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If, a couple of decades after you leave your school, you can't remember with pleasure any teacher who made a distinct impression on you, there is something wrong with your school or you.
It is six decades since I passed from my school and five after my university. And there are at least a dozen teachers who I recall quite often nowadays. But I am a retired unemployed old man living in the past, so it is no wonder I reminisce.
I am not talking of good teachers or bad teachers or great teachers. I am talking of special teachers.
At school I was very weak in arithmetic and used to constantly get rapped by my Father after every math exam...a thing I want to forget but can't. And in our Fourth Form, we had a choice between what was called Composite Math and General Math. Everyone (including Father) said that Composite Math involved algebra which was as tough as betel nuts, and many opted for the General Math which had only stocks and shares and stuff useful for commerce. But I had had enough of arithmetic and so I chose Composite Math as the unknown devil.
And our first algebra class was taken by a young teacher called Harihara Sharma. And within a couple of classes he made me love algebra, and him too...no more buying and selling and profits and losses. I never regretted. To this day I remember him with pleasure for his enchanting smile which won all of us. He was also encouraging us to participate in dramas and debates and became our close friend.
In my University the first math lecture was taken by a nondescript grunter named B Subramaniam. We called him Bore Subramaniam since we didn't know what his B stood for nor cared. He made me hate the subject and I just about squeezed through and lost my Sripati Gold Medal at the end of 4 years of physics.
And in our physics I recall our HoD, Prof B Ramachandra Rao with great pleasure...he was an excellent teacher of Modern Physics. I also recall fondly our Quantum Mechanics teacher, Prof P Tiruvengana Rao. He admitted his ignorance of the subject by his disarming smile whenever anyone asked about the Uncertainty Principle. His smile said: "Leave me alone and I will leave you alone" And he gave all of us great 'testimonials'...a euphemism for recos.
And many others including one dour lady prof whose Relativity lectures I bunked from Day 2. And retained an absorbing interest in the subject that she tried her best to kill on Day 1.
When my son came up to his Class XI at the Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) at IIT KGP, I was already 3 decades old as a physics teacher at IIT.
And from his first day in his math class he used to talk about one Kobi Sir who taught their section. I am sure my son still remembers him with great pleasure. And later on I used to hear about this Kobi Sir from my son's classmates and my own students who graduated from KV and joined IIT KGP.
And I used to ask them what was so special of Kobi Sir. And they all said that he wouldn't stand nonsense in the class. Whenever he finds a student trying to pinch his neighbor, he would ask him to step up and give him a couple of memorable thappads on his spine.
But still they all loved him.
Once my son's section complained that they couldn't hear him well since there was a lot of noise emanating from the next room, from a different section...maybe because their teacher was late. And Kobi Sir apparently jumped out of his seat, ran to the next room, and slapped whomever he could catch indiscriminately. But still no one complained to their HM...Kobi Sir was excused many such transgressions.
I could understand why, from my own teaching experience. It was precisely because Kobi Sir was indiscriminate...he never played favorites...an acid test of a popular teacher.
But everyone said that when he settled down in his lecture, he was about the best math teacher they ever had...they didn't need to go home and revise...he made math as soothing as Coke on a hot day.
I was naturally curious to have a look at this Kobi Sir. And it happened at the Harry's coffee-cum-paan-cum-cigarette shop.
By the time my son reached his Class XI, I was friends with him and used to take him to Harrys for sharing coffee. And I would occupy a cement bench, give him Rs 2 and ask him to fetch our coffee glasses. And we sat side by side, drinking our coffees and indulging in chitchat.
One day, when my son was fetching our coffee glasses in his hands, he was accosted by a lean, balding, gent chewing paan and spitting. And he stopped my son and started banging him like from his facial expressions. As my son answered his queries, the man's expression changed suddenly and he looked at me and smiled like million dollars.
My son told me that that was their Kobi Sir about to beat my son for loitering at coffee shops meant for adults. And apparently my son told him:
"Sir, I came with my father...there he is, sitting on the cement bench"
"Who is he?"
"Professor G P Sastry of the Physics Department"
That did the volte-face.
And our next and last meeting was when I was compelled by my wife to go KV to attend the Parent-Teacher Meet which I always outsourced to her. She said she was scared to meet Kobi Sir...and so was I.
But as soon as my son's name was called and I entered his room, I spontaneously embraced Kobi Sir, and told him that I had no intention to look at my son's answer script and haggle...I just wanted to let him know how well I heard of him and how much I wished I was like him.
I am sure that made Kobi Sir's day.
And mine too!
