My Dear Sensei

By E.S. Kapoor

Simon is relieved India has lost its War of Independence against the British. He will not be leaving his home. Until he meets Mr Rai, his first Indian teacher. Delve into the world of Pushpa Mahindra, a government school teacher who hasn't received her salary for 7 yea

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Rose Publishers
• Release date: Apr 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9789358198119

Book preview

Acorn

She had a strange way about herself. Apologising to the wall if she accidentally hit it, smiling at the students for no reason and almost floating around the corridors of Oak Wood. There were tales about her, whispers, rumours about where she came from. Fantasies were more titillating than the grey reality.

She was short and stout, but her silvery wavy hair made her appear two inches taller. Her face was freckled, unlike an Indian, and appeared unearthly. If she glided past the school alcoves, it was possible to mistake her for the ghost of Indira Gandhi. She bore an uncanny resemblance to the late Indian prime minister.

Every teacher had a cottage assigned to them. Miss Aujla’s abode was located directly under the stage where the morning assembly took place. The choice was deliberate. It even boasted a fireplace. Ela found that strange as well. Why would a stage have a fireplace in it?

While other teachers in the boarding school regularly invited their favourite students to hobnob in their cottages, or listen to a music track or two, Miss Aujla’s room was shrouded in mystery. She was ever so careful, glancing left and right like a lady crossing a street, when she locked her room. Only once did Ela flutter dangerously close to it. All she could see was a massive atlas strewn across the wall before the door slammed shut.

She always entered the class sideways, a seemingly deliberate attempt to avoid making an entrance.

Her voice was silvery, delicate in its nature and quivering at every note yet having the scope of making a subject as snooze worthy as geography digestible. Ela sat up straight from utter curiosity on her timber desk, if not anything else.

‘Ela, will you open your geography book? Today I intend to teach about sedimentary rocks,’ Miss Aujla said.

The rest of the class giggled as usual hearing the dreaded ‘s’ word. Every time Miss Aujla used a word with ‘s’ annotation, she would hiss the word out. Sedimentary rocks became ‘ssssedimentary rocksssss’. Ela rolled her eyes at the juvenile humor of the class.

Ela dove into her desk and pulled out the book and opened the chapter Miss Aujla was referring to. The chapter was essential as Miss Aujla stressed its importance in lieu of the upcoming half-yearly examinations. She regularly gave away what would appear in the examinations through class tests and quizzes. No mystery there.

‘Girls, do you know that ssssedimentary rockss are formed through living organisms that existed on earth millennia ago?’ she said.

As she glided past the class with her hands forming dancer-like mudras, the students couldn’t help but latch on to every word she said. Her voice intertwined with the thrush of the Oak tree leaves, and was not thundering like that of the headmistress. It had a steady rhythm to it, patient in its nature yet sure of what it wanted to say.

When the lesson ended, her homework made the class groan in unison.

‘Visualise for me what you learned in this class. Draw the essence of a sedimentary rock for me, be it any colour. Name all the elements we discussed in the class. I do not expect perfection, just execution,’ she said.

Looking at the crestfallen faces, she added, ‘After the submission tomorrow, we are going on a nature walk. Let me show you some live examples.’

The class squealed in excitement. She was the only teacher who conducted her geography lessons outside biweekly. The headmistress of the school had granted her a special pass to allow ‘pragmatic learning’ for students of Oak Wood.

The Oak trees complimented the weather on the nature walk. The girls were asked to bring their boots along to keep leeches at bay that hooked on to an unsuspecting teen during monsoons.

‘Come on now, quickly girls,’ Miss Aujla said.

The girls lined up in a file, whispering and fidgeting to form a sea of blue-coloured tunics. They tightened up their maroon mufflers and marched outside, being led by Miss Aujla. The baron, who was getting ready to sound the bell for the beginning of a class, nodded and smiled back at the peculiar teacher.

‘What you see on your right is bicchu buti, better known as the stinging nettle plant. These small-needle-like protrusions on the leaves are extremely dangerous. One touch and you will start itching all over your body. Fascinatingly, these very leaves are extremely nutritious once you add them to your vegetables,’ she explained.

The girls giggled at the word bicchu buti, which loosely translated to Scorpion’s butt. Curiosity got the better of the cat, as one of the girls leaned precariously close to the plant.

‘All of you stop behaving like hooligans. And step away from the plant Rupi,’ she chided, mildly annoyed but smiling nevertheless.

Rupi stared back at Miss Aujla with her chestnut-coloured eyes, startled at the rebuke, breaking her trance-like innocence of curiosity. Surprisingly, Miss Aujla went close to the plant herself, making the students collectively fidget and