My favourite teachers

My mother, for teaching me the letters and inculcating in me the idea that studying is important.

Bengali

• Susanta Das Chowdhury, in class 4. He was the music teacher but he taught us Bengali for a year. He was much better than all the other Bengali teachers I had throughout school. He was the only teacher who emphasised on the difference between shadhu Bangla and cholit Bangla.
• Asim Chakraborty. I took private lessons from him in classes 9 and 10. He used to stay in Kalindi behind Lake Town. He used to be a former teacher of history and Bengali in my school but he retired much before I was in middle school, He greatly improved my Bengali spellings, and also helped me reinforce my ideas about atheism.

English

• Mr. Sengupta, in middle school. He did not teach either English language or English literature. Rather the period was called 'Spelling and Dictation'. What happened in those classes were games with English letters and words.
• Stephen D'Souza, throughout middle school. Taught me English grammar.
• Peter Sidney, in classes 9 and 10. Used to do a really detailed study of Merchant of Venice.
• Sujata Goswami, in classes 11 and 12. Improved my grammar.
• Amlan Das Gupta, at university. For focussing on the smaller picture while dealing with a text.
• Supriya Chaudhuri, at university. For focussing on the larger picture while dealing with a text.
• Paromita Chakravarti, at university. For teaching me about feminism.
• Sukanta Chaudhuri, at university, For keeping texts simple and focussing on the central tenets of a text rather than its long history of criticism.

Physics

• Shampali Mukherjee. She taught us science in middle school and physics in classes 9 and 10. After that, she was no longer our teacher, and my marks in physics reduced from the 90s to the 10s before recovering to the 60s. It is not as if I was fascinated by physics and I wanted to explore the subject further but that is perhaps because of my own disinclinations.

Chemistry

• Mr. Pakrasi. He taught us chemistry in classes 9 and 10. We were also introduced to the chemistry lab in class 9. The idea of liquids changing into other colours seemed fascinating at that age. In classes 11 and 12, he was no longer our teacher, and chemistry lab remained associated with the smell of H2S in my memory after that.
• Bijoy Sir. A private chemistry teacher I went to in classes 11 and 12. He stayed in Salt Lake, looked quite old and had spent some time in the USA earlier. He at least kept my interest in chemistry from flagging to drastic levels and had a simple method for teaching. Just as I was not fascinated by physics, my interest in chemistry drooped soon after but then again, it was perhaps because of my own disinclinations.

Computer Science

• My elder brother. He bought a computer after completing class 10 and when I was in class 7. Before class 10, he had written a 200-page computer programme of the board game Battleship that we had at home. This was for a school assignment when his classmates were writing 10-15 page computer programmes. He was a boy genius at computers. Some of it rubbed off on me and I had created my first HTML website within six months of getting an internet connection at home. It wasn't surprising that he decided to study computer science as an undergraduate.
• Shampa Ghosh. I went to her for private tuitions in classes 11 and 12. Primarily because my school teacher was an explicitly corrupt person. She not only made computer science fun and interesting for me but her son taught me Scrabble and I finished runners-up in the only two Scrabble competitions I have ever participated in (the winner was her son). She taught at Calcutta Girls’ High School, stayed in Chakraberia near Minto Park and also near Seven Tanks in Cossipore.

I initially wanted to study computer science after school just like my elder brother. But my grasp on physics and mathematics was not strong enough to get through to good institutions. Good teachers and good classmates are as important for sustaining interest in a subject as any other factor. I had learnt that from my experience at school. So I bunked the idea of computer science and decided to study English literature instead.

Given the number of English teachers from school who feature in this list, I guess it isn't surprising that I had more role models in English than in any other subject.