Rahul Banerjee

Inspirational

4.8  

Rahul Banerjee

Inspirational

Rafique Sir

Rafique Sir

3 mins
505


For the last 2-3 days, don’t know why, Rafique Sir is again and again crossing my mind. As we are nearing Saraswati Puja this year, I am somehow becoming reminiscent of Sir.

Maybe that was around 1991-92, Rafique Sir was our Physical Education teacher, that time we used to have a class on Physical Education, which was more or less limited to a Football practice or Yoga practice. I was always reluctant in that class because all my friends were outstanding in any form of athletics. I was somehow a little more confident in cricket in our school compared to other sports, because most of my friends were so underprivileged that some never held a bat in their life, but they had very tough physique from an early age as they had to somehow contribute to their family income...Rafique Sir definitely understood my mindset, so he insisted I not go for cricket only, but concentrate on sprint running also, as he knew I was fast enough but again a lazy soul for anything beyond 50m sprint. That year I really made it to the podium finish to my own surprise.

Sir was also our part-time history teacher. If I remember correctly, when we were in standard seven, he taught us the Middle age of Europe followed by Renaissance in Europe, Sir never went by the books, rather he used to simply act as a storyteller and we used to get mesmerized by his poised, elaborate but simple narration, as if we were witnessing the Barons, Bourgeoisie, Bishops within our class, he kept on praising Gutenberg, Da Vinci for their contribution to education, arts. He compared our Indian history of Mughals and what Europe was doing in a similar timeframe.

I still can remember, during Saraswati Puja, our school used to have minimal classes for the arrangements to be done, remember we had 1200 plus students for whom prasad used to get distributed on Saraswati Puja and also Khichudi meal was arranged on the following day. Meal used to consist of Khichudi made of Arhard and Massoor dal, along with spicy tomato chutney and brinjal fry, papad, rasogolla. And Sir alone was the main shopper for all these, because he used to stay to the main wholesale farmers’ market, though it was far most from the school. We all knew, among all the teachers he was the only one who would still give extra rasogollas if requests went on from the “bachha” students.

That year when the annual results were declared, I did well in every subject but not in history. Later on, when Baba went on to discuss the same with Rafique Sir, Sir smiled at Baba and told “this boy is a lazy but smart fellow, he could answer only 80 out of 100 because of slow but beautiful handwriting.” He went on, “others got 70-75 by answering all the questions and this boy got 65 from 80, so who did better?” and he smiled again.

Baba returned from school, was quite boasting about the smart thing I did in history. Next day, in the market, Baba and I suddenly came across Rafique Sir, he was repairing his cycle. When I got the chance, quietly touched his feet, he kept on patting on my shoulders. When we were very near to our home, Baba said “A teacher has no religion.”


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