Mr.Milton and a few others...

I got up today and tuned myself onto a few characters that surfaced in front of my eyes.

Mr.Milton - The guy was 6 foot 2 inches tall. He had a tiger’s teeth attached as a pendant to his heavy jewelry over his neck. He had his own fashion statement showing off his hair in his chest. He always had untrimmed hair and an ambushed beard. He rode a bullet and his favorite statement – “I don’t get paid enough even to fuel my bike”.

Mr.Vellai Chammy - “White God” in English. He sported white pants and was more charismatic and stylish than Mr.Milton. He was instrumental in motivating youngsters.

The Rosario sisters. These sisters are in all shapes and sizes. They are instrumental behind my writing here.

Swarnalatha and Angayarkanni – Ladies whose voices can be heard for a few kilo meters but with pleasing personalities.

Radhika and Shanthi.

Radhika was the one who was so concerned and affectionate towards me. Radhika would smile at me suddenly which would shock others around. More than others, the timing would shock me. Bolt from the blue! Her favorite line was “What do you think? Am I sitting here and hatching eggs?” She had a huge glass which covered half of her face and a long threaded hair style.

I know Shanthi more as an emotional vessel than anything else. I remember the moments when rumors spread like a forest fire spreading the message that she had scratched the name of one of my buddies in her arms and that too with a blade. Her favorite line was “Please… Please… I am going.”

You might wonder what these characters have to do with me. Well, they were some of the interesting characters who were associated with my 14 years of school education at S.D.H Jain Vidyalaya, Madurai. There are lots of people left out. May be there should be a seperate post on them very soon. A little more detailing would be interesting here.

Mr.Milton was the guy who was expected to perform better than any other staff by the school management. He was a totally different Math teacher. He set strict rules on even the order in which we had to answer the question paper. If some body did not follow it, he wouldn’t simply evaluate the answer sheet and would score 0. He knew what he had to do to produce centums year after year. Now I heard that he has moved out of the school. Petrol rates are too high these days you see!

Mr.Vellai Chamy was the guy who talked about the subject I hated the most – Chemistry. When he left, he left us crying with a very emotional speech. Probably the first time that we realized that we would be really missing someone.

Roasarios – still play an active part of the school. They teach the KG kids – probably the only time I loved school life so much. Even today, they remember everybody by name and across generations. They are part of most of the families.

Swarnalatha and Angayarkanni – teachers who taught us Tamil. They gave me a tough time with half a mark deducted for every spelling mistake. When the situation reached a stage were I saw my marks going negative, I switched to Sanskrit (for my second language paper) and managed to pass out by writing the exam in english! Thank god!

Shanthi taught us Botany. She would often leave the class not being able to manage the torrid times that we had to offer her. But she was quite generous in awarding high scores. Even if we din't get one, we could pamper her and get it done, before the scores reached the rank cards.

Radhika taught us English. I guess she left the school when my batch was moving towards the higher secondary. It’s a pity that I have lost the personal greeting card that she had given to me when she left.

Happy teacher’s day!! Thanks for the seeds that you sowed in us. No matter what, we still remember each one of you. We thank you for being a part of our success stories.