These lines put me into deep introspection and realisation later on that what the Prophet said was true in all respects. For my teachers had never imposed wisdom upon me but inculcated their faith in human beings into my growing mind with their love, affection and, yes, of course, a bit of `caning, with both instrument and words'. There is no stage in my life in which a teacher had not played a role, though I was the total antithesis of the goody-goody conventional types that adorn the front benches in a class.

A thorough rebel throughout, I was like Maria in The Sound of Music and exactly like in the film the nuns in the college, where I did my graduation from, used to wonder `How do we solve the problem called Rathi Menon?' But then the bond that I shared with them in those formative years is still there. The moment I step into the English Department, the voices and faces that meet me there are those filled with pride.

It is a different matter that this same student had led the rebellion once against the Principal regarding malpractices in the student council election. But when the principal saw reason in our demands, she immediately took the necessary action. And that was a way of restoring faith in us in her way of running the college which for us in those days was the world in a microcosm. (In fact my husband was warned by the so-called well-wishers about the dangers of marrying a girl who had the `guts' to gherao the principal).

But the goodness in humans comes out when a person passes through troubled times. When my son lay fighting death just six days after birth, these very nuns led by Sister Paster, who was my hostel warden for three years (and we used to consider her the `warden of our jail'), assembled at the college chapel and prayed for his life. In a way I owe his life to their prayers too.

I always had a nice bunch of teachers with some of whom I still have contact, right from the class teacher in one of the junior sessions to the university days. I must have been in first or second standard and my teacher Sharada's main headache used to be my favourite pastime, and that was no trifle one, mind you. I used to take immense pleasure in banging my classmates' heads (each day, the `chosen one' would be different) on the wall.

Since all her methods failed to curb this mischief, she reported the matter to my father and he cured me of this tendency by `playing the same hobby' with my head. You may say she was a weak person but I developed a strange kind of attachment towards her and never again did she have any problem with me, minor incidents of innate naughtiness apart. She used to remember me with fondness and I heard her talking about the `head-banging hobby' to my mother-in-law on the day of my marriage! Those days, they did not have any intellectual pretensions or lofty philosophy to gab on. But they were very clear in their goal- to make a better person out of their student.

The personal examples they set made us believe in whatever they said and I still cherish my warden's words when we used to have our regular beat-ups : ``Enjoy life to the brim but never let the world know of your weaknesses.'' And I follow it in toto even now. It is not of love and affection alone but of learning and enlightenment, what Gibran called `faith'. I am indebted to my English teacher, Reginald, who I feel is solely responsible for my grasp of the language that now I am able to flaunt in the reports. ``Get your basics correct, you can't go wrong then,'' he would say.

My mother told me over the phone the other day that he kept the cuttings of all my articles that appeared there too. In fact, the basic knowledge that he had instilled in me had paid large dividends at all stages and is still doing so when I teach my son. Even in my professional life, it has its say though we stress, `get your facts right, you can't go wrong then'.

Campus life was totally different as it is everywhere but what I imbibed from the geniuses there was more the value of self-analysis and delving deep into the perceptions before us. Over cups of coffee in the canteen, we used to have interesting interactions with our professors and get better insight into Shakespeare, Beckett and Mathew Arnold, at times even Gita, which finally turned out to be studies apt for modern life. Now as I read these masters once again, I hear their words so clearly that I feel I am once again in the campus.

There is a wonderful poem in Malayalam the first line of which when translated means, ``Only if I could stroll once again in that yard where my memories meander...'' Unfortunately, in life there is no reverse-steering but only an onward flow of memories, and memories marinated in gratitude as one tends to fathom the present chaotic scenario of our education. Which makes me ask the teachers now, ``What faith and lovingness can you impart to the young impressionable minds when you have lost the faith in yourself?''