The Guides

When Leeladhar Viyogi’s family got together for his 50th wedding anniversary in Haridwar five years ago,he gave his two daughters Rs 500 each as kharchi,a token allowance that’s a tradition in the Viyogi family. Sushma Swaraj got it too. “She always does. She is like my daughter. She has been part of the family for 44 years now,” Viyogi says.

In 1966,14-year-old Sushma Sharma joined SD College in Ambala Cantt,where Prof Viyogi was a faculty member in the Sanskrit department and a key member of the college’s ‘Hindi Sahitya Kala Parishad’. Sushma was not a student of Hindi but Viyogi was quick to spot her oratorical talent and groomed her for debate and declamation contests. “She was short and would get dwarfed by the podium,so she had to step aside. But once she spoke,all the competition would crumble,” he says with a disarming smile. “Her talent is God’s gift. I only shaped it and gave it direction,” he says.

In the book Anukarniya Guru (Gurus worthy of being Emulated),Sushma has written a chapter where she has paid tributes to the “three gurus” who shaped her life—her mother,Prof Leeladhar Viyogi and Jai Prakash Narayan.

Viyogi started with teaching class VII students in a village in Mewat,went on to teach class XII students in a school in Rewari,taught graduates and post-graduates in SD College and guided M.Phil and Ph.D students in the same college. “If a teacher is honest,he has the most difficult job. A class has all kinds of children,from below-average students to some who are brilliant. The teacher has to ensure that each student feels that he got what he needed from the teacher,” Viyogi says. Teachers are “more brilliant” today,the professor says candidly. “But there is a vital difference. Now they are professionals; for us,teaching was a mission. Our emphasis was not only academic excellence,we wanted to make our students good human beings.”

Viyogi says he is now a “full-time writer”. The 75-year-old is writing his 40th book—on Indian saints. He has earlier written books on the 18 puraanas,the ‘up-puraana’,and on poets of the Bhakti movement.

“It is pointless to say that one has 41 years of experience,if he has not learnt something new,done something new every year. Otherwise,it is the first year repeated 41 times,” he says.

Retired in 1992,but comes to the school library every day

SrEEnivas Janyala

At 75,Brother Dhruva Raj says his memory is a bit hazy but ask him about his students at All Saints High School in Hyderabad and his eyes light up. “Yes,Sitaram Yechury was my student. I taught him English and social studies. Used to ask lot of questions,very rational and objective,” he says about his student who went on to become a politburo member of the CPI(M).

“When your students are young,they point you out to their parents if they see you on the street. When the students become famous,it is the other way round—you say they were your students,” he says.

It was simply by a quirk of fate that Dhurva Raj became a teacher in the school that he studied. “I joined All Saints School as a student in 1947. In 1960,when I was doing my MA,a teacher of All Saints who urgently wanted leave requested me to take his class for a day. When I walked in,the principal handed me a book of English poetry and pointed the class to me. I was scared to face the students but when I opened the textbook,the first poem was William Wordsworth’s Daffodils. I knew it by heart,I still do,so I closed the textbook and faced the class. And I became a teacher,” he says.

Dhruva Raj has spent nearly 50 years in the school. “As the years go by and you get to hear that one of your former students or someone from this school has become famous or made it big,you feel good. You do your best to teach them not only textbooks but also important things in life,like integrity and honesty,and hope that they go out and do well.”

Dhruva Raj retired in 1992 but joined again a few months later. “Now,I look after the library and encourage students to read books other than school texts. After my first day,when I taught Daffodils,my grandmother told me she was proud that I took a class. My late grandfather had retired as the headmaster of a school and she had become emotional. I then decided to take up teaching as my profession. I immediately got a job in All Saints. Success or failure as a teacher depends not only on how you teach but also the rapport you share with your students. I think I did fairly well,” he says.

