Penning the Pedagogues - 4

More rule breaking, more giggling, more consciousness about looks, more fun and of course cool navy blue ties……….high school had finally arrived.

HIGH SCHOOL
Mrs. Srilatha (Math, Chemistry) : She had this eerie air about her. Her sarcasm could cut you like a knife and you know you are in trouble when she gives you that creepy smile. Firm with her stiff upper lip but she was nice occasionally. Most people said that she just was that way to cover up for her lack of knowledge. On Children’s Day, she dressed up in a Hawaiian shirt and yellow chinos (yuck!)

Mrs. Jaya Samson (Math, Physics) : You could never sleep in her class. Was she that good? No, she was OK, she just screamed a lot. She made it a point to drill each and every point in her head but I’d rather listen to the sound of a drill. But don’t get me wrong, she was nice, she was just monotonous and droning

Mrs. Indira Rao (Math) : This lady had a firm grip on her subject and firmer grip on her students. She was plump and jolly but strict at the same time. Kinda like a scary teddy bear. You wanted to hug her and run away from her at the same time. But she was very helpful and supportive to us during our Boards

Mrs. Rugmini (Biology) : She was the mother of one of our batchmates, Sharanya but she never showed any favouritism. She was warm, kind and friendly and was an excellent teacher.

Mrs. Shashikala (Biology) : She was a very good teacher too. All you need is a neat handwriting and 50/50 in two consecutive exams and she’ll exemplify you even in front of your juniors (that’s me!) She was nice with helping me for my Genetics paper by lending me books. Her pet phrase was “Do you understand?” 10A recorded her saying it for a total of 131 times in the span of one period. Woah.

Mrs. Durga (Physics) : Durga symbolizes power and boldness…..and she was its living antithesis. Meek and mousy, she could barely raise her voice or hold the class’s attention for more than 5 seconds. The only concept that she taught well was “The working of a Xerox Machine”. Oh, and she so completely sucks at shotput

Mrs. Lalita Juneja (Hindi) : Excuse the strong language but she was a complete loony, demented, freaky nutcase!!! She derived some kind of pleasure from terrorizing students and embarrassing them. She twisted my finger during an exam because I was writing “before time”. One day, just because of a spasm of pain in my shoulder, she sent trudging across the entire school to get myself medicated and accused me of wasting her time!!! Her crassness just added to her personality. Our talented seniors had composed a poem in her memory :
“Hamari Hindi Teacher hain Mrs. Lallu,
Jo Girati hain uski pallu,
Aur uthati hain use hallu hallu”

Mrs. Indu (Hindi) : She was at any rate better than her predecessor. She was all smiles and jokes and fun inside class but outside, her face was indistinguishable from a stone gargoyle. A very opinionated person as well. We got to hear her views right from leaders of the yore to modern advertisements. She was quite liberal with praise as she was with rebukes. She told me to jump off a building because I backed out of the debate (Yikes!)

Mrs. Ribero (English) : She was quite a darling and she loved me naturally (I’ve been a favourite of English Teachers ever since I learnt the alphabet!) She was very sweet and soft-spoken and a very good music composer, songwriter and playwright and always helped put up our school stage shows. She was a good natured and a very God-fearing person. My only discrepancy with her was that she detested Harry Potter.


Ms. Elvina (English) : She liked me too but in a weird sort of way. Force something on me, if I do it right, praise me in a critical sort of way, screw it, yell at me. She was unmarried and so believed that she could mingle with us better. Um….not. Heard a lot of equestrian jokes about her too. She was fondly known as “Elamma” and I added “Elakamma” later in a fit of post-Meenaxi enthusiasm. But its true that she gave me a lot of opportunities in entering essay competitions and all.

Mrs. Hema (S.U.P.W) : She was boring. Period. Her ideas were boring. Period. S.U.P.W was a very boring period. Period.

Mrs. Tejeshwari (History) : History is boring and so was the teacher….so thought the rabblement but not me. She was high up on my respect list. Although she liked to have her finger in every pie at times, she mostly kept to herself and was level headed. Rumour has it that inspite of her impassive nature, I was her favourite student and why wouldn’t I be? I did top History in my batch consecutively for 3 years!

Mrs. Vinaysheela (Computers) : The post of Computer teacher at St. Ann’s was equivalent to that of Defence Against Dark Arts at Hogwarts. Nobody lasted for more than a year. But she lasted for two and she was quite good. But she was quite temperamental and a little insecure. I think she nurtured a secret wish of being a drummer because she liked to practice her moves on our heads and say “Hopeless Girls!” She was a funny dancer (refer to memory of “Yaad Piya ki Aane Lagi”)

Mrs. Shanti (Computers) : Did I mention we had two Computer teachers? One of them changed by the dozen but she remained, as fixed as ever. She used to scare me when I was little but she’s really alright. Just a little lethargic, lazy and misinformed that RANDOM NUMBERS WERE NOT A PART OF THE BOARD SYLLABUS!

Mrs. Celine (Games) : I would be doing her a grave injustice if I had mentioned her in any of my earlier posts because she was terror personified to all the little kids but she was an absolute favorite with us seniors. She was strict with us too but the rules were a little lax. She had this way of making things sound funny even by keeping a gaunt face. She was damn sweet! She’s the one who keeps our school going because if it wasn’t for her martinet policies St. Ann’s would have disintegrated into a place full of, as she would like to call it, “Junglee Maddus” Oh, she liked to call me See – yonee.

Mrs. Anumathai (Chemistry) : She was really sweet and nice and a very good teacher as well. A little lazy, yes, but everybody has shortcomings. She spoke real good English too and reminded me of Smita Patil. On the last day, she gifted each and evrery one of us with little prayer books. She offered to compensate for the slam book she lost by paying me for it and when I refused to accept it, she told me to consider it as a gift and her blessing and that really made me cry.

Mrs. Jaya Rajgopalan (Geography): I would say she was like the sun………big, round and full of gas. Things were fine in the beginning but somehow she hardened towards me the minute she found out that I was taking IIT tuitions. She had her own set of favourites and was of course “the best teacher in the twin cities”. Now if you were such a model teacher then you should know that the first quality of a teacher is to be UNBIASED. She unceremoniously booted me out from her favourites but of course she made it look like I could hang around the fringes. Uh…..no thank you, not interested! It was disgusting to see the way she pushed herself in the limelight and made a spectacle of herself and people gave her a wide berth. Sorry you didn’t make it to my respect list.

Mrs. Bernadine (Geography) : She had very large shoes to fill..literally. She wasn’t a “model teacher” but she was boring, a little annoying and real stingy with marks. She always taught with a pointer in her hand which we liked to call “Bernie ki Mooch”

Mrs. Indira Narayan (English) : Meet the topper of my respect list. Teacher par excellence, I can’t describe her to you. Graceful, dignified, good command over her English and a responsible citizen, you simply stand in awe of this lady! She’s very tech savvy too and that made her really popular with her students. I think it goes without saying that she adored me and vice versa. A good sense of humour and had an air of intelligence around her. She disliked Harry Potter too which was a real pity because otherwise I think we would have made the ideal student-teacher pair

Sr. Antonia (Principal) : The ringleader of our crazy circus, the man (er..woman) behind the show. Under her reign, I had seen some good and entirely crazy policies but she was a nice person but she wasn’t very articulate. Once while introducing me to some ex-students she said to me, “These are your seniors” and turning to them “This is your junior” Uh…OBVIOUSLY!!! But of course she led an austere life as a nun. She only had like a split A.C, refrigerator, divan, high speed Internet on a super computer and as I found out today from Harmeet, an Ipod in her office. Really, she leads a very simple life…