Three year old Pinky was crying badly with tears flowing all over her pink cheeks and rosy cute little lips. She was clad in dark blue pinafore, white shirt, and not to mention the safety pin holding the handkerchief to the pinafore intact.

Sitting in the last bench of the LKG B-Section, her first day in the school was painful. Seeing all new faces and the smell from the boxes of wax Camlin crayons made her awfully uncomfortable. The water bottle had spilled the water all over the floor. The class was noisy and she could hear few other kids crying badly for mummy.

The hand drawn portraits of apple and banana hanging in the walls did not invite any interest in the class. She wanted to go home and sleep beside her mom.

Class teacher entered the class. Took the attendance and turned towards the class and said.

“My dear students let me teach you rhymes today. Repeat the words as I say”

“YES MAAAAAAAAAAAM…”, came the reply from the class.

She opened the book and started reciting the rhymes….Pinky repeated what the teacher said with the tears dripping all over her cheeks. When the rhymes was over, Pinky’s cry had subsided a bit and she is red all over her small nose. Teacher noticed this and came to her

“What do you want pinky?”

“I want mummy…”, she told curling her lips forward

“Mummy will come in the evening and pick you up”

“No I want to go now”. Teachers words agitated Pinky’s little heart and she started shouting at her highest decibel. Teacher promised her chocolates if she stayed quiet. But all her efforts went in vain. Pinky badly wanted to go home. The teacher told her, if you tell me rhymes, I’ll leave you to your parents. She told this and left Pinky in her seat and left the place and walked towards her chair in front of the class. Pinky was looking seriously into the open textbook which was lying on the table. She had to stop crying as there was no other go.

When the bell rang three times, she could hear the sounds of shoes walking past her class. There was a break for 15 minutes; Pinky opened her Tiffin box and took out the orange cream biscuits. She took the round biscuit in her hand and pulled both the biscuits apart, which were stuck to each other, with the orange cream in between. She started licking the orange cream slowly till the taste of the biscuit felt in her tongue. She did this for all the biscuits and left the wet biscuits sans cream back in the Tiffin box.

The class started after the 15 minutes break.

After a 2hours of all classes, there came the last period. Rhymes Teacher again!

This period was activities period. Teacher asked each one of the students to come near her and asked the student to sing a song or tell any poem. Pinky remembered the rhymes which her mom taught her a week back. Before joining the school, Pinky’s mom used to teach her songs, rhymes and alphabets etc. Suddenly she remembered the book which she was staring in the morning. It had pictures of stars, moon and dark night.

Teacher was sitting in her chair, calling each one of them to do something for the class. Pinky was watching carefully what each of the students were doing. She wanted to leave. She wanted to come out of this agony of sitting in the class and doing things told by the teacher.

“Come here Pinky”, Teacher called.

Pinky slowly got up from her seat and walked towards her carrying the book with which had the pictures of stars and moons.

“What are you going to do Pinky”, Teacher interrogated.

“Lhymes…..”, she said in her childish slang.

“Oh Pinky is going to tell us rhymes”, Teacher announced to the class. “Ok. Come on Pinky. Tell the rhymes”. She thought Pinky is going to say the rhymes which she taught in the class this morning.

Pinky started

“Tinki tinki litti chaar.

Aavai onna waattoo aar

Appobaada volso hai

Laika dimon inda sky”

By the time she finished telling this with all actions and modulation, the teacher hugged her and planted a kiss in her pink cheeks and asked her, “Who taught you this?”

“Mummy”, came the reply

Pinky expected her to take her to the mom as she said earlier. By the time she was thinking, the bell rang and parents have come to escort their child back.

Pinky was so happy seeing all the parents. She could spot her mom who has come to escort her. She quickly packed her school bag and left the class. The teacher met her mom and asked to meet her in the staff room.

In the staff room,

“You girl is so naughty and intelligent”

“Oh…are there any complaints?”

“No, I just wanted to tell you that, she told rhymes today in the class. No other students were able to tell this way. You are really blessed to have such a child.”

“Thank you very much madam”

***

Later in Pinky’s house.

“Teacher told me that, she is really intelligent”, Veena said to her husband.

“Oh is it? What did she do in the class?”

“She told the rhymes that I taught her last week”

“Oh great ! You always do your best to teach children things in an interesting way by showing them the pictures and toys while teaching the rhymes. This made the children remember and learn the rhymes so easily and quickly. No wonder you are a great teacher!”

Veena, who was a young and energetic teacher in the kindergarten school, blushed, hearing those compliments given to her.

Dedicated to all the teachers.

Happy Teachers Day