Swati Mam : The teacher who always had my back....

Naah… this one is not for every special occasion, just like that. Few years back I had written about my school teacher Mr. Joseph and how much I then ( now my friends too) wanted to meet him. This post is about another of my teachers from my masters days in Jaipur.

The teacher in question Swati Chaturvedi mam. In the 1st year if I remember correctly, she taught us few subjects of basic management and later on IT in the second year. Little does anyone know that she was the 1st and only teacher who told me to go, buy and start wearing jeans. The hilarious story is that we were having our annual function and the dress code for the boys was white shirt and jeans and all these years I had never worn jeans ( last I remembered was when I was a kid). True to a b school setting , I was used to wearing pants. Faced with “ why this now” I ventured to mam`s staff room in the break and asked whether jeans was compulsory? Couldn’t I do it with pant hoping that I may get a reprieve but instead of a standard reply somewhere on the lines of “ Rules are rules “ , I saw her look up from the paper she was checking and astonished, “ You are the first boy I have met who is asking for an exception to jeans. I thought boys loved jeans”. My attempts to wriggle out of the situation were shot down as she somehow senses my apprehension and told me, “ No ifs and buts, go and buy jeans if you don’t have one . Will want to see you in that”. So on the weekend I went on shirt and jeans hunt in 100+ fever. I was probably buying clothes for myself after very very long.

Its said that when you are away from home , you somehow find a teacher / guardian who is there for you. I remember very well that just before my 2nd sem exams I was down with a very very strong bout of viral during the preparation leave. Although I had all the strategy in place on paper on how to tackle each subject but the eyes just did not co-operate in the hostel. Frustated, one evening I smsed mam ( yes, 2008 was a pre whatsapp period) that I was thinking of drop all exams , return to my hometown, get healthy and in the next sem clear all these papers as backpapers. I was so much tired with my health that I was planning to execute this. Inspite of me taking doctor medication, nothing was working. Within 5 mins I got a call from her and when I explained to her my condition, she gave me an advice , “ I don’t doubt your capability and this time it might seem to be the logical way to you but later on it would create problems. Next sem would be all about specialization papers and you wont have the time to prepare for these basic papers not to mention the huge toll it would take on you. Do what you have to do to clear these papers. Give the exam to the best of your ability and finish it in this attempt only. For once, do it for me.. In case of any issues, I am there, talk to me if you need to.” That evening as I went to have dinner with my hostelmates, I decided to have it a go as 8 papers later on would be too much of a burden for me. I ditched medicines totally and went for injections to take care of the fever. Every 2 days when I felt that fever was returning, I had to go for an injection. Not taking any credit away from my hostelmates who drove me down to a nursing home nearby to have my dose. Now I have forgotten how many syringes were pricked into me during that time but it was a pure harrowing time for me. Had it not been mam`s push, my hostelmates then, I might have had a real hard time finishing up my masters.

As I became a senior , I got immersed in picking myself piece by piece ( few years back during the metoo campaign, I had written a blogpost as to how ragging destroyed and shattered my confidence for many years in the future) as I had only a year to make the most of my masters programme. Mam took IT as a subject and as a “khurapenchi” computer interest person all these years, I thought to get interested in atleast one subject I could like. That subject was tough for any layman and I too had to understand the subject matter using references to my favourite pc games, windows functionality etc. I remember understanding a system concept in a chapter by linking it to the rocket launcher in my fav game “Unreal Tournament”.

When it came to the summer project presentation, it was my luck that she was the judge in my ppt and to understand how she did her grading, I attended every ppt presentation she was grading, understood her doubt asking pattern etc. Coupled that with my note taking time of my senior`s ppt time, I was trying to chink out every gap in my armour, some field or question which might not leave me wondering ( was very less chance for that). In my ppt preparation I left no stone unturned ( owe it to the fact that I have stage fright or used to have it years back until I started enjoying the limelight in my blogger events) to showcase all that I had learned in my training days.

The icing on the cake was that I got more marks than I had hoped for when the results were announced later on but also the fact that I had scored a distinction in the IT paper I had given. All the thesis I had written had finally paid off. Its not that I had enjoyed IT just for the heck for it. I had created a telephone diary at that time using SQL in MS access by another subject teacher. Years later , my computer craze would lead me to customize my blog look HTML wise.

These few incidents whether hilarious or serious wouldn`t have enabled me to make my way out of them had it not been for chaturvedi mam. Hoping that she reads this and knows how she helped me through some of my most trying times 13 years back. I could save some of my original personality because of her.

The post about Joseph Sir can be read here - Joseph sir