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If, a couple of decades after you leave your school, you can't remember with pleasure any teacher who made a distinct impression on you, there is something wrong with your school or you.
It is six decades since I passed from my school and five after my university. And there are at least a dozen teachers who I recall quite often nowadays. But I am a retired unemployed old man living in the past, so it is no wonder I reminisce.
I am not talking of good teachers or bad teachers or great teachers. I am talking of special teachers.
At school I was very weak in arithmetic and used to constantly get rapped by my Father after every math exam...a thing I want to forget but can't. And in our Fourth Form, we had a choice between what was called Composite Math and General Math. Everyone (including Father) said that Composite Math involved algebra which was as tough as betel nuts, and many opted for the General Math which had only stocks and shares and stuff useful for commerce. But I had had enough of arithmetic and so I chose Composite Math as the unknown devil.
And our first algebra class was taken by a young teacher called Harihara Sharma. And within a couple of classes he made me love algebra, and him too...no more buying and selling and profits and losses. I never regretted. To this day I remember him with pleasure for his enchanting smile which won all of us. He was also encouraging us to participate in dramas and debates and became our close friend.
In my University the first math lecture was taken by a nondescript grunter named B Subramaniam. We called him Bore Subramaniam since we didn't know what his B stood for nor cared. He made me hate the subject and I just about squeezed through and lost my Sripati Gold Medal at the end of 4 years of physics.
And in our physics I recall our HoD, Prof B Ramachandra Rao with great pleasure...he was an excellent teacher of Modern Physics. I also recall fondly our Quantum Mechanics teacher, Prof P Tiruvengana Rao. He admitted his ignorance of the subject by his disarming smile whenever anyone asked about the Uncertainty Principle. His smile said: "Leave me alone and I will leave you alone" And he gave all of us great 'testimonials'...a euphemism for recos.
And many others including one dour lady prof whose Relativity lectures I bunked from Day 2. And retained an absorbing interest in the subject that she tried her best to kill on Day 1.
When my son came up to his Class XI at the Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) at IIT KGP, I was already 3 decades old as a physics teacher at IIT.
And from his first day in his math class he used to talk about one Kobi Sir who taught their section. I am sure my son still remembers him with great pleasure. And later on I used to hear about this Kobi Sir from my son's classmates and my own students who graduated from KV and joined IIT KGP.
And I used to ask them what was so special of Kobi Sir. And they all said that he wouldn't stand nonsense in the class. Whenever he finds a student trying to pinch his neighbor, he would ask him to step up and give him a couple of memorable thappads on his spine.
But still they all loved him.
Once my son's section complained that they couldn't hear him well since there was a lot of noise emanating from the next room, from a different section...maybe because their teacher was late. And Kobi Sir apparently jumped out of his seat, ran to the next room, and slapped whomever he could catch indiscriminately. But still no one complained to their HM...Kobi Sir was excused many such transgressions.
I could understand why, from my own teaching experience. It was precisely because Kobi Sir was indiscriminate...he never played favorites...an acid test of a popular teacher.
But everyone said that when he settled down in his lecture, he was about the best math teacher they ever had...they didn't need to go home and revise...he made math as soothing as Coke on a hot day.
I was naturally curious to have a look at this Kobi Sir. And it happened at the Harry's coffee-cum-paan-cum-cigarette shop.
By the time my son reached his Class XI, I was friends with him and used to take him to Harrys for sharing coffee. And I would occupy a cement bench, give him Rs 2 and ask him to fetch our coffee glasses. And we sat side by side, drinking our coffees and indulging in chitchat.
One day, when my son was fetching our coffee glasses in his hands, he was accosted by a lean, balding, gent chewing paan and spitting. And he stopped my son and started banging him like from his facial expressions. As my son answered his queries, the man's expression changed suddenly and he looked at me and smiled like million dollars.
My son told me that that was their Kobi Sir about to beat my son for loitering at coffee shops meant for adults. And apparently my son told him:
"Sir, I came with my father...there he is, sitting on the cement bench"
"Who is he?"
"Professor G P Sastry of the Physics Department"
That did the volte-face.
And our next and last meeting was when I was compelled by my wife to go KV to attend the Parent-Teacher Meet which I always outsourced to her. She said she was scared to meet Kobi Sir...and so was I.
But as soon as my son's name was called and I entered his room, I spontaneously embraced Kobi Sir, and told him that I had no intention to look at my son's answer script and haggle...I just wanted to let him know how well I heard of him and how much I wished I was like him.
I am sure that made Kobi Sir's day.
And mine too!
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