Well, one lockdown day, as I was pondering, I got reminded about the teaching community. So, here’s a small remembrance of the various categories of teachers. They may be from school, or tuition or competitive exam coaching, your arts or music teacher or the ones I am dealing with today – college professors.

I hope this piece of work would be relatable to all. To begin with, I have always wondered how easy it is when someone teaches you, rather than you trying to figure it out on your own, breaking your head and bragging your self-learning skills. I take this as opportunity to thank all my mentors and teachers – my parents, my sister (sounds funny but still my younger sister can teach much), my friends, the occasional Youtubers whose videos teach me so much, and anyone I forgot in hastily writing down these words.

Inspiration for this article is: as I was watching some YouTube video for some lecture, I was astounded by the comments that person had received. There were mentions as to how he inspires better than their real-life teachers. Then, probably coincidently, I noticed my sister taking up some online class where doubt-clearing session was going on. The teacher was chastising my sister for not asking him doubts through WhatsApp. I was wondering, in this age of dedication-less people, who was he, ready to solve math problems for kids in his leisure time. Of course, I know how one can easily embarrass himself by trying out random competitive exam question doubts. One simply can’t answer all. I then remembered we (when preparing for JEE exams) made many teachers to struggle asking them impossibly hard doubts.

Now follows my memory lane, as I recall the variety of teachers. School comes first. There were this strict-I-will-beat-your-knuckles teachers, smilingly-strict teachers, the-fun-loving-I’m-everyone’s-favourite teachers, the strictly-subject-discussing teachers, the I’ll-talk-for-hours-without-preparation teachers, the subject-passionate teachers who made students love the subject, the poor-English-speaking teachers, the ones-whose-words-need-to-be-looked-up-in-dictionary teachers, the nerds-only-like-me teachers, the partial teachers (who you praise if you are the one she is partial to), the portions-completed-I-don’t-care-now teachers, the ever-advising-making-everyone-sleep teachers, the I-completed-portions-last-minute teachers, oh-god-I’m-absolutely-without-stuff teachers, the she-gives-good-marks-nothing-else-matters teachers, the soft-unscolding teachers who often uttered unable-to-control-this-fish-market-- all of them came to my mind. Their faces briefly clouded my memory making me wonder how I grew this fast. The spoon-feeding slowly became learn-by-yourself-syllabus-book-was-given-in-2018-itself. Teachers slowly became professors and classes became lectures.

I am eternally grateful to those I-accept-your-point-of-view teachers, I-accept-I-made-a-mistake teachers, I-work-you-up-so-let-you-hate-me-but-it’s-for-your-own-good teachers. I am still wondering how subjects never determined how tough they were, but the teachers indeed. They can make impossibly difficult subjects, incredibly simple and also vice-versa (which is what we come across 90 percent of the time). Lastly, I remember once, one of my classmates impressed me telling it was Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter World who was his most favourite teacher all-time. I also take a moment for Professor Robert Langdon and countless other fictional teachers who made me wish, how wonderful it would be to sit in one of their classes. I finally brought my thoughts back to reality, but only after remembering the prayers we had as friends to avoid that strict teacher as our class teacher, the imitations our friends made of several teachers, the countless nicknames, the counting of words they say frequently and several other small cherishable memories. I also use this as an opportunity to remember those noble teachers who made us who we are today.