17

Back to school

While working now at my desk, I am reminded of my English teacher in school who once told, “Cows are not allowed in this school” to one of my friends whose anklets were tinkling away to glory. Now, when I hear the next-cube-girl’s bangles jingle as she types on her keyboard, I realize the magnitude of irritation caused due to these kinds of fancy things!

I started scribbling down this post thinking I shall go on & on about my annoyance at her bangles! But now I think I rather write about something I’d love to cherish …about the fabulous people in my life to recollect nostalgic memories I shared with them!

In the middle of theory of relativity and 3-dimensional geometry and economics and genetics, English hours were such a breather! How I loved listening to stories of O.Henry and Charles Dickens! …and how we were forced to by-heart ‘Daffodils’ and ‘If’ and the ‘Mending Wall’ to ultimately puke them into our answer sheets!

Thinking about English teachers, I am reminded of this ‘most happening miss’ who was extremely fond of giving her students a lot of gyan during morning assembly on varied topics. For Chinmayans of Kannur… here is the clue: She is famous for her perfectly round bindhi and neatly tied bun. If on Monday she talks about, “I see shoe prints on the wall near 11th standard classroom. I suppose we have boys and girls studying here and not spiders or reptiles!” on Tuesday, she will give anticipated highlights on the consequences if the students continue to misbehave during prayer time.

An adorable darling she is - the teacher who taught us “To Sir with love”! She, who was also terrifically bothered about cleanliness and punctuality, expected us brats to come in sparkling white shoes and ultra clean shirts and trousers and pinafores …thus compelling us to fight over the black board duster every day morning – to rub our shoes with the magical multipurpose gadget!

A cute tiny thing… fair & lovely was the teacher who recited so beautifully - about the phoenix bird who rose from its own ashes! A delightful experience it was, to listen to her repeat expressively the verses of the poem. However, little she knew that we were mostly flattered by her charm than what we were being taught! J

Apart from them, many other teachers taught me a lot other things – from “chubby cheeks” to “A for Apple” to “Robinson Crusoe” to “grammar” to “writing” to reading” to “calligraphy” to every bit of operation I do with English alphabets, words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs! Cheers, love and hugs to all of them!

…because of them, I have this blog and I write to you!

By the way, the bangles are still jingling …however I am not as irritated as I was before!

Chinmayans and non-chinmayans – Do you also want to share with us, your experiences with teachers in school?

17 comments:

Dr Roshan Radhakrishnan said...

what immediately comes to mind is the amount of fun we used to have with sunil sir and rajendran sir ( maths and physics )... Both were great teachers but even greater friends.

I remember a certain expressionless chemistry class teacher whom we finally drove mad asking her very sweetly 'madam. How can a substance be flammable and inflammable at the same time?'.. U see, we had got news from the other class that they had confused her a lot with that just an hour ago.

Was talking abt a lot of such incidents just a fortnight ago with some of the old batchmates in kannur.. Always fun.

Shiva said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shiva said...

So true, loved those English lessons...we had a "miss" teaching Robinson Crusoe that made me fall in love with adventures...one other "miss" heaped such praise on my simple letter after the exam that she made me feel I was Shakespeare incarnate! :)

Then, those poems, daffodils, the road not taken, Ode on a Grecian Urn, loved them all!! :)

Anita Jeyan said...

You're so right...English classes were stress busters...and while reading this post I remembered my English teacher of high school...She taught us Shakespeare's Hamlet , "Discovery of India", Merchant of Venice and lots of poetry...she was the sweetest...how dramatic her expressions were,how involved she was and how she showcased the basic fact that she adored her subject and enjoyed every moment of teaching... her vocabulary was so awesome, that even when she talks casually she did it so perfectly that it made us want to write it down!!!

I totally loved English lessons..and how I missed it after 12th standard...after reading this I realized that I still miss it...

And do you know what else is annoying other than jingling bangles in the workplace? Mobile ringtone volumes at level 8!!! Such people get calls all the time...! I am now experiencing it, and soon that guy will see his mobile flying out of the window.

Gr8 read...sorry for the long comment :-(

Anonymous said...

God... you remember which teacher taught you which project?

As always, i loved this post too! You are just too good at recollecting things! :)

Rgds,
Preeth

dr.antony said...