Dhruva Raj says his first salary was Rs 90. “I used to walk to school. My motto was to never be late to school,never miss a class. Students those days yearned for more than just bookish knowledge,so it was challenging to teach. There used to be lot of extracurricular activity,sports etc. Former cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin,former chief secretary Shravan Kumar and many others who went on to become famous were students here. The atmosphere was such that it got the best out of students,many displayed leadership qualities,they were adventurous,others excelled in sports. These days,students go to school because they have to.”

Dhruva Raj is an avid collector of newspaper and magazine cuttings. He fondly unfolds a paper clipping of a speech given by Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan to some school students and a cutting of Kapil Dev. “Every morning,I put up some interesting articles for the students to read on the school’s display board,” he says.

The man behind Nitish’s Hindi

SANTOSH SINGH

Former railway minister and now Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was a student at Sri Ganesh High School in Bakhtiyarpur,Bihar,when then railway minister Jagjivan Ram came visiting.

Anandi Prasad Singh,a teacher at the school,asked his students if they wanted to see him. Nitish Kumar was more than “curious to know how a railway minister looked like,spoke and behaved”.

Years later,when Nitish became railway minister,at a public meeting in Bakhtiyarpur,he introduced his teacher to people. “When I became railway minister,I wanted people to know who first introduced me to a railway minister,” he later said.

Anandi Prasad Singh,now 90,remained a guiding force all through Nitish’s school days at Bakhtiyarpur. It was Singh who taught him Hindi and English. Singh can perhaps take credit for the CM’s chaste Hindi.

A graduate of Patna University,Singh was interested in academics and always wanted to be a teacher. In 1947,he started teaching Hindi and English at Sri Ganesh School,which was a private school then. Till the school was taken over by the government in 1952,Singh was an honorary teacher,depending on tuitions for money. It was only in 1952 that he drew his first salary of Rs 100. He retired in 1980 with a monthly salary of Rs 255.

“I have taught three generations. But I find students these days are less tolerant than they were earlier,” says Singh.

In Bakhtiyarpur,Singh’s house is easy to find. You just have to ask for “Nitish Kumar’s teacher’s house”. A narrow lane leads to Singh’s two-storey pucca house at Hakikatpur mohalla. Singh says it took him ten years to complete one floor. The second floor was built by his sons—one of them retired as a manager from Bokaro steel city,another is a sub-inspector and the third works in a college lab. Singh lives here with his 85-year-old wife Madhurani Devi,his son and his family.

Singh still walks at least 2 km every day,without the aid of a walking stick. Though it has been years since he retired,till recently he taught students at the local Girls High School for free.

As he walks today to the Ganesh High School where he taught for 30 years,Singh remembers his students fondly. “Nitish was a very focussed and disciplined student.”

Singh,who also doubled as an NCC teacher,says Nitish disobeyed him just once. “I wanted all students to run on the field. Nitish refused to run and I gave him a few mild slaps. He went home crying. When his father learnt about the incident,he scolded him. From then on,Nitish learnt to respect discipline.”

Off the field,a solid defence

G S Vivek

Bolaka Nag—Mrs Nag to everyone on the school campus—looks nervous as the sound of the camera shutter echoes through the school building,trying hard to pose with that perfect smile. It only takes a mention of Gautam Gambhir and his days in the school—Modern School,Barakhamba,New Delhi—to get that big,natural smile,but the camera sadly can’t measure the excitement in her voice.

Nag,Gambhir’s class teacher in class XII in 1998-99,encouraged the boy to pursue his calling without confining him to his books. “Gautam was an intelligent boy. I mean,you didn’t expect him to score 80 or 90 per cent after the kind of effort he put on the cricket field. But I was never worried about his marks because something told me that he would definitely make it big. Gautam always had the right kind of respect for teachers. He wasn’t regular with his classes,not because he bunked but because he was on his cricket field. You could see that passion and fire in him,so I tried to encourage him as much as possible,” she says.

