Sir

I stopped in my tracks! Was this really G sir? Since I was still some distance from the grocery shop, I still wasn’t sure.

Those were days when parents believed that schools were just too crowded to really understand what was being taught and teachers were too caught up managing the class to do justice to teaching. So Sir as we called G sir was the ideal solution in these so-called crucial years of our education.

Sir was a veteran teacher and had a piercing gaze behind thick glasses that could literally burn into an errant student. He never raised his voice; its timbre was enough to command our attention, fear and grudgingly our respect too. His teaching methodology was more logic-oriented than our school’s “by rote” teaching. Sir would make sure the concepts behind the subject matter were made clear and help figure out the rest for ourselves. His notes, tests and assignments were exhaustive and written in his own hand before being photocopied and passed on to us. The tension in the air during each of his tests was palpable. He would sit at the head of the table and look around while we literally and figuratively sweated with our answer sheets.

I remember the comfortable trackpants and t-shirts he used to wear always. I remember him scanning school report cards after exams and the shiver down my spine then. I remember his agitation at what he termed incorrect concepts taught us by school teachers and threatening to castigate the said teacher. I also remember the kindly twinkle in those gray-brown eyes, the thick moustache and large slurpy noise made while sipping on his customary mug of tea. I remember him taking us out for a picnic to a nearby beach during 10th grade, the last time we met as a batch.

Whenever I run into any old batchmates or even other students lucky enough to be tutored by Sir, we realize we actually revered and loved him for what he had been to us - a great teacher! Funnily, none of us had really kept in regular touch with him after school.

I’d reached the shop; it WAS sir. The glasses were still thick, the moustache white but still thick. I smiled and he smiled back, “How are you, Sachin?”. I looked fondly at the frail but still great man and said “I’m well, Sir! And you?”