A date with Mrs Sait

One teacher in Muzzafarnagar is in the news nowadays—for all the wrong reasons. Humiliating and harming a child with discrimination and corporal punishment is the worst representation of a teacher anywhere. Miles away, in a school in Bengaluru, students prepare to honour one of the best. Kind, caring, dedicated, affectionate, and universally loved, Mrs Sait was one of the most enduring memories of my childhood.

As part of Old Boys Day at St Joseph’s Boys High School, middle-aged men will gather to felicitate one of their favourite teachers from the seventies. She taught us Hindi and biology in high school. But she taught us a lot more. As one of the lone lady teachers in the upper classes of an all-boys school, Mrs. Sait personified all that a teacher needed to be. While explaining the parts of the hibiscus, she could be focused and demanding. She would firmly steer us back to the subject while distracted backbenchers giggled at a private joke. She would peer at us through horn-rimmed glasses if there was a scuffle in the corridors. She would hand back test papers with a terse can do better scribbled on the top right corner, even when we had failed miserably.

She always saw the best in all of us and recognised potential in even the naughtiest student. She would have a pat on the back for someone who was doing well, a word of concern for a student whose domestic crisis was preventing him from scoring well, or a gentle admonition for the laid-back jock who had forgotten his homework again. When Tosher, our class entertainer, was in the middle of his most colourful story and Mrs Sait entered the class, she would sometimes let him finish with an amused smile on her lips.

Those were good days—we studied in a school where no one knew or was bothered by caste, creed, religion, socio-economic status, or background. Neither the teachers nor the students knew or cared about who your father was or what your parents did. The thin slices of poly-mango slathered with red chilli powder and salt, the crisp samosas from the tuck shop, the lunch boxes—all these passed from hand to hand without discrimination. One moment, we would be rolling around fighting on the field, and the next, we would be walking back to class with bruises and banter. In the midst of all this, Mrs Sait strode like a symbol of all that was good in the world.

Her Hindi classes were very special to me. She introduced me to a rich and beautiful world of vernacular literature. Prem Chand’s Boodi Kaaki made me cry, and Kabir’s dohas still resonate with me years later.

As a frail, dimunitive figure walks slowly to the stage to receive a scroll of honour, thousands of students all over the world will whisper a prayer of gratitude. Carl Jung said, “One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.”

Thank you, Mrs Sait, for being that teacher.