Today is “Teachers Day”. On this day, I want to recall names of some of the school and college teachers who have important role to play in my education. There have been many teachers but I will limit mention of two from each institution.
Primary school (Up to grade 5)
- Pandit Raj Narayan Sharma : He was headmaster of my primary school. Additionally, he used to do “Panditai” as well, and was little healthy. We used to call him “Mote wale Pandit ji”. A very knowledge person, with great command on Hindi and general Knowledge.
- Shri Kanchan Lal Ojha: He taught us mathematics in grade V. He had great grasp over mathematics and was very creative in explaining mathematics concepts with simple examples.
Junior High school (6-7-8):
· Shri Ram Gopal Sharma : He was my Sanskrit Teacher popularly known Shashtri ji. Additional he used to conduct Shrimad Bhagvat Mahapuran program at many places. He used to tell us stories every Friday, which we used to wait eagerly whole week.
· Shri Hari Prasad Sharma : He was my geography and History teacher. He used to take us to maps on the wall and used to tell us details by pointing his stick in his hand, on the map. He was a very humble person. Many of our classes also used to be under a banyan tree, with all of us seated on the ground.
High School(9-10)
- Shri Ambika Prasad : He was my Maths and science teacher with ever present gentle smile on his face. He never hesitated in throwing a piece of the chalk on the students creating disturbance in his class.
- Shri Kayam Singh : He was my Biology teacher. He had setup a rich lab where he made us do many dissections of the frog to understand anatomy. He had some chronic stomach problem and used to chew “azwain” all the time, and quite frequently we could hear the firework noise Jin the class. He was extremely helpful to us in providing after school classes help.
Inter College ( 11-12):
- Shri HC Gupta : That’s how he was known, was my Maths teacher. He had taught my father as well, and occasionally shared stories of my father with me. He provided me free coaching of the mathematics areas where I needed help.
- Shri LN Jain: An avid pan (Beetle leaves) eater, was my chemistry teacher. He was a strong RSS leader and was thrown in jail during emergency by Indira Gandhi. His favorite topic was process of converting one organic compound into other though chemical reactions. His expertise in lab was exemplary.
Graduation (B.Sc)
- Shri Yashovarshan Mittal : Ours was his first batch and he used to teach us Organic chemistry. An extremely smart and dashing and towering personality. He had special love for me. He provided me many free of cost coaching sessions after college hours in his home, along with good food and tea. He was more of a friend to me rather than teacher.
- Smt Renu Jain: For Mam also, ours was her first batch. She taught us “Astronomical Trigonometry”. She also had special liking for me. Once she became so angry on me when I scored 49 marks out of 50 in an internal exam of her subject. She did not talk to me for a week. I understood her anger and promised her to work harder and then kept my promise. She was elated in happiness when I secured Gold medal by standing first in University.
- Prof Shailesh Maheshwari : I was my Guru and “go to” teacher in case of any problem, which were many in Aligarh Muslim University, and taught us Operations Research, Automata theory, Touring machines, Logic gates , Compiler construction and many other subjects. He was very helpful person. We used to stay in a room in the Aligarh City and used to frequent to Professor’s home for good discussion and of course good food. I am in touch with him till date.
- Prof S K Varshney : He was a very strong RSS leader, in otherwise predominantly Muslim faculty of AMU Aligarh. He taught us Systems Analysis, Computer Organizations and other abstract topics of computer science. His ability to explain abstract topics with so much ease using examples, made his different than others.
- I would like to express my gratitude to Prof Qadir and Prof Mohd Afzal. They helped me a lot , former in financial accounting and economics and later in computer programming.
- Dr Suzyn Ornstein : She was professor of “Organization Behaviour”, the first subject I took in MBA. She was very particular about grammar of the assignments submitted to her. She was extremely dynamic person and had uncanny ability to explain complex organizational topics with very simple interactive examples.
- Prof Neil Hunt: He was my International Marketing Professor. He had an unconventional method of teaching. I had registered for this course in Andover, satellite campus of the Suffolk University , which was a distant suburb of Boston. He used to take us to Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Driving ranges, Bowling etc for the classes. His moto was learn, but start with fun.
And of course my late grandfather was a great teacher for me in my childhood, who himself was educated till 2ndgrade, but was able to teach me advanced elementary maths concepts with much ease in interesting manner.
My father and my mother continue to be my all teachers. I feel privileged to have teachers like my parents.
And then who will disagree that wife has extremely important role as a teacher.
And lastly our children teach us a lot.
