Ms Anita Arora : A Perennial Blessing

My parents decided to send me to a boarding school at the every early age of my life, the age where I didn’t know how to clean my muddy pieces of poop. 

The reason was very simple, they had realized my phenomenal potential in failing in each and every exam even in Kindergartens.

In my boarding school, fortuitously, I was blessed with exceptional teachers who saw the hidden potential in me. The year when I was enrolled there, I didn’t even know the plain basics of English. My Mathematical skills were so shaky and fragile that I could collapse easily anytime while looking at any maths equation and whenever I was asked to communicate in English, I felt like a living corpse because I couldn’t say or speak anything but then I was blessed with a matchless and an exceptional English Teacher Ms Anita Arora.

Ms Arora shared the same surname as mine, was no doubt an extremely ruthless, merciless and even bloodthirsty teacher in the class whenever it came to English. She was a grammar Nazi. Since the very beginning, she never gave me any chance to defend myself against my weak English skills and arguing with her was calling for a self-invited “reprimand”.

She taught me English (as English teacher) till the last day of my stay in the school. In all those years, she always motivated us to learn English but at the same time she maintained a good balance by  never giving me good marks even when I answered things correctly.

The cost of defending own self was dealt with heavy castigation from her.

I always learnt new things from her. She was a remarkable teacher but I could never understand her unusual behavior for me since the very beginning.

In our 3rd Pre boards in 10th class (Yes, we did have many versions of pre boards) I scored exceptionally well.  My confidence grew since those days and I stood as the 2nd topper of my class in English for 12th Boards scoring 90 plus marks in that subject. 

Last year, I was fortunate enough to visit our school for an alumni meet where she said 

" You are a real gem for all of us " 

I want to tell her that I was just a piece of coal who was polished so hard by teachers like her in that school and because of her only, I could manage to write/speak/understand this much of English. 

That was the day when I realized why she never gave me good marks....! 

I hope you get to read this ma'am.

Sincerely 

Your Student Forever

Aashish

 P. S - This is the copy of my answer sheet where she has given me the highest marks in English ever in my school history. I have never returned this to her. :)