A student’s best friend
We were in Class 6 when Sheila joined our school and became our class teacher. Around her were stalwarts of the profession. Their reputation preceded them: Mrs. Punjabi who taught Shakespeare really well, every now and then between her nap sessions in class, Mrs. Liu, the Hindi teacher who belonged to the shrinking Chinese community of Calcutta, Mrs. Ganguly, the geography teacher whose classes on the Great Indian Monsoon are still talked about in the alumni circles. Mrs. Ghosh who always carried photographs of her children who were settled in the US and showed them to every new batch — “Americans always have this huge hamburger and a large glass of coca-cola for lunch. I’ve been there once — it’s a different world”, she would tell everyone. There were also the sick bastards: sadists, molesters, and harassers but we’ll talk about them some other time.
As a new teacher, there was pressure to make a mark and Sheila thought of something innovative — of being every student’s best friend. She announced in class that she will be the ‘friend, philosopher and guide’ for us students and that we should feel free to open ourselves up to her about anything and everything without the fear of being judged.
The class was hitting puberty (at least most of us were) and Sheila didn’t realize what was about to hit her. Five boys went up to her, one by one, confessing they were in love with the girl who came first in class. Each one asked Sheila to help dissuade the rest so that he could pursue without any competition. Sheila asked the girl if she preferred any of them. The girl told Sheila that she hated all of them. Sheila was confused — the boys were already looking up to her as their fairy godmother.
Seeing everyone around me reaching out to her, I too mustered enough courage and went up to her to tell that I was really fond of a boy from the class. He had been fond of me too but of late been fighting a lot with me over trivial issues. She interpreted my fondness as ‘great friendship’ and then very slowly, whispered into my ears. “The way to his heart is through his stomach. Take him home and give him some good khaana — the fellow looks malnourished.” I was contemplating treating my boy at Kathleen confectionary opposite our school because ‘ghar ka khaana’ was too much!
This was also the time when slambooks were in vogue. Like a true teacher’s pet, we would get our slambooks filled in by Sheila. She’d happily do it — writing about her first love (Uttam Kumar), her pet peeve, her zodiac sign, etc. In one of those sessions, she read a section of the slam book which I had filled in. I had written the same boy’s name as my first love. That day, something struck her. She took me out of the class and asked me.
“Anirban — are you really in love with this boy? Like how your friends love the girl who comes first in class?”
I looked into her eyes and did not feel safe. I didn’t know what it meant to be gay back then but I knew there could be consequences if I gave her an honest answer.
“No Ma’am. I was just fooling around!” I told her, trying hard to fake a laugh.
“Are you sure? Fine then”, she said with a sigh of relief.
I never went back to her again with any of my stories.
Nevertheless, she remained swamped with stories for the next few months. Before long, Sheila realized that exams were round the corner and with all the counseling, she had very little time left to finish the chapters. She made another announcement this time, “If you have issues in your life or something not going right, please Do Not Come to me at all. Please only ask questions relevant to the syllabus.”
Her plan had failed. She could not be a student’s best friend. At least she tried. In the subsequent years, she became very irritable, always scowling and snapping. Maybe something broke inside her — not sure what. We wouldn’t know. We’ve always had a one-sided relationship with teachers, expecting them to fix and save us whenever we were in a mess.
Happy Teachers’ Day.
