My school days...

I was having my morning tea just now and suddenly some random thoughts of my high school teachers wafted into my consciousness. Teachers who had tremendous impact on my impressionable mind during my childhood. One of them was, Mohapatra teacher who used to teach us Geography in class 6-8th. If I correctly recall, her full name was Sushmita Mohapatra. An amazing personality, blunt haircut (Unheard of those days), always saree-clad and a beautiful Convent school accent. Very sophisticated, indeed.  She was a very capable teacher as well. Teaching us the nuances of solar and lunar eclipse using globes...(We are having solar eclipse in BLR today, may be thats why I remembered her!). We always used to look forward to her classes. Another smarty lady was Girija mam, our English teach in class 6 and 7. Again a taller and duskier version of Mohapatra teacher. Bob haircut, always carefully dressed in saree, perfect pronunciation and a superb teacher. Unfortunately, both of them were poached by DPS which newly started in my city at that time. And sadly, we lost some of our very best teachers. 

Another of the iconic teachers in our school was Mrs. Nair, our history teacher. A towering figure, and a strict disciplinarian who believed in taking weekly tests, much to the agony of the students. I was her pet, hence the responsibility of anchoring oral tests was mine. I remember, my class fellows queuing up to me during interval with requests, "Pls ask me xyz question only". Mrs. Nair was originally from Kerala. And she had a daughter, about whom she used to speak often very fondly, may be she was studying in some distant land. Memory fails me at times. I wish, I can get in touch with them somehow and to acknowledge and thank them for the learning and their efforts in making the subjects come alive for all of us. 

A dear friend of mine during my school days, Pushpanjali... She was like my soul-sister. I lost touch with her as well. Why can't we have friends for life...why do we move cities...why do we have different set of friends for different phases in life...

Friends...come and go, but some names remain forever etched in our hearts and minds. And she was one of them.