Teachers' Day

It is customary to honour one's teachers on 5th September every year, for they play such an important part in shaping lives, attitudes and perceptions of young people.

I would therefore like to attempt to recount as many names as I can:
The earliest teacher I can recall was Mrs Fullinfaw who ran the school in faraway Balasore in the early 60s. Balasore was where my father was posted and as there was no school, Mrs Fullinfaw volunteered to teach the dozen or so kids of various ages. She was assisted by her mother or mother-in-law, a rather daunting lady, and her three children Michael, Valerie-Ann and Nigel who were tasked with various chores in addition to spellings, tables and sums. I don't know if she ever got paid for her exertions, or whether she was a qualified teacher at all. However no one complained, since everyone agreed that Anglo-Indians were great teachers and the Mums were only too glad to get the brats off their hands for a couple of hours each morning. Maj and Mrs Fullinfaw later migrated to Australia.

The next teacher I remember vividly was Mrs Lunn in Mount St Mary's Delhi Cantt. She tried hard to slap some maths into me, without much effect. I was too frightened of her to remember anything else and preferred turning the page of my maths notebook over the last lesson, till some twerp snitched on me. Then there was Miss Victor in my next school, St Xavier's, a nice enough lady, but I was a hopeless case in maths and an assortment of beastly kids in class didn't make my life any easier.

We moved to Poona in '68 and I began to enjoy school for the first time, in St Vincents. Those teachers were the kinds that aren't made any more - Mrs D'silva, Mrs D'lima, Mrs Coutinho, Mrs Sundarjee and so many other names now fading from memory; the legendary Fr Oesch who could teach us anything from German, to Physics to the correct technique of Pole Vault; the great Fr Romauld D'souza, who went on to set up XLRI. I caught up with this amazing and dedicated Jesuit years later when posted in Goa, where he was leading a retired life while providing a guiding hand to the Goa Institute of management. 

My father retired from service in '72 and I shifted school for the last time to Loyola, Poona. Loyola had been set up by that immortal Jesuit, Fr R Schoch, and as anyone who has known him will vouch, it was a privilege to study there while he was principal. A most well read and far sighted person who could understand the pulse of people, who could speak on virtually any subject, while keeping his audience riveted - I doubt if there will ever be anyone like him. 

Fr Schoch had the unique quality of inspiring everyone around him - teachers and students alike, he mixed freely with boys encouraging even the shyest to open up. He had clear ideas on what was needed to develop young boys into responsible men and he lived by the school motto, "Men For Others".

The teachers of Loyola lived up to their chief equally well - Fr Clement, Fr Catao, Mrs Gonsalves, Mr Teranikar, Mr Contractor, Mr Swamy, Mr Mahamuni, and many other faces that remain vivid, while the names have escaped.

As I moved into college, there was the teacher of the Maths coaching class attended by Sharad Sohoni, Sanjay Shirole, Nitin Shirole and myself. I was certainly the weakest, but that elderly dhoti clad bare-foot man using only a roll down black sheet as a board, certainly knew how to teach. I have completely forgotten his name as we only referred to him as "Mhatarya" (Marathi for old man). For the first time ever, I began to understand and enjoy Maths. To him I owe my eternal thanks.

Having joined the academy, teachers came to be known as instructors and while they came and went, no cadet can ever forget the Drill 'Ustads'. How can any one who was at the academy during 1977 - 80, ever forget Sub Maj Guman Singh of the Grenadiers. His voice could carry right across the drill square and his inspiring speeches of just the right length and at just the precise moment to revive tired cadets were the stuff that could easily match the speeches of Col Nathan R Jessep (Jack Nicholson - A Few Good Men) and Sgt Emil Foley (Louis Gosset Jr - An Officer and A Gentleman).

One learns important lessons of life from others as well - parents, friends, seniors, juniors and even rank strangers. From the good bosses one learns good things, while from the rest one learns the difference between right and wrong.
I learnt an important lesson of life from a complete stranger, an auto rickshaw driver - I pulled out money to pay him, but he didn't have change. I rudely told him, in the manner of a brash young officer, that it was not my problem. He looked me in the eye and calmly said, "You look educated, now learn to speak with respect as well" and drove off, leaving me clutching the money.