Thursday, September 3, 2009

Teachers' Day

“All the teachers deserve our respect and praise, because a teacher is like a candle that gives light to others by burning itself” -so ran the starting line of the essay we used to write on “My Favourite Teacher ”, courtesy, our teacher Mr. Gupta, mentioned below.

Teachers’ Day is just around the corner and there can be no better time for me to remember the teachers who shaped my life. I studied most of the part in a Govt-aided private school in Shimla. I fondly remember Mr. Batra , the Principal, hopefully a nonagenarian now, an excellent teacher of English and Math, who went out of the way to take extra classes to prepare us for University/ Board Exams. (up to 1969, it was Punjab University, which conducted Matric & Higher Secondary Exams and H.P. Board , established in the same year, conducted Exams for the first time in 1970) . Then there was late Mr. Ganju, Vice Principal, who later became an Awardee-cannot recollect, whether National or State- who taught us Physics and Chemistry in Higher Secondary. The notes he dictated were so good, that we never felt any need to go through the text books. I equally revere and remember, late Sh. Bhavanand, our Hindi teacher, who’s USP was his sense of humour. Guru Lal sir- Math teacher and Mr. Vijay Raina- Science teacher left no stone unturned to make the subject as interesting as possible. I may make mention of Sh. Narata Ram, who used to teach Math and Social Studies in lower classes and was a store house of such formulae in Algebra and Geometry, as are not found in the text- books.

Gyani Balkar Singh, a very young Sikh gentleman with a flowing beard who taught us Punjabi right from class V through Class XI also deserves special mention, not only for his teaching skills, but also for being a very down to earth gentleman. He was a narrator par excellence and on the request of students of all the classes that he taught, narrated the story of his marriage, right from the departure of baraat to griha pravesh, which the students listened to with rapt attention.

Last but nor the least, I would like to make mention of Mr. Gupta, who came to teach us Hindi as an eighteen year old, but could teach English, Social Studies,etc. with equal ease and while studying and teaching side by side, rose very high in the education field and is still doing very well. It is to his credit that we learnt to write first paragraph of introduction whether, it was an essay or a story as simple as “The Thirsty Crow” . All these teachers (and most of the others also) were wedded to the profession and put their hundred percent in teaching.

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