TO MY MENTOR

 

For Babu Sir,

We say teachers are the one who shapes our notions, who taught us something out from our books and they are the one who decides whether to make a perky student or an unbright one. Just like the saying I can assure you that a teacher obviously plays a good lead role behind the success and failure of every student simply from my experience. This is my letter to him. To the one who held me like anything in my every highs and lows, to the one who found that real me of mine and to the one who taught me that ‘you don’t need a person to hear for expressing your feeling, there are still many other ways’.

After scoring a good percentage from higher school I then joined one of the famous colleges of my district approximately 43 km distant from my home. Every day I traveled long miles to reach there and returned home dog-tired.but it was all OK for me believing only hard work can bring you to a better position one day.  In class I was very concentrative and had made my own better place in teacher’s good books. But When my first semester result came I was so drown by my thoughts that I blamed the one who corrected my paper for all my flaws and I was so ashamed to look into my teachers eyes. I scored less than what I expected indeed very less than I deserve to achieve. Every teacher gave me a scornful face and disdained me by saying ‘better improve next time’. But never said to me where I shall improve and what should I do to improve and neither explained where I made mistakes and where I should work upon. That really broke my feelings.

 But when everyone was busy congratulating the high scored one there was this one man who stood odd out of these people and noticed my struggling ready-to-correct face. He called me out and asked ‘I never expected this from you, you should have scored good marks, what do you think the reason is’. I still remember my reply to him’ I don’t know where I made mistake I think the one who corrected my paper must have not given me enough marks’. He was confused by that statement,’ I don’t think anyone would purposefully do that especially with the one who must have written well. I think you should improve your way of writing. Write more even when you don’t write well. Write whatever comes to your mouth don’t be a skimpy.’ I took his word and tried writing more next time but again the same thing happened.

Scored less than what I expected but I promise I studied and wrote well this time. And like the first semester teachers said’ improve next time’. I don’t know whether they said so because they believed I wrote the exam without studying or they believed I have a severe issue in writing exam but that really hurted me. But without hoping, that one man again asked me to write more write your opinions and mark the points. Though his class was not effective his words had got some power. And finally it worked. I improved. Actually I must say I started improving to a much better level and finally I scored A good grade too.

When every other teacher simply asked me to improve next time, he stood by my side and said you can improve by doing so and so things. He understood my problem by reading my mind. When every other teacher was busy giving inspirations and ideas for the future he concentrated upon my current problems and also gave its solutions. And the most inspiring thing about him is this that if today I am able to write and express my feelings through words it is his motivation. He found that there is a writer in me and if today I have written more than 5 stories and 20 poems it is just because of this one man. I know thank you is a very small word to express my gratitude, I still say thank you so much for being a good mentor, for being a good motivator and for those precious words which I will remember until my last breath. You will always and always and forever be remembered for the friendship you had given me over the time. Your deeds are so valuable for me that I will always be grateful for having you in my life. Thank you so much.

I believe this is what every student like mine is wishing for. Not you lengthy speeches, not your unwanted motivation thoughts. And not even a perfect class but some support for the problems that we face, some friendship for the strange feelings and thoughts we have about and some inspiration for improvising our skills. Maybe he is not a perfect teacher, maybe he failed in being a good teacher but  I can promise he is a very good success mentor who had shapen every notion of mine. And had always been a good friend of mine.

Thankfully

 Theertha.