The Sir whose name I can't remember

Of Memories & Legacy

I studied abroad for about six years. Barring a year-long hiatus, I spent my first seven years of school abroad, in the Arabian Gulf. It was a basic school, nothing fancy. No regular sports or art events. People came from a rather mixed socio-economic background, unlike the other schools I later studied in. The thing with studying abroad, at least for me, is that you lose touch with a lot of people. Many people you made memories with disappear into the world, most of the time with little way to keep track of them. When you study somewhere near home, you invariably run into some people, at least by chance. The grocery, the meat shop, the beach, or even the hospital. On the other hand, in the ten years or so that happened after I came home from the Arabian Gulf, I’ve met three people who studied in the same school as mine, and one person, whom I don’t remember, but must have invariably crossed paths with.

The reason I took time to contemplate this rather unproductive thought is this sir I had over there. He hasn’t taught me a class as far as I can remember. I can’t even remember the subject he taught in school. It might’ve been either English or music. It might also be something else. I cannot even recollect his name clearly, for that matter. He held a position that exceeded the responsibilities of a subject teacher or a class teacher. I think he had a designation that dealt with discipline because I remember seeing him occupy a cabin that some of my classmates were later taken into for some disciplinary violation. Both of these memories are from different times, hence the need for this deductive argument.

We used to say that this particular sir was a nice person. I remember that he was rather soft-spoken and has never seen him raise his voice. He left the school while I still studied there, and back then, we never knew why faculty left or went on leave. I know why my chemistry teacher from 9^th left shortly after my batch passed out, or why my Arabic teacher left midway when I was in 10^th. But back there we didn’t know why he left. One evening though, I met this man walking through the park where I watched people play football. I went up to him, and I remember that he instantly recognized me from school. He asked how school was, and how I was doing before we parted ways.

Sometime later, he once was invited back to the school as a guest, where he mentioned meeting a student in a park. He mentioned that the student asked him why he left, and how he felt happy that a student went up to him, even though he wasn’t teaching anymore. Though I am not sure whether he was talking about me, or the rest of the speech, or the reason he was invited to the school, this series of incidents is rather prominent in my memories. So much so that I am skipping a physiotherapy session to write this blog.

I hadn’t thought of this incident for some time now. A couple of evenings back, however, I saw this scene, where the protagonist recalls something his father taught him. It went something like this “All the bad memories go away with time, if we keep a journal where we note just the good things, we will eventually be left with just the good stuff when we retire” I’ve butchered this line horrendously, nevertheless, the message is this. As the credits rolled up, I thought about what would be in my book of good memories and realized that the above-mentioned poorly remembered series of thoughts regarding this man would certainly make it.

It amazes me how sir owns prime real estate in my 22 year wide memory lane, because there are people who’ve been associated with me for longer, but relegated to the derelict parts of my lane. I cannot but wonder what sir remembers of these interactions, or what he remembers from our school. This gives a new perspective to a conflict I’ve always had running in my mind, that of nostalgia and legacy.

I’ve always thought about the nature of reminisce. In fact, one of my biggest fear is having nothing to reminiscence, of retiring without ever achieving anything significant, without contributing to anything significant.

Achieving significance is a rather complicated question. I always think about people, and how they must look at significance. I compare the orthopaedic who sits in a single-room clinic in Sarjapura, with the orthopaedic surgeon publishing research every year in a flashy hospital two hours away. I think of the highly qualified, unfit, physiotherapist who couldn’t comprehend a discharge summary, with the lesser qualified physiotherapist, who reads MRI films in a heartbeat.

I’ve given only little thought to how this works for teachers though. In the little thought I’ve given though, I thought teachers who teach the higher grades would achieve more significance, especially because they have room to work with. With the education system we have today, there is little room for free thought at least until higher secondary school. Older classes have the maturity for more discussions, hence the possibility of a teacher being able to influence a student better. Hence my obsession with teaching only higher standards in schools.

But this particular thought process, of this collection of random memories has made me rethink this preconception. Perhaps you don’t need to be at the top of the chain to achieve something of significance. Perhaps the unfit physio will eventually do something of significane, in someone’s legacy. After sir never taught me anything, nor did he teach senior classes in general, nor did he teach in a flashy school with great heritage. Nevertheless, I would say that Sir has done something significant in his life.