present a presentation about how they dealt with it, what solutions they have now etc. Speaking in front of 2000 adults with your learned and practised lines, isn’t easy. Because the catch was Q&A session after the presentation where big company VP’s and CEO’s sitting in the jury could ask you any question. Thank you mam for giving me this opportunity which helped in understanding that nothing could be fully planned, uncertainty is life and its OK to be not good or perform bad at times. The most important one, how a team works.

I bow to my dance teacher for taking me under her wings. It was you who made me realize that I could dance like a pro. You took me through the wondrous lanes of classical and folk dances, it was because of you I feel free while dancing, like no one is watching. It has become my way of achieving catharsis.

A big hug for my maths teacher who irrespective of having 100% scoring students in her class, which was enough to get her best appraisal, worked on and with me, because of which I could across the hurdle of being on the side of 50% towards on another better greener side of distinction.

And a mammoth of gratitude towards my PT teacher for introducing me to yoga and meditation. It was your early morning, serenity surrounding, OM chanting classes that made me fall in love with mediation. I can recall that day fairly well when you asked all of us to do scale pose and except me no one could do it, well. So you called me in-front and asked me to show it to all 🙂 This made me realize that my being petite is not awful instead it’s a blessing in disguise. It allowed me to think beyond what people could see. So thank you for showing me the power of mediation and yoga.

As life is not always roses you do tend to find thorns hidden in the bushes,but they too tend to teach you lessons. After all we can either complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses. Now I will talk about teachers who did right in doing some wrong to me.

Like I remember there was this teacher of mine, who, two times knowingly or unknowingly handed my trophy to someone else. This incident taught me that no matter what, no matter who, you should always fight and stand for your own-self, even against the highest of authorities.So thank you dear mam 🙂

The one who always ignored me in my cooking class. Thanks to you mam I turned out to be a good cook not as per your expectations.

A certain gratitude towards my drawing teacher for constantly reminding me that my fingers aren’t cut off to draw. I finally completed my school with biology majors which is the subject with hardest, most detailed intricate art in sketching human body. I promise I drew every bit of it on my own, as matter of fact, my biology teacher was quite impressed with the colorful Palaemon (prawn), I drew on the first page of my biology laboratory file.

And last but not the least a big heart-felt thank you to my biology teacher(she is not the one I just talked above), who was unapologetic about calling me a failure ahead of whole class when in reality I was a second topper in your subject, in that unit test. Because of you I learned how much I hate lies and hypocrisy.

PS: While writing this post I realized that I should thank people from all spheres of my life, so this PART 1 was dedicated to my school teachers 🙂 I would be writing in future about friends, college professors, bosses and office colleagues, relatives and family 🙂