Thank you JB

Today is Teachers’ Day; a day full of memories and fond nostalgia. Decades after having left school, I remember, with abiding gratitude, the person who was responsible for transforming me from a verbose writer to one who could express herself much better. She taught me how to be brief, avoid long circumlocutions and how to use short, pithy sentences.
“Vineeta”, she would despair while returning the customary, weekly essay that we submitted every Friday-corrected with a fine-tooth comb, the likes of which the present generation hasn’t seen-“why must you use such flowery language?!!”
And all my self-built perceptions of being a great writer would go crashing.
The assignment she returned first thing Monday morning would be replete with corrections: and liberally splattered with red ink. Looking at it, anyone could be forgiven for thinking that that was the work of a fairly challenged English student.

Because Mother John Baptist-JB as we irreverently, but lovingly, referred to her- was a perfectionist. She would not tolerate a word extra, a phrase that was irrelevant; and wrong spellings were anathema to her (thankfully, that was the one area in which she never had to correct me, may the heavens be praised!) But the ‘flowery language’ she referred to had this uncanny habit of making its appearance in most of my write-ups. To date, I haven’t forgotten her slashing of one of my essay’s protagonist’s pitiable plight-who had heart-rendingly for and by me “been put to permanent sleep” and replacing it with a very matter-of-fact, single word, “ perished’. That perhaps more than any other correction, taught me that ornate words never helped; what we needed was direct expression, succinct description.

JB-all of 70 years or more-with her signature black umbrella- was equally active on the games’ field. And woe betide anyone who tried to bunk games!! No one could evade her gimlet eye, as she flitted from upper field to lower field, from the concrete basket ball court to the grassy hockey expanse, traversing the sprawling acres of our vast campus with magical speed. Her alacrity and the unseen reserve of energy that she seemed to draw from never ceased to amaze us.

That was an era…long gone and forgotten. We don’t see teachers like her any more: it’s a vanished breed. The missionary zeal, dedication and commitment with which she-and some of her peers like Mother John Francis-worked may have gone but we, who bore witness to those times- will always remember………….with a deep debt of gratitude.