Nag says the reason why she implicitly supported Gambhir’s sports career was probably because she was a sportsperson herself. “I was a national 400 m sprinter and a long jumper. When I was in class XII,I remember teachers worrying for me,reminding me that I had missed so many classes and that I would never make up for it. I had to sacrifice my sports career for various reasons,” she says. But she wouldn’t let Gambhir sacrifice his dreams.

Nag is head of the school’s history department and has a combined teaching experience of 26 years behind her. But her students still surprise her,like Gambhir did one day. She was taking a class and he stood outside,trying to catch her attention. This is after he became part of the national team. “I was surprised because as a teacher,you don’t expect anything in return but it was nice for Gautam to come and meet me after he had made it big. He stood outside waiting and I called him in. It was a touching moment,” she says.

The teacher admits to having a soft corner for Gambhir but that,however,didn’t deter her from suspending him over a brawl involving a cricket team from another school. Gautam wasn’t present during the fight but he was the school prefect and captain of the school team. “The punishment was harsh…I felt very bad about it but there was nothing anyone could do. The punishment had to be the same for all the members of the team,” she says.

Over the years,Nag says,she has noticed a change in the way students behave. “Earlier,students used to run into the class before I entered because they had that sense of bonding,respect. We would sit and talk after class. But now,children seem to have too many things to do. They look distracted. That means more work for teachers.”

Nag likes her cricket and Sachin Tendulkar,who was her favourite player for a long time,has had to make way for Gambhir. “Please tell Gautam that I still keep a tab on him,” she says.

Dhoni learnt finance from her

Manoj Prasad

In the 17 years that she has been teaching commerce and finance at the DAV School Shyamali in Ranchi,Sharmistha Kumar has followed the careers of her students closely. One of them went on to to become India’s cricket captain.

Mahindra Singh Dhoni who passed out of school in 1996,was not a very regular student—he was often away playing. Once in an inter-school match in 1995,he made 217 runs off 137 balls. “The next day when he turned up in class,I scolded him for being absent. He stood quietly with his head down. His friend Gautam then told me that he had hit a ton. That day I realised that Dhoni was unlike others. He was gentle,obedient and not boastful,” says Kumar.

Kumar says she saw in Dhoni a “determination to realise his dream to represent the Indian team”,but she says she explained to him that accounts and business studies were subjects that a student could not grasp easily if he missed even one lecture. “But whenever he attended class,he listened to my lecture attentively. That’s why even with the amount of time he had to spend playing,he managed to score average marks,” says Kumar who has been teaching at the school since 1993.

Kumar,53,did her graduation and post-graduation from Ranchi University in 1978,before joining Jamshedpur Woman’s College as a lecturer. She quit in 1993 to join DAV school where she teaches economics,accounts and business studies.

In her long innings as a teacher,she has noticed many changes in the profession and in her students. For one,her salary has more than doubled. Then the students today behave differently. “In the past,the students spent time reading,playing and gossiping with friends and parents. Now that nearly every house has laptops,computers and cell phones,they are hooked to social networking sites,” she says.

As a teacher,Kumar says,she too has changed. “Earlier I used to yell at students to control them. Today,I am calm and composed because I think as a teacher my job is not just to lecture,but also to encourage students to find out what they are best at,” she says,adding that once she recognised Dhoni’s potential lay in cricket,she encouraged him to work at it.

Later,when Dhoni cracked his maiden one-day hundred against Pakistan at Visakhapatnam on April 5,2005 and became a star overnight,he returned home to be felicitated at his school. “He came with his family. I gifted him a Parker pen. When he was asked to speak about our commerce class,he said,‘My pen,given to me by my class teacher Mrs Kumar,will say whatever has to be said’. And then he signed autographs with that pen,” says Kumar.

Among the many tokens of gratitude that she has received from students over the years,there is one from her star pupil too. A piece of paper that reads ‘Luv and Luv to Mrs Kumar—Mahi’.