Touching Lives

A reflection on the impact of an educator.

- Ritu Kamra Kumar

Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days," observes Doug Larson, and how right the worthy columnist is. Recently, when I attained superannuation after serving as a professor of English in a reputed college of Yamunanagar, Haryana, I received videos sent by my old PG & UG students, even from the ones whom I taught decades ago. They are now living in different countries, and they all virtually got connected with me through these videos.

It took me back to the times when I had been young and never thought of getting old. Students' videos were like looking back to one's early days, like looking down a kaleidoscope and seeing a jumble of colours, the rainbow, trapped at the end of it.

Their referring to the longforgotten anecdotes made me smile, laugh, and cry tears of joy. Since my teaching career spans three decades and seven years, many of my students looked middle-aged, and when they narrated classroom tales with childlike innocence, it was sheer nostalgia that I partook with pure delight.

Yash, a student now living in Germany and working as a teacher in a college there, said that he bows with folded hands at the threshold of his institution before entering inside, and he has learned this from me as he watched me bowing to the mother earth before entering the portals of college. Another thing that he mentioned was that the fountain pen I had given him on the last teaching day as a souvenir was the one with which he put his signatures on his appointment letter in Germany.