Roots and Shoots
Some of the students I have taught over almost four decades sometimes return, looking for their roots: and one very fortunate tap root which seems to have dug itself very deeply into people’s lives seems to be this English teacher, yours truly.
So, on Sunday, it was Starbucks and a child with whom I share my birth date. I thought that was all we shared. But then things got very uncanny, very .It was like looking into a mirror. Completely. It was not my masks I saw. It was Suma Narayan, unmasked. And Sujona Chatterjee, unmasked. In between, she would look at me, and exclaim, “ If someone ever kidnapped you, I would have to shoot you…because you know everything about me.” I had resolved to do the same. I don’t remember when I have laughed so much, or so uproariously, Everything that she, and I have kept hidden away, and almost, but not quite, thrown away the key to, was laid out in the open. We discussed men and matters. Men, mostly. And some women, too. Colours and odours. And food. And food. And food.
And 150 shades of grey.
Enough.
And on Wednesday, it was San Churros, with this child with whom I share my soul, and all my thoughts. She says that the moment she comes down, the first thing people ask her, is “Have you met Suma yet?” Back in the distant days when I used to teach the 1st year B Pharm students, they used to call her my daughter: we were so completely attuned to each other. I don’t know where the time went, and how. It had been a long, tiring day, with HSC supervision during which, I never sit down. Like Johny Walker, I keep walking, for the three hours that the exam goes on. But it was like a rejuvenating shot, meeting Drishty Tanwar again. We spoke of the present, the past and the future, the men and women in our lives and from time to time, she exclaimed, “You are reading my mind! Those were the exact thoughts in my mind, in the same order, and with the same words..” She is gutsy, this child of mine, and I feel fiercely, very fiercely protective of this very independent, free spirited soul who dares to go in where angels fear to tread.
They make my life, these kids of mine…and enrich my life in ways nothing can.
God bless them, now and forever.
