Stories and Some Learnings: On making small efforts and receiving the universal support

So I chose an additional paper in Mathematics for my 10th boards. I did this because I had been doing well in Mathematics since childhood and choosing an additional paper which posed some challenges was a natural thing to do. Elders and teachers also seemed to back this choice. However, our school didn’t have an experienced teacher and I learnt very little on that subject from our school Math teacher not because he wasn’t good or qualified but because he simply didn’t have the experience in that syllabus of our state board. Also, I was the only student in our small class that went for this subject and there was no way the school was going to invest in another teacher.

I was going for private tuitions and my teacher, Ms Nalini Das Gupta was an excellent teacher. She was retired and so was not in touch with the latest format of the question papers however her teaching was the perfect foundation that I needed, and I hoped to sail through my 10th boards with her guidance.

Destiny would have it otherwise. She had been ailing since a long time due to Asthma and sometimes my classes would also be interrupted because of her illness but only for a day or so. But this time, when I was in 10th, the interruptions due to her ill health was to be longer. Her health conditions worsened, and she was eventually admitted to the hospital from where she never returned.

What has stayed with me and will stay for ever is her enquiring about my studies to my father when he went to visit her in the hospital. By that time, I was fortunate to have found another teacher, Shri Anup Roy who invested his time, energy and faith in me to see me come out successful. Ms. Dasgupta, in her deathbed, was much satisfied learning that one of her favorite students now had a teacher to guide her.

What has also stayed with me is her showing me her certificates in melancholy only a few weeks before she fell ill. She had pulled up her certificates from her book trunk and told me that those were no longer of use. Maybe she was sensing something.

I learned that good things happen if you are on the right track, if you have the blessings and if your intent is right.

Shri Anup Roy, whom we lovingly called, Antu Sir, took it upon himself to give me the best teaching and making sure at every step that I didn’t miss anything.

Sir was so confident of what he taught and what the students grasped. He asked us to write a test a month before our final exam, and told us to consider that test as the final exam. He told us that whatever marks we would score in his paper would be what we would score in boards. Previously one of his students had scored 77/100 in his test and that was what he scored in the finals. In those days where ‘letter’, i.e. score of 80+ was so hard to get, missing those 3 marks was a disappointment for both the student and the teacher. Sir’s next hopes rested on me.

So, I did the paper well. One particularly amusing incident was that at the final step of one of the problems, I summed 0 and 1 as 4. Sir checked my paper first and he too missed the 0+1=4 and gave me 5 marks for that. He used my paper to check the other papers and crossed out their correct answers. The first batch of students to whom the papers were distributed realized that they had the same answer which were crossed out as incorrect. And all their answers were the same. How could all the incorrect answers be same and so hesitatingly they asked Sir to recheck my papers. Sir checked mine and crossed my answer out. My score was 93 in sir’s paper and since I lost 5 marks here, I ended up scoring 88. Sir didn’t give me any marks for the correct steps.

A friend of mine from the first batch told me about what I had done, and we feared that I would really get a jolting in our next class. I was worried all the way when we walked to sir’s place. Sir just looked at me, asked me if I knew the consequences of what I had done, smiled a bit, and asked me to be careful in the final exam. Not even a word of rebuke.

I learned a lesson that little mistakes happen, that we can learn from those and that a teacher’s experience mattered

Sir came to visit me at home before my exams. He also came to the examination hall as I was nervously doing the last bit of revision. What sir said has stayed with me so far and will perhaps stay till the end. He advised to attempt the easiest problem first and then the next easiest and so on. That way one would gain more confidence that he would know and build on that momentum. If one picked the difficult one, there is a chance of the person getting demoralized and lost at the very beginning.

I went to follow his instructions and when I came out of the examination hall, I could hear the murmurs of other students on how complicated the question paper was.

I learned about not panicking, I learned about picking the low hanging fruit, I learned how success is but made of a series of small steps

After the exam I went to see Sir and he was waiting at the gate to see at least one student of his to turn up and report about how the paper went. He was happy to see me and after we had discussed the paper, we realized that I had probably messed up one question. Sir said it’s fine not to score all, as one would end up feeling that he knew everything.

I learned how mistakes are okay, that mistakes leave a scope for improvement. Mistakes make you feel human.

And that year I had the highest marks in Additional Math in the state board. How much did I score? 91…somewhere between 88 and 93 😊