College: When I think of teachers today, seven years of being in this practice myself, the one who stands the tallest, grandest and most unassuming is you. Not that I have ever been close to you, or known you personally, but you, like the river journey you taught us of, have been a journey.
I remember laughing at Tang, crying on the stairs outside your classroom, at not being able to attend your lecture. We couldn't understand what was wrong with an apparently normal graduate girl. I also remember us rubbishing your first few lectures as 'entertainment'. Today, I am supposed to meet you. This happened because SM insists you remember me.You called me 'Posterwallah', and 'Swaty'r Kuntala'. And you took those amazing Super-Saturday classes of two Poetics and two American. You made us realize that teaching can be made easy, accessible and suave. Your examples are legendary. How did you carry on? I gasp after one slot of one and half hours. Of neither Aristotle, nor Toni Morrison.
Home: I met you today after seven years, and you made me feel that there never had been any year in between. Or that I was lying when I said, 'Not that I have ever been close to you, or known you personally...'
I happened to this academic jungle as per a circuitous chain of positive marksheets. It only seemed logical thus, that I would go 'into teaching'. I would not really mind, even now, if I am out of it, and happily moderately successful elsewhere. But while I am here, I can never tell you (and hence this letter) that the greatest responsibility I feel towards my
profession is because of you -- my initials.
They entrust sincerity, true to the letters.
Warmest regards,
Kuntala.
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