She was thirty eight years old. My Maths teach from my High School was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She was away from her family, alone in a hill station with other nuns, sharing her days with children who will pass out of school and vanish out of her life in a few years, unmarried and without any near kith and kin to look after her. It was inspiring just to watch her keep on going from one day to the next - day after day after day. Truly.
We were the senior most in school that year. After that year we would not be seeing her again and probably for the rest of our lives and hers, think very little about her. And yet, today, after these many years, she is still my greatest role model, my greatest inspiration.
Mrs. Bagchi was the most eloquent, graceful woman I have come across in my life. We have not only looked upto her as a Maths teacher, but also tried to imitate her ways and manners - the way she spoke with such great confidence and assertion, and yet sounding so polite, the way she dressed herself in those Sarees with not a single pleat put of place, the subdued fragrance of Cuticura as she walked past the isles during the tests, the encouragement, the restraint We all had a sort of teenage girl crush on her, and we all aspired to be like her when we grew up.
So the day we learnt about her illness, naturally we were devastated. It all started with a rumor. A rumor that no body was inclined to believe. Someone had started the fire. It came in a single whisper and flooded our eyes. We just could not believe. No, we chose not to believe. She was all right just the day before. Even that morning we had a class, and she seemed perfectly well.
Later, living in a small town paid off, when I heard the neighbor tell my mother, "She is hiding it well. No sign of distress or pain of the misery that has befallen her. Imagine an unmarried lady who has to go through all this on her own."
"Won't the school take care of her treatment?" she asked concerned.
"Of course, of course. But its different you know. If one has a family.." and she drifted off there, leaving Mrs. Bagchi's fate to the possibilities of better prospects that apparently only her immediate family could give her.
Well, to be honest, we wanted to, but we could not do much for her except pray and make Get Well Soon cards for her whenever we had any spare time, or during our art classes. By the grace of God and the strength of her will, Mrs. Bagchi survived the evil cancer. She did look very weak and frail after her treatment, but very soon she was back to her usual graceful self. The mirror of perfection. Of course, by the time her treatment was over, we had passed out of school, but we continued to meet her and she used to talk about the difficult time she had been in, and how she managed to draw strength even in such adverse times as those.
We meet her even today. Less frequently. But we do. Her once jet black hair has now turned grey, but her beauty and grace is still untouched by the savageness of time or fate.
For finding your strength and your ground, do look up: https://housing.com/lookup
She was away from her family, alone in a hill station with other nuns, sharing her days with children who will pass out of school and vanish out of her life in a few years, unmarried and without any near kith and kin to look after her. It was inspiring just to watch her keep on going from one day to the next - day after day after day. Truly.
We were the senior most in school that year. After that year we would not be seeing her again and probably for the rest of our lives and hers, think very little about her. And yet, today, after these many years, she is still my greatest role model, my greatest inspiration.
Mrs. Bagchi was the most eloquent, graceful woman I have come across in my life. We have not only looked upto her as a Maths teacher, but also tried to imitate her ways and manners - the way she spoke with such great confidence and assertion, and yet sounding so polite, the way she dressed herself in those Sarees with not a single pleat put of place, the subdued fragrance of Cuticura as she walked past the isles during the tests, the encouragement, the restraint We all had a sort of teenage girl crush on her, and we all aspired to be like her when we grew up.
So the day we learnt about her illness, naturally we were devastated. It all started with a rumor. A rumor that no body was inclined to believe. Someone had started the fire. It came in a single whisper and flooded our eyes. We just could not believe. No, we chose not to believe. She was all right just the day before. Even that morning we had a class, and she seemed perfectly well.
Later, living in a small town paid off, when I heard the neighbor tell my mother, "She is hiding it well. No sign of distress or pain of the misery that has befallen her. Imagine an unmarried lady who has to go through all this on her own."
"Won't the school take care of her treatment?" she asked concerned.
"Of course, of course. But its different you know. If one has a family.." and she drifted off there, leaving Mrs. Bagchi's fate to the possibilities of better prospects that apparently only her immediate family could give her.
Well, to be honest, we wanted to, but we could not do much for her except pray and make Get Well Soon cards for her whenever we had any spare time, or during our art classes. By the grace of God and the strength of her will, Mrs. Bagchi survived the evil cancer. She did look very weak and frail after her treatment, but very soon she was back to her usual graceful self. The mirror of perfection. Of course, by the time her treatment was over, we had passed out of school, but we continued to meet her and she used to talk about the difficult time she had been in, and how she managed to draw strength even in such adverse times as those.
We meet her even today. Less frequently. But we do. Her once jet black hair has now turned grey, but her beauty and grace is still untouched by the savageness of time or fate.
For finding your strength and your ground, do look up: https://housing.com/lookup
No comments:
Post a Comment