Enakkaaga

இந்த blog entry to bring in some cheer. I've simply made one big list of the names of all my teachers this far at school and college. பள்ளிக்கூடத்தில் ஒண்ணாங்கிலாஸ்-லேர்ந்து கல்லூரி நாட்கள் வரை... பின்னணியில் எங்கேயோ ஒரு குரல் "ஞாபகம் வருதே ஞாபகம் வருதே" என்று இழுக்கிறதா?

இந்த list-இல் உங்களுக்கு எதுவும் புரிய வாய்ப்பில்லை -unless you, like me, at some coinciding period, were a student of one or more of the following: CSI Ewart Matriculation and Higher Secondary School, The Ethiraj College for Women, Stella Maris College, Cleveland State University. 

Mrs. Ragland - Standard I - C. Our English text had pictures and phrases to match, for example: "Bess is six; she can go to school." "There is no use crying over spilt milk."
Mrs. Ebenezer - Standard II - C. No memories here.
Mrs. Chelladurai - Standard III - C. Taught us the meaning of synonyms and antonyms. "The antonym of bachelor is spinster."
Miss. Agnes Samuel - Standard IV - C - her classes on moral science were more fun than the Physics.
Miss. Nalini Sampath - Standard V - A - said she would come home one evening to meet my parents, leading to anticipation fraught with worry.
Mrs. Vedanayagam - Standard VI - A - taught Chemistry. I hated it.
Mrs. Davidson - Standard X - A.
Mrs. Shyamala Suresh - Standards XI & XII A - I remember her second daughter was born when I was in high school, her name is Julia. Mrs. Suresh taught geography. In one of her classes, she explained how the fold mountains formed. For analogy of the earth's crust rising up due to tectonic forces, she used her handkerchief on the teacher's writing table.
Mrs. Ponraj - Tamil from grades VI to XII. என் தமிழ் குரு, என் ஆசான்.
Mrs. Phoebe GnaanaOlivu - History.  Made us see the fascination in dwelling on some glorious past.
Miss. Purnima - History.Spoke of Tripithaka with much animation. She loved History, I could tell.
Mrs. Chandrashekar - Civics. "Children, let me tell you an interesting story." I was fooled the first time.
Mrs. Mary Balan - English. She was disgusted when I once wrote gruesome friend instead of bosom friend. I guess I don't know the difference even now.
Mrs. Paul - Vice Principal, Economics teacher.
Mrs. Doss - Games - Standards I to V.
Mrs. Chellaiah - Games - Standards VI to XII. Apart from kho-kho and ball badminton group games, we played softball at Ewart's.
Mrs. Howie - Music - school choir upto grade XII. Told the class there are no curves in English music, meaning gamaka. Taught us songs of laughing kookaburras, the king and queen dilly dillies, and somewhere o'er the rainbows.
Mrs. C Chelladurai - Principal, with special Monday morning prayers.
Mrs. E M Victor - pianist for morning prayers, grades VI to XII. Later, Principal. Never fails to remind me of the phrase "thumping on the cold piano."
Mrs. James - School Librarian - Standard IV to XII, Gayathri's friend :-) -the only librarian to date I remember with a wooden ruler ready for disciplining.
Mrs. Edwards - Bookstore Manager since when I could count change. Mother of my classmate Shelomi Tamara and her younger sister Maryann Shehara.

Mrs. S. Rajalakshmi - BA - Environmental Economics. - Introduced me to Kipling among many other peoples, concepts, practices. I was 'taken!'
Mrs. S. Malini - BA - Class Teacher - years I to III, Micro Economics. - Am I confusing her with the real class teacher?!
Dr. S. Radha - Economic Thought. A sincere student even as a teacher.
Dr. Mrs. Gowharjhan - Indian Economy, wore the loveliest cotton sarees with the headiest of perfumes.  
Mrs. K. Kalaiyarasi - Monetary Economics, would say "frankly speaking, let me tell you something about India's monetary policy."
Dr. Mrs. V. Renuka Devi - Macro Economics, glared us into silence with two huge eyes.

Dr. Ms. Geetha Sridharan - MA - Macro Economics, I tested her patience sorely. 
Ms. Mary Abraham - MA - Micro Economics, brought the difficult Koutsoyiannis alive.
Ms. Pearl Paul - MA - Indian Economy, at times would exclaim இல்லா! in the middle of a lecture.
Ms. Raihana Sabir - MA - Indian Economy, asked me the current GDP of the nation, during the entrance interview.
Ms. Regi Manimegalai - MA - Computer Lab, Research Methods, my guide for dissertation.

Dr. Vijay Mathur - International Trade, Micro Economics.  Welcomed me to Cleveland State without once laughing at my *somewhat odd* blue man's overcoat handed down by well-meaning sis to keep me warm in cold Cleveland. Special days. I used to run around like a fidgety cousin of Sherlock Holmes.
Dr. Jim Nieberding - Micro Economics, Mathematical Methods for Economists. Was first confused, then annoyed, then plain irritated when I kept addressing him "Sir" - first lesson in grad school USA.
Dr. Sheldon Stein - Macro Economics.  "Some people take this stuff seriously" ... Mizak are you listening?!
Dr. Allan Taub - Econometrics, told us to question every axiom. Question it.
Dr. Myong Chang - I remember his lecture on Game Theory.

Dr. Jackie Woldering - Intro to C programming; Assembly Language.  Assembly was a summer term class. It was also the only one then, to conclude with pizza and coke on the last day. I paid $5.
Dr. Timothy Arndt - Computer Architecture; Introduction to DBMS. "PowerPoint dude."
Dr. McIntyre of the green pants - RDBMS. Yes, green, no exaggeration.
Dr. Howard Pu - a cross listed class I took to fill credits for the semester. Called me Pry-ah.
Dr. Toshinori Munakata - Data Structures in C - told us his was the weeding semester. If some of us were supposedly weeds, then what is he?!
Dr. Alan Benander - Intro to Java programming; Intro to Operating Systems. Better in O/s!
Dr. James D Schoeffler - C++, Visual C++, COM DCOM.  My best semesters of the CIS program.
Dr. Janche Sang - Comparative O/s Interfaces. Fan of the NY Yankees. Taught tough, graded easy.
Dr. Santosh Misra - E-commerce. Hated our guts if we presumed to go unprepared to class.

Memories. கண் காது மூக்கு வரையாமல்  can we remember them -கொஞ்சம் சந்தேகம் தான்.  Unless, like Dumbledore, one could create silvery wisps of memory threads and put them into a special pensieve. Then one can load or unload whenever needed, without disturbing accuracy. கற்பனை உலகின் அசாத்தியம்.