These were teachers who gave me space and tutelage — all at once | Eye News,The Indian Express
We may have left our school days behind but never those who once guided us and sent us forward on our journey
Sunday, Sep 11, 2022
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HomeEyeThese were teachers who gave me space and tutelage — all at once
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These were teachers who gave me space and tutelage — all at once
We may have left our school days behind but never those who once guided us and sent us forward on our journey
Written by Suvir Saran
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September 11, 2022 6:00:24 am
The thing I most love to do in my life is teach, and I owe that joy to my teachers (Photo credit: Suvir Saran)
TEACHERS’ DAY has come and gone, but my heart, mind and soul still reflect upon the goodness that was my educational journey. At almost 50, and having graduated Class XII from New Delhi’s Modern School, Vasant Vihar, in 1991, I still remember each of my teachers. I remember their faces, smiles, looks, scents, voices, gaits, saris, tone and manner. Each giving me comfort decades later and strength to live and learn, be daring and brave, and live life with eyes wide open and with a heart and mind more willingly open still.
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Mrs Nalini Kumaran, our junior-school music teacher, found my singing to be good enough to warrant my joining a group of children that performed at school, for All India Radio, and at gatherings across Delhi. Through her hard work and inspired training, we performed several favourite songs of Mahatma Gandhi for his birth and death anniversary annually at Birla House in Delhi, often with the Prime Minister and other dignitaries gathered to honour the Mahatma. Ustad Amjad Ali Khan sahab accompanied us on the sarod, the most prized blessing of all blessings. We learned songs in several Indian languages — poems of inclusion and diversity, of harvest and love, of secularism and national pride. The songs were recorded so that children across India could sing long and learn about India and its plurality.
Mr Shashi Pal Sharma, our strict and sweet, fun and austere Sanskrit teacher, had few periods in which to give us a strong base in the language Mark Twain called “the mother of human speech.” Through his teaching, we developed linguistic rigour and a strong foundation in polyglot evolution. The hours that he gave to me after school moulded me into New Delhi’s undefeated inter-school Sanskrit recitation champion for several years. It wasn’t the winning that had me hungrily learning the strict rules of reciting the ancient language; it was his lessons on the rich allegories, fables, parables and traditions of India that the words embodied as hidden heft and depth. Today, as I travel far and wide, I hear words with a Sanskrit root, and when I do, I discover meaning and messages, directions, and purpose that others so easily miss.
Mrs Sabiha Hashmi, whom we lost earlier this year, was one of my art teachers and perhaps the one who impacted my life most holistically. Even though I was years younger than the youngest students in her senior art class, she saw in me what I didn’t see in myself and gave me a vehicle to channel my angst as I questioned my existence as a gay man at an age and time in India when there were no role models to help me feel any sense of positivity about the hand dealt to me by life. Because she gave me room in her class and, more importantly, in her heart, I was able to avoid much of the shame and depression, dark and dreary questioning, lonely teenage mood swings and harsh bullying by students as broken and challenged as I was.
Rating: 5