Teachers are the building blocks of any person’s life, next only to parents. This is what we have all read and known growing up, but for me it is something I have experienced all my life. And more so whenever I needed it the most.

Right from childhood, I have been blessed to have teachers who not only helped me develop as a human being but also encouraged me to pursue my sporting dreams. It is to their credit that I never had to choose between studies and sports. Even after taking up hockey seriously and joining the national camps right from my junior-level days, a lot of coaches have helped me reach where I have managed to today.

But the one person who has a very special place in my heart is Sudhina teacher. She has been my friend, my mother, my support system, everything. She is someone I always remember and say a silent ‘thank you’ to every time I win something with my team.

Sudhina teacher took me under her wing when I joined GV Raja Sports School in 2000 as a Std VIII student. It was the first time I was staying away from family, and it was a nightmare. I was also a reluctant, shy kid and it wasn’t easy for me to adjust to life in a big city like Thiruvananthapuram, staying in a hostel and trying to balance hockey training and studies. All I had was Sudhina teacher.

And she never let me feel lonely. The three years I was at the school — GV Raja has only up to Std X — on paper she was just my physics teacher. In reality, she was much more. Whenever I cried, she would console me. Whenever I felt homesick, she would bring me home food. When I struggled in hockey, she gave me the strength to continue trying.

Once, when my father came to meet me after I felt extremely homesick, the teacher told him, “the more a kid cries initially here and wants to go back, the higher he goes in achieving his dreams”. That gave me the will to pursue my dreams as well. At the same time, she also gave me the courage to face my fears, take them head on and come out victorious. If I am known for not giving up ever on or off the field today, it’s because that was the lesson Sudhina teacher taught me.

By the time I was in Std X, I was a regular at national camps and missed a lot of my studies. The teacher made me sit with her son — he is the same age as me — and gave me extra lessons after school. She worked as hard on me as on her own son, maybe even harder. She is the only reason I passed those exams.

There are many such instances where she went beyond simply being a teacher. For me, she will always be my second mother. What I feel for her is very natural, but now that I have to actually talk about it, it is very difficult. I do not have any words to explain what Sudhina teacher means to me, what position she holds in my life, in my being the person I am today.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to keep in touch with her or meet her since I left school. As GV Raja is administered by the State government, its teachers are government employees who keep getting transferred. Even though as a DEO it would be easy for me to find her — perks of the job! — I have not been able to, as most of my time is spent in national camps or tournaments.

I have promised myself that finding out her current whereabouts would be one of the first things to do for me once I go to office in Kerala. And this is one promise, Sudhina teacher, that I intend to keep.

(As told to Uthra Ganesan)

Related Topics