Remembering my teachers on 'Teacher's Day'

Today is 5th of September, celebrated as ‘Teacher’s Day’. While paying my humble tribute to all my teachers in making me what I am today, I shall try to share fond memories that I’ve had with a few of them that continue to stay evergreen in memory. Nurturing of minds and their attachment towards their students are clearly evident. And so, here I go.

Kindergarten.
Sosamma Thomas ma’am and Mary Fernandez ma’am still remain vividly from my earliest schooling memory. The former’s passionate power of reasoning over my misdemeanours and the latter’s keen interest in shaping the actor in me remain etched in my mind. And I was also very much in love with the latter!

Primary School.
Sister Anne with her kind and encouraging visage made me participate in all activities of the Convent and I daresay, I did fairly well in most that gave me tremendous confidence in myself and she was extremely happy about the whole thing as though it was her own personal triumph. Pallippad Bhaskaran Nair sir of Model School was the first to fine tune the art of public speaking in me when I was in the V and VI classes.

High School.
While at Sainik School, I’d the privilege of being nurtured by a host of wonderful teachers who went beyond their call of duty to make each one of us strive for excellence in everything we did. And it was there that those gentlemen showed us that a teacher’s work was not restricted to the classroom between 9 o’clock and 4 o’clock but much beyond it. They were with us right from the early morning sessions of PT, at the games fields in the evening, at the auditorium to teach us the nuances and the finer aspects of cultural activities and guiding us through the day’s portions at the self study period in the cosy confines of our ‘Houses’.
N Balakrishnan Nair sir (NBN for short. His Chemistry classes were highly informative and never left us with any doubts), KK Muthanna sir(My first House Master who took immense care of me and helped us to adjust to the school life easily), Samuel Raj sir(His classes on Social Studies were wholesome punctuated with interesting stories), BC Pande sir(He taught us Hindi with a passion and took great pains to make us mallus understand the language), GD Tekale sir(He was a very compassionate man and I must admit that I’d no direct experience of his guidance as he taught Sanskrit and mine was Hindi), CV Sankaranarayanan sir(His Maths classes were simply superb and he’d a very high sense of humour), JS Iyer sir(His Maths classes were also illuminating with a liberal dose of anecdotes), AP Soans(Our English teacher par excellence with an ever helping attitude), K Madhavan Nair sir and K Vasudevan sir(They were our teachers in Physics and were meticulous in their efforts to make us understand every detail).

National Defence Academy.
Mr.AB Santram taught me the difficult Chinese language in a very interesting manner, that I ended up liking it and doing well in the prelims. Mr. CR Rajan taught me to like the subject of Military History with his enormous knowledge and classy delivery and Mr. SH Hussainy, with his quiet efficiency, got me to delicately tread on the intricacies of Differentiation and Integration in Maths.

The teachers around me.
And may I also make a mention of Rachayita Banerjee and Rashmi George, both teachers and my friends, who go to great lengths while preparing to teach their students. Their teaching styles, coupled with dedication and passion, make them unique.

All the personalities that I've listed above have one thing in common - their immense love for the children that pass through their watch and it's this quality of their's that I salute from the depths of my heart.

Happy Teacher’s Day!!