A Potpourri of Wonderful Memories Part-I - A Former Teacher Looks Back Fondly...

It is a quiet winter evening during the Holidays- perfect to indulge in fond memories with a friend who is visiting the US on a high school teacher exchange program as a Fulbright Fellow. Every evening she and I chat face to face via Skype -Every evening! Late into the night-from Washington DC to a small town in Washington state where she is getting a hearty dose of different world reality. Yes, this is truly the electronic age!

Is this a global age or what!!! This is a picture of Malini chatting to me, taken from Skype across the coast. We plan to continue like this across the oceans when she returns back home in January.

Malini and I met more than two decades ago when we were both high school teachers in New Delhi's top private school with unimaginable amenities and opportunities for developing the full potential of the children who were indeed blessed to study there... A co-educational school, it was founded in 1920 under the British rule "to combine the traditions of Indian education with modern educational techniques." Those were the happiest and most carefree years of my life where I also made many lifelong connections...

I preceded Malini a year earlier as a Senior High School teacher hired to teach Indian and European history at Modern High School straight out of college.

Situated right in the heart of New Delhi on a sprawling 25 acre campus, with its beautiful red brick main building, the school is considered not only the finest in the country but easily ranks among the premier high schools in the world. Needless to say, it caters to the topmost echelons in Indian society and admission in this much sought after school is next to impossible due to high demand. With its high fees needed to sustain the top quality education provided by highly qualified teachers and myriad sports and extra-curricular activities ranging from swimming, horse-back-riding, tennis, cricket, soccer, water-polo, dramatics and various cultural activities, it is certainly beyond the reach of the common man.

Modern High School- You must click on this link to see the slide show on this legendary school. This picture is only a tip of the iceberg in terms of the majestic beauty of this institution located in the heart of India's capital

Obtaining a teaching position in this school is considered the pinnacle of a school teaching career and normally the school management would only hire seasoned and experienced teachers. So when I landed a high school teaching position straight after completing my Masters and teaching degree, I was quick to pat myself on my back, little realizing what awaited me.

Idealistic and naive, a product of an all-girl Catholic school, an entirely different world, I had no clue what I was getting into when I took on the position of teaching History at high school level. I was barely a few years older than these teenagers because in our time, if you continued with your college education without interruption, you could complete your Masters by your early twenties.

Ok now here I was totally being teased by this student who was pretending to kneel before me -he was known to be a handful.

Daily for months, skinny and youthful, hiding my inner-quavering, I bravely stood my ground in classes of fifty or more students each, blatantly staring at me, suspiciously well-behaved, before all mayhem would break loose in the form of loud talking, non-stop coughing to drown my lecture, giggling, lanky and tall youth towering over me asking to be excused one after the other in rapid succession to go to the bathroom, distracting me while even more slipped out, never to return and on and on. It was definitely on the lines of "To Sir with Love" except these were NOT inner-city kids rather super-rich and self-willed kids used to having their own way.

Ok note the students - the picture tells you all. One is wondering if he should enter and the other is waiting to be excused, and another is turning around probably to start some mischief. Needless to say this picture was taken unknowing to me till it was produced months later. Eventually, it became a relationship of great affection and respect but it was certainly a battle of wills.

But, the students had met their match in me because I made up for my inexperience with a defiant determination to hold my ground. Gradually with persistence, tremendous sense of humor coupled with the inability to control my chuckles at the most inopportune times which unknowingly endeared me to them and with solid hardwork when I spent more time preparing my lesson plans than they did listening to me, I gradually won the respect and affection of these youngsters. Of course, I had to arrange a few parent-teacher conferences to convince these irrepressible kids, that I meant business. The incredulous expressions on these high-powered parents who left their busy schedules to meet me on an urgent need basis in the middle of the day was another story! Their looks of amused tolerance at this chit of a girl expounding on the misguided ingenuity of their offspring soon gave away to concern when they realized I was serious about holding them back if they didn't deliver academically. All this was not lost on my young friends...

Thank God for gentle souls like this girl. Note the school uniform of the children made of hand-woven khadi- a kind of cotton that was popularised by Gandhi during India's freedom struggle. All school children in India wear school uniforms.

The students soon realized Miss Bhandari (my maiden name) was not a quitter and that they were stuck with me. Apparently these kids had developed quite a reputation for scaring away veteran teachers, my short-lived predecessors (which explains to me why the school was perhaps now hiring younger teachers try different means of controlling the mayhem. What optimism!!!).


Finally after months of paying my dues, we all settled - somewhat.

I had obviously made a place in their hearts as over the years, they have made the effort to locate and establish contact in the US when they came here either as students or on business. This year, more than two decades later, we all had a reunion in DC and it is heartwarming to see that these kids in skirts and shorts were now extremely successful young men and women all over the world.

To be continued...