Teachers' Day Tribute to All My Teachers

A Happy Teachers' Day to all my teachers. In every walk of life, we all have had teachers of different kinds- some of them who teach us to function as human beings, some formally educate us and some teach us how to not be a bad teacher. We have different labels for every kind of teacher- parents, teacher, coach, trainer, friend etc.

This Teachers' Day, I would like to extend my gratitude to my parents and family for teaching me everything from my first step to my first word, for giving me the values I cherish and the guidance provided to me whenever I needed it and not to forget the innumerable recipes and quick tips and hacks to make life easy. You gave me the survival skills needed to fend the world- thank you!

I would like to thank my mentor and coaches for enabling a satisfying professional life, for bringing me out of my shell and developing me not only into a trained resource but also a confident human being.

Today I would specifically like to thank my English teacher in middle school in New Delhi for making me love literature and inculcating a habit of reading and writing in me. This teacher (let us call her Mrs. RT in this blog), was really special. I loved attending her classes and never liked to miss them. I specifically remember her taking us through Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. The book was a part of our curriculum. Mrs. RT had tremendous story telling skills and when she took us through the book, it felt like we were amidst the characters in the book and very much a part of the story. I never wanted her classes to end. On lazy days, it was knowing that we had her class, motivated me to go to school. She encouraged us to read and write about what we read. She also encouraged us to write biographies and autobiographies by pretending to be someone else- a gardener, a porter, a potter etc.  I genuinely found my love for reading and writing from her. She encouraged us to be creative.

I think about what a wonderful teacher she was quite often and yesterday, I ended up googling for her name after all these years. Turns out, she became the principal of the same school and won an award from the Government for Education Excellence and Educationist of the Year, a few years back. She truly deserved those accolades. I did write to the school to convey my message to her. Thank you Ma'am for being a terrific teacher.