Whatever,your English teachers would be proud of you.
I learned English from my Malayalam teachers,and that shows.No one taught us how to pronounce words properly.It was the same,even when I joined the college.
It was like, ' under standing people will suffer' if you have heard the story.

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ Dr Roshan – Do you remember her answer to this insightful question?! Would love to know…
And yes, it is always fun to share the laugh with friends thinking about those good old days :)

@ Shiva – So, Mr. Shakesphere… what are u doing in your MBA classes? ;) The last 3 lines of ‘The road not taken’ still continues to be exploited! Hehehe… kudos to Robert Frost! :P

@ Anita – Cheers to your awesome English teacher and also to all the fabulous English teachers around the world :)
I totally agree – disturbing mobile phones in office deserve to be thrown out of the window. Go ahead… ;) ;)
And… u need not be sorry abt the long comment; I loved it :)

@ Preeth – Thanks Preeth; u have always been so encouraging.

@ Dr Antony – Thanks a ton and welcome to my blog :)
And what is the ‘under standing’ story?

Bikram said...

reminded me of my school days.. the fun we had by the way I must tell you that I was an OUTSTANDING student .. :- always standing out of the class :)

we learnt all that from teachers .. brings back memories ...

R. Ramesh said...

my english teacher was a gr8 woman who motivated me to do well..many other teachers jus wrote me off..

Rohan said...

So its a universal fact that English classes were stress busters!! The class was totally fun and informal..
Our ma'am had finished d syllabus early and made us read novels in the class.. Any novels or books we can bring, simply sit and read..

Girish said...

English was my most fav subject in school! :)
But our teachers wouldn't let us read random novels during the class hour..
I used to read novels in boring classes by keeping it on my lap & reading stealthily! Hehe..
Till my Sanskrit maam caught hold of me in 10th & brought it to an end! :P
Your post reminded me of other very fond memories!
My maths teacher was the one I was smitten by & I did extremely well in that subject..!
Good times :)

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ Bikramjit - Oh well, Mr. Outstander... ur blog posts are amazing! :)

@ R. Ramesh - ..and u excelled! :) Your teacher should be really really glad!

@ Rohan - Wow! that is a brilliant idea; shud be replicated! :)

@ Girish - which means u r an all rounder! :) All the best in life! :)

Nona said...

The jingle did help you go down the memory lane! Ask her to jingle more.

Nice post!

Pink Mango Tree said...

@ Nona - Thanks Nona! :)

Enterprise Mobility Management said...

Your article remained my school..

Anonymous said...

Shalini dear, I just have one more post on your blog to be read. Was reading you continuously for the last 4 or 5 days or I don't know even more. I read you for the first time after you out of the blue came and commented on my blog. When I started reading your blogs, I became your fan. In the last few years, I read so many blogs. But you still happen to be my all time favourite. Thank you for all your posts there. Your sense of humour is just adorable. The words you choose to use is something which I always appreciate.

I am inspired by you and now after 5 years of blogging I feel like maintaining my blogs also neat, which as of now is more or like a scrap book. :p Probably, I might even copy your colour coding technique. ;) I am sorry.. :D Haven't seen anybody else doing that. That I guess is something which came out of your creative mind, isn't it?

Btw, I decided to comment on this post because I realised that I had passed on your blog link to our charming English miss with a neatly tied bun and a perfectly round bindi just a week back!!!

Keep blogging. Will keep looking for updates on this page. I am a bit sad while writing this note here. coz I am just left with one more blog post here which is not read. But it is ok. I might come back and re read all your posts once again! ;) Many of your posts, I already read more than once. Things which I have read some 4 or 5 years back, I read them again this time.

Btw, my favourite post of yours is the one about your interview at Dubai. :) I am not sure if that really happened. But, I am not at all surprised if it really did. :)

Let me read the last post and close my day. Will be coming back here for updates.

With loads of love,

- Hope you know who this is. :)

Pink Mango Tree said...

Better late than never; only now I read your comment. Thanks a lot, it is nice to get flattered once in a while :) I like it :p :p However the truth is, I myself has forgotten the existence of this blog.

And will you be kind enough to let me know who you are? Please????? :)

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