Being a banker by profession I have to contend with frequent transfers. This year I was posted to Bangalore from my home town in Bhopal and it took some adjusting!!!
Kendriya Vidyalayas are accommodative and I had no hassle getting admission to my VII standard daughter.
Sanjana is a sensitive girl and so far been exposed to Hindi medium schools in Bhopal. It came as little surprise that within a month she was all at sea even as I was struggling to find my feet in Bangalore. The daily hassle of procuring vegetable, milk, groceries in a new language and a new city is formidable enough for an adult. Sanjana’s plight was still worse given that her spoken English was brittle and non existent knowledge of Kannada. She did not win any friends in school and within a month, her spirit crushed. Convincing her to go to school was proving to be an onerous task.
One day I was summoned by her class teacher and met her with my heart in the mouth. Ms. Gayathri Venkatraman looked intimidating with specs fastened to either ends to a gold chain. Her desk was full of notebooks amidst puffs of chalk powder.
Even as I started to apologize about Sanjana’s lacklustre performance she stopped me in my tracks. She said in quiet but firm manner,” I know it is difficult for a kid to adjust from Hindi to English medium. She is a bright girl and we need to perk up her confidence. The only way is to improve her spoken and written English and after that she should do better on her own”.
I asked hesitantly,” You mean tuitions?”
Gayathri looked at me as an impertinent kid who jumped the gun before continuing, “Tuitions have a bad connotation apart from being mercenary. I rather had a remedial class for her in mind. I plan to spend an hour with her after school. And Mr. Sharma, I called you for your permission”.
I nodded my acquiescence and suitably arranged for the rickshaw guy to bring her home on altered timings.
As foreseen by Ms. Gayathri, Sanjana jelled into the system inside of six months and today she is on par with rest of the class. Obviously thanks to the painstaking efforts in the remedial classes. Sanjana would so often say,” My teacher is the best in the whole wide world”. She was her role model that we were measured on that scale, much to our exasperation!!!
I went to thank Ms. Gayathri with a basketful of mangoes. I said,” I have no words to thank you and Sanjana can’t stop singing your name. Ma’am, you must be a born teacher?”
She said calmly,” No, I just started teaching 5 years back after my son went to States for his MS and my daughter got married. Actually, I graduated only when I was 33”.
I interjected,” My god, so late”!!!
She said,” I was born in a village that did not have secondary education. I was married when I was 18 and would feel diffident that I wasn’t even a graduate. I had 2 kids before I was 25 and they needed my attention. My husband was co-operative and encouraged me enroll in a correspondence course. When I wrote my graduate exams, I was the oldest candidate in the university”.
“Why were you so keen on a graduation?”
She simply said,” to read Shakespeare and all those masters like Dickens, Twain, Hemingway, Thurber, Bernard Shaw in original”.
I said,”Ma’am, you not only a great teacher but also a very remarkable lady”.
She flashed a rare smile before winding up, “Once you have self-belief then you can just about accomplish anything”.
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