To my English teachers

Dear Rajam Ma’am, Vanaja Ma’am, Sheila Davis Ma’am, Sudha Aunty, Rajitha Aunty, Vimala Aunty, Lakshmi Aunty and Yasmeen Ma’am,

How did you do it? Please teach me, one more time.

Were you never afraid or unsure? Did you really know all your grammar rules by heart and did all the spellings always roll off your tongue? Did you ever sneak a peek at your phone’s autocorrect, or a dictionary, or a newspaper, or pretty much anything else to remind yourself of the difference between ‘stationery’ and ‘stationary’? Or did you, like we all believed, just know?

You see, as students we always feel like our teachers are invincible, all-knowing, unshakable. You walked into class with those notes in your hand and that look in your eyes, and every inch seemed to scream of confidence and assurance. We believed you. And all of a sudden, I am the teacher now, and I don’t know if my kids look at me the way I looked at you. What I do know is that I do take sneak peeks, that my lesson planning is more madness than method just now, and for every question I get asked, I send a silent prayer up that I know the answer, or at the very least, know where to find it.

Did our questions ever stump you? I don’t remember, but maybe I have forgotten. Did you ever tell us you will have to get back to us or was everything always on your fingertips? When you did ‘The Jabberwocky’ with us in class and introduced us to the brilliance of nonsense verse, did any of us ask you how it can be called nonsense once we read it with a key? If it makes sense all of a sudden, does it remain nonsense? Oh, how many questions there are that could be asked!

You see, when I enter the classroom, I am such a terrible mess of excitement and caution all at the same time. I can’t wait to open some more doors, read some more texts, and get them to write their own. The other day, when a girl told me she’d like to read horror in class and another boy mentioned his pick was adventure while the third wanted mystery, I told them the best way to answer those needs was to head to the library. And then I told them another great way to fill the void was to just go ahead and write their own. And my God, did they take that seriously. Just today, I read about imaginary tropical penguins that made the best birthday presents, and quests for iPhones in Ooty. I had pages that spoke of elephants trampling on farm produce, and road accidents. There were birthdays and suicides, hide-and-seek and college stories. And this was just today.

Did you ever tell your family about our essays? Did they amuse you, excite you, entertain you? When you picked up the red pen to correct our work, did you feel a rush of both privilege and responsibility? Because I know I did. That first time today when I signed ‘YR, 15/6’ on a notebook, I know I did. When you gave us feedback on every word we wrote, commenting on how to make things better and correcting our mistakes, did you ever worry that you were being too harsh on us, maybe killing our confidence? Did you know how much to push us, or did you never set boundaries and just let us fly as much as we could? And how did you know that was the right call?

You see, I only remember enjoying your classrooms, and when my kids ask me to make grammar fun, I am a little stumped. I keep trying to think back to when you taught us prepositions and direct/indirect speech. I wonder if we played games or sang songs, and if we did, what in the world were they? Your classrooms taught us what we need to know, your pens showed us that an empty sheet of paper always spells solace, your classes gave us the confidence to believe we had something to say. As part of prep for class, I picked up the notebook of essays I wrote in Class 10 and laughed to myself. Here were pages filled with adolescent writing, immature in most parts and plain contrived in others, and you have patiently peppered the margins with smileys and ‘good job’s. So many years later, dealing with adolescent writing, I remind myself of that patience every day.

Dear Ma’ams and Auntys, you taught me across schools and syllabi. You taught me across exam patterns and curriculum necessities. And yet, at the core of every classroom, the lesson remained the same.

Fall in love with the language.

Commit to expression.

Words will find their way to you.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

Go ahead and use preposterous words until you get them right.

No matter what, keep at it.

From the teacher who told me in Class 4 after an essay that was ripped off of Snow White that I could write to the teacher who saw me through literature in Class 12, I wish I could find my way back to your classroom today to ask you one thing – how did you do it?

Love,

An old student