A Noble Teacher Ever Remembered

This happened in a small town surrounded by villages, and as there were no schools worth their salt around this location, the parents sent their children to the town schools. Hence, in the late fifties, it was the school and its teachers who ruled the roost. The illiterate parents used to tell the teachers to mindlessly torture the children in case any child lagged behind in studies. "We are an ignorant lot," they would lament, "at least let our sons go for a government job earning good money." There was also a conservative minority who thought that plenty of theoretical exercises and bookish knowledge was a waste, and hard work combined with working knowledge of literacy was good enough for life.

As a consequence, a teacher carrying a sturdy cane along with the textbook to the class was the order of the day! On that particular day, the students were waiting for their Tamil teacher to enter the class. Severe and stern to look at, he was the terror of truants and those who massacred the mother tongue with their rustic slang!

An unlucky boy from a nearby village had committed both of these heinous crimes of truancy as well as being vernacularly challenged. The profoundly upset teacher beat him black and blue, and the boy was bleeding and had a limp as an add-on. Another blow from the teacher was his last straw. The student blurted out, "My dad will come and take care of you properly! Have you heard of Pakkiri of Rajapuram? His knife has seen more blood than what I have shed today, and he will surely take care of you in a suitable manner… you..." Uttering that unspeakable word casually, he ran out of the class.

The boys from that village had heard of this notorious man who reveled in using his knife at the drop of a hat! Hesitantly, they came near their teacher to vouch that there were a few lucky one-legged and single-handed men in their area and one or two unlucky ones safe in their heavenly abode! None in the village had had the audacity to reprimand or annoy him. "Keep off the rogue’s way" was the motto around the locality!

That man didn't want his son to study further and wanted him to follow his trade, making money easily. But it was his wife who put her foot down and convinced him to send the boy to school. The Tamil teacher went numb with fear. The daily report from the boys of the man cursing him and sharpening his big knife further heightened his anguish, and he decided to take the matter to the higher-ups.

After verifying the facts about the man, the principal called for an emergency staff meeting with the Tamil teacher literally shivering in his pants. After advising the teachers to use their cane sparingly, the pros and cons were discussed. At the end, it was decided that they would go the Gandhian way of peaceful negotiation.

But who was to bell the cat? "Can we send the concerned teacher to his house to apologize?" was one suggestion. The Tamil teacher had a panic attack at the proposal. He declared that he would rather resign then and there than encounter that horror. "If not today, I can always get a job, but not my life back," he declared emphatically. Then one among the teachers said, "I will make a try."

The teachers were bewildered with this offer. They all knew that he had a big family of young children, and what if something untoward happened to this foolhardy man?! Was he after some vain glory?!

He landed in the village on his Hercules cycle as though on a holiday. The house of the notorious character was not big but neatly painted in terracotta color. He thought that this reddish tinge didn’t augur well for the purpose of his visit. But seeing the boy playing in the portico was indeed a good omen (instead of lying in bed), and the immediate absence of the man, at least near the doorway, portended well. The boy, seeing the teacher, ran inside and was pulling his reluctant mother to come outside, all the time shouting "Teacher! Teacher!"

She was frightened at the sight of a tall man standing at her doorstep and suddenly pulled her son away from that man! But the word "Sir," teacher aroused her immensely, and she started shouting, "You... you beat my son, made him bleed, and now you are standing at my doorstep. If you care for your life, run away from here before my husband comes to tear you apart." The boy tried to pacify his angry mother and ran and held the teacher's hand.

By this time, the other boys studying in the school from this locality gathered around the teacher. "Amma," said the son, "he is our good teacher. Ask the other boys. Will they come to see him if he is bad? You know he can draw the whole world map in five minutes... Would you like to see it, Amma? He is a big teacher... He can do it on our front wall... Please, Amma... Then I can draw the world like my teacher."

"Yes, Amma," the other children sang in a chorus. "The world map will be a nice decoration for the house!"

The manner in which the children were clinging to this teacher made the lady wonder, and she requested him to sit in the veranda and went inside to bring a mug of buttermilk, the normal courtesy in villages those days.

This man had the habit of having sweets in one of his pant pockets and chalks in the other. He looked at the terracotta wall. "This is my good fortune," he happily mused. "The terracotta wall which frightened me has become my ally now in a beautiful contrast with my white chalk!" As he distributed the sweets to the children, he called them around and started drawing the map of the Americas. The map progressed with the children identifying the countries and the capitals! The village had gathered around to look at this wonderment!

In the meantime, the father of the boy arrived in his full regalia. Before he could fathom the situation and the gathering in front of his house, his wife ran to him and, pulling him aside, started talking to him with great many hand gestures implying some sort of warning. A man, however strong he is, has his own Achilles' heel, and in this case, it turned out to be his better half!

When he wished the teacher with folded hands, the teacher was thoroughly flabbergasted, surprised at the miracle that was happening before his eyes!

The story indeed ended well with a proper explanation of how concerned the Tamil teacher was about his son’s education and an offer from our teacher to send the boy to his house for free tuitions in the morning! The father was well pleased and reprimanded his son for his truancy and lack of attention in the class.

Now the scene shifts from the fifties incident to a current episode in 2017!

One of this teacher’s grandsons, now involved in organic farming and interested in greening his town, was looking for open spaces to plant traditional trees. When he went to meet the concerned official in the government department, there was an elderly man also waiting. As they were chatting, the talk turned towards the family, and when the boy informed about his father, the man got up and, affectionately folding both his hands with great reverence, exclaimed that he was the student of his grandfather and his son was the student of his father. "But for your grandfather, our village would not be what it is today. People still talk about him. If he saw a person smoking, he would offer him a sweet and with a pep talk request him to go off the habit. He knew all the families and would smoothly sort out any problem of any household. He was beyond the staunch adherence of the caste system of the villages and accosted all the male members as 'Raja' (king) so much so that he himself was called 'Raja Sir.'"

This stranger at the government office could not be stopped. "If there are so many educated people with great values in the village today, the credit solely goes to your grandfather. My dear boy, if you go to any village around here, you can be sure of the repetition of this same story! You are indeed a lucky man!" he exclaimed.

The grandson couldn’t believe what he had heard and wondered how this was possible after more than fifty years! He was just an ordinary teacher, but how could he metamorphose into an enigma par excellence holding the place in the hearts of people? He was a handsome six-footer, but all the handsome men didn’t achieve it? His sincerity...? All the sincere men didn’t accomplish it. He is still a mystery, an enigma, yet a morning star ever guiding humanity.