The other day I noticed a decently dressed, elderly couple in the market! The gent appeared familiar and his gait and that prominent slouch of the shoulder to the left every time he walked brought back memories of an old friend.
He too was stealing surreptitious glances at me, as one does while trying to recollect faces from the past. My curiosity got the better of me and I finally decided to accost the couple.
Of course it was Albert! How could I ever forget him! We studied together in school “ in fact shared the same bench “ and were the noted mischief mongers of the class.
After matriculation he went to UK. A stream of letters for the first few months, trickling down to birthday and New Year greeting cards, was how I would describe our contacts thereafter.
And now after all these years here he was, standing flesh and blood before me, with that unmistakable toothy grin of his! He was now in the States and was here with his wife for a family function.
After a brief round of niceties over a cup of tea we went about ‘catching’ upon the news of all those lost years, our school, teachers and other classmates - a trip down memory lane as one is wont to call it.
If seeing each other after so many years could rekindle thoughts of our joyful times together, I wondered what meeting each other on a regular basis would be like!
That is precisely why I am always charmed by the idea of school reunions!
Managing to turn the clock back many years to re-enact scenes of the school days, unique ways are planned to celebrate the grand reunion!
But a class reunion is more than a social event!
For friends who have not been seen or heard from for ages, it is a chance to take some time away from the grinds of their personal lives to come together and relive the past.
It is a time to remember and celebrate those glorious years in school where our teachers were our friends, philosophers and guides.
If Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan could request his students to observe his birthday on September 5 as Teachers Day, the significance behind the strong ties that exist between the teacher and students cannot just be overlooked.
For those who consider the teacher essentially as a tutor guiding the students along with their schools curriculum; who then should take the responsibility for grooming their wards, tap their hidden potentials and turn them into upright citizens the nation can one day be proud of!
Student mentorship is an expansive role of a teacher. Teachers are known to influence a whole generation through their thoughts and actions; the students merely reflect the persona of their teachers.
At such tender ages, when the whole world is like a classroom for them, the onus is on the teachers to mould their proteges and bring out the best in them.
In those formative years, for the children, their school is a home away from home, and the teachers their guardians, their parents so to say.
A teacher inspiring awe and respect among the students is an accepted fact. But more than this gratuitous attitude, it is that special bond of love that exists between them that sets apart this unique relationship.
A student making it big in his life is the greatest wealth his teacher can treasure!
But how many of us have genuinely longed for those years gone by, those carefree, reckless years of school buffoonery!
Perhaps in passing, in fleeting moments of evocative sentimentality when one gives into bouts of nostalgia, the mind rewinds those wonderful years as though they happened just yesterday.
Even those years of adolescence, daring to call oneself mature, when one trudges the corridors of the college and university, the childish innocence of a youngster barely into his teens, indulging in tomfoolery in the school campus, can never be completely erased from one’s memory.
The countless convent schools, various public schools and the aristocratic resident schools; all these are distinguished by the students and the teaching faculty there.
For some schools that stand out as stellar examples of academic excellence and for their brilliance in sports and other extra-curricular activities, these educational institutions across the country can claim an inheritance built purely on a legacy of all-round students who have done their teachers proud in the classrooms, as also on the playfields and other cultural stages.
Given these opportunities and circumstances, would a student passing out from the portals of these educational edifices ever shrink from being in touch with the Alma Mater, teachers and batch mates!
A school achieves its glory because of the effective involvement of its alumni. The most determining years of one’s life spent in the school, forming the strongest of bonds, makes every student like coming back to his/her Alma Mater.
Coming together to exchange reminiscences about the school times, active past-pupils’ associations initiate a process of bridging and sharing memories amongst the alumni. Every informal reunion aims to strengthen the bonds between the school and the students.
So ye guys, if you have not made up your mind already, do it!
Spare a thought for your Alma Mater; call up all your schoolmates, dig up their whereabouts and plan a grand reunion in the school. Let it be a memorable day, a day kept aside for all old memories to come flooding in. After all, as a thing from the past, one can only yearn for that life!
And let us not forget our teachers! They truly deserve our appreciation!
