Teachers Day

A little note to my schoolmates from KV Tamabaram , from a discussion on Good and Bad Teachers

My two bits on Teachers (in bytes)

Both my parents have been teachers ever since I knew them!!

Thus had the fortune to be "taught" both at home as well as School.

Dad was a Professor of English, and thus in a silent way, nurtured my aptitude for word play and Limericks especially. He let us learn rather than taught us. Mum, on the other hand, was a nursery teacher. She was loved by her children immensely and took nurturing children to a great extent. The flexibility she exhibited at school transformed into firmness at home. She was the one we were a little scared of at home. The verbal ruler she used , and sometimes the physical one, taught us about discipline, and more importantly, we discovered (learnt/innovated) of methods on how to evade detection whenever we indulged, lets say, in behaviour that attracted admonishing!

Thus, between Dad and Mum at home, we learnt a lot about life.

Dad taught us some morals. For Example, one that always remains firmly implanted, is when I was suspected of smoking ( I say suspected purely due to the fact that while everyone knew that I was smoking, I imagined that the strong overpowering flavour of Minty and Supari, could easily camouflage the "mild" fragrance of cigarettes). His stern advice was " if you want to smoke, use your own hard earned money, not mine. " . Mum of course was far more vocal and a little physical.
When I moved out of KV Tambaram, there was an option to join Vanavani (ICSE) or KVIIT. The problem was that Dad was principal at Vanavani..... It took my Dad to understand my plight. A Princis son!!!! Get badgered by your opponents and friends. Do well and it's because you're Princis son. Do bad, and you're the blacksheep of the family. Do nothing and yet be ostracised by friends who want to make Princi or other jokes!! So I studied at KV IIT, escaping the direct wrath of teachers and classmates. Yet our Princi (M T Sreenivasa Iyengar, respectfully shortened to MT) wouldn't hesitate to call up Dad on occasions of minor mis-demeanours.

Life has been tough I would say , but I'd do anything to go back and re-live those stressful moments of school life. I remember the whacking, thrashing that our Sanskrit Panditji gave me for having thought he heard me call him by the local name of the " kudumi"(a short ponytail on an otherwise shaven head, most often on the head of a pundit!!). It wasn't me !! But I got a thrashing of my life, that Drove what few shlokas I did have within, out! He later apologised when Thomas Abraham, very gallantly went to him later, privately, and owned to having used the offending synonym. Thomas got brownie points from all for being honest. I live on with a mental block that's has anything to do with the language of the Gods!!

Thus on Teachers day, I'd like to thank my teachers for putting in and taking out various pieces of a puzzle in me. Is the picture complete? I don't think so.

Cheers
Ram
PS I am a strong believer that character building starts at home and can only be moulded in School. The stronger the clay, the better the pot. The hands that mould can determine the shape, but not the strength.