(1)

This day has lost its significance for some strange reason. When I was in school, we used to have this funda that all the teachers will get treated to music and food, and the students from senior classes will teach the junior classes on this particular day. Similarly, on children's day we did not have classes, and the teachers used to put up a cultural programme for the students. It was educative, it was fun, and it was sweet.

During my four years at IIT, I do not think I ever went up to a professor and said 'Happy Teachers' Day'. In fact, I positively hated quite a few of our profs at that time.

Its only been an year since I ceased to be a part of that system, and already a lot of supposedly hateful things those people used to say/do are falling into perspective. There are occasions when stray phrases and quotes, uttered by those teachers during some lecture, seem to come to mind and their importance gets highlighted because they fit almost exactly to the situation at hand.

Today, I have mailed four of my teachers from college, and have met in person two teachers from my school days. I kind of suddenly realized that these people have guided so many people that they probably dont even know who I am and when had they taught me.

Naturally, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the teachers I met in person, not only remembered my name, but also my brother's name, my parents' occupations and my place of residence in the city! One of them even seemed to remember what I was like seven years ago (the time when he had last seen me) - the first thing he said on seeing me was "I cant believe this - bete there has been a tremendous change in your personality!!"

Well, I can only say that my respect for them has multiplied lately. I can't wait to meet my new teachers who will be teaching me at Oxford (yes, thats where I am going to study - classes starting next month).

So all of you who are reading this post, go ahead and mail / call / visit your teachers, even if you are a day or two late. They'll be pleased by your wishes, and you will be pleased to see just how much they remember after all these years!



(2)

There hopponed to be quite a few bongolis in the place where I wos working until lost month, ond they oll sheemed to have this identicol way of ottering the different vowols ond consononts. I om shure you guys hove olso noticed it - the tondoncy to open their mouths in a round shape while shpeaking, sho that oll (or ot least a vast majority of) the 'A's in a word sheem to have the shame shound os 'O' in the word "College". Ditto for oll the cases where the vowol E ond U have the shame shound os that in the words "yes" ond "but". Olso, they tond to replace the shound of shingle 'S's with that of on 'SH', if the shingle 'S' shound oppears ot the stort of a word.

Read the above paragraph aloud again and you will notice that there isn't a single spelling error in it! ;-)

P.S. The above passage is not intended to insult a language or a community. It is just an attempt at bugging the people who were unfortunate enough to read the paragraph.