By F M Britto
Raipur: The first teacher that I had encountered was my first grade teacher in my village’s government school. Those days we never had any modern play schools, nurseries and kindergartens.
My father had admitted me in the school one year ahead of my school age, advancing one year of my birth year, not to be a nuisance to my mother who had to look after my younger brother. Since my mental faculties had not yet developed, my learning capacities were poor. It had been always poor anyhow.
Later on when I became a priest, at times on the road I saw this teacher, walking fast from his village, in his usual khadi white shirt and folded dhoti. He used to look at me. But presuming that he would not remember me, one stupid among the hundreds of his first grade kids, I never wished him with the usual folded hands.
One day my father astonished me saying that whenever this Hindu teacher met my father, he always enquired about me. I felt then ashamed of my disrespectful attitude towards my teacher who had taught me to read and write the first syllables of my mother tongue. I resolved then that when I meet him next time, I would go and greet him. But on the following year when I went for my home holidays, he was no more. May be he will come to greet me in heaven.
Another primary school teacher I vividly remember is my fourth grade teacher. Nagappa Sir was a terror to us – at least to me – because he taught us mathematics. I always sat next to a boy who was smart in maths and was also generous to me to show his slate or note book so that I could copy it. In spite of such care, at times he would catch me. With his red face and wide eyes, he would pinch my tender cheeks and screw my bulging stomach. All these chastisements didn’t help an inch to get his arithmetic into my stony head. Rather they made me detest him that I always avoided to greet this monster in the school.
This Hindu teacher, from the neighboring village, was there attending my priestly ordination, held first time in my village. At the end of the ceremony, he too came along with the crowd, kissed my palms and greeted me with his folded hands. That gesture was more precious than the gift that he had brought along. He had later remarked to my father, “I am very happy that at least one of my students became a (Catholic) priest.”
Whenever I went for my home holidays, if this Nagappa Sir happened to see me on the way, he would get up from his place, walk up to me and greet me with his folded hands and smilingly enquire about my whereabouts. I only wished then that he never remembered having called me “Ass” and the canings that he had mercilessly showered on my palms and bottom.
Another time when I went for my home holidays, my mother informed me that my school headmaster was bed-ridden. “Better go and meet him,” she suggested.
That evening itself I had collected some village kids and walked to the neighboring village to visit the ailing teacher, purchasing for him some fruits and biscuits on the way. As soon as Ratnam sir saw me from his bed, his bony, unshaven face gave into a big smile. Though he attempted to get up and sit on his bed or greet me with his folded hands, his feeble body wouldn’t obey his commands. He signed me to take my seat on the nearby bench. Since he couldn’t answer me, his aged wife and daughter responded.
During my conversation with them, Ratnam sir was trying to communicate something to his wife, but they couldn’t understand his gesture.
“Tea?” his daughter asked him.
That was not what he wanted to say.
After many failed attempts, his wife asked him, “Pray?”
The Hindu teacher smiled and nodded his head.
I said a small prayer for him and his large family before I left the house. His smiles expressed his appreciation for my prayer and my visit.
A few days after I had left home, my mother wrote to me that teacher expired.
When I was in the fifth grade, a young teacher used to come to our class to take the last period. As he came to the class, he would summon me, quietly thrust some paisa and a steel vessel in my hand. I had to walk to my village canteen, purchase for him two hot vadas and a cup of tea. And then I had to reach back the school, before the last bell went.
When he started using me like this every day, I got fed up. Not only I had been missing my lessons, but I had to walk under the hot sun, up and down two miles extra every day on the stony road, carrying in both my arms the teacher’s burning tea and vadas.
One day my companion told me that he was calling me because that new teacher had been told that I was a sincere boy, who would not steal his money, nor eat his refreshments.
On the following evening, when I was returning from the canteen, I pinched a little bit of his vada and sipped once his tea.
That trick relieved me.
On the following year, he started sending another simple boy. Then a new headmistress – a spinster, a Christian, had been appointed. On the first day the slender and tall Miss Mary happened to notice this boy returning to the school, carrying in both his arms the teacher’s refreshments. Confronting the boy, she ordered him to keep the things in her office and tell that teacher to meet her after the class.
That was the end of his hot vadas and sweet tea.
After a few days, that strict disciplinarian Miss was packed to some far away school. And I have never seen or heard about her afterwards.
(Father F M Britto is the parish priest of Catholic Church at Parsahi (Bana) in Janjgir-\Champa district of Chhattisgarh state. It comes under the archdiocese of Raipur. He could be reached at francismbritto@gmail.com)