Rukmini ma’am, our beloved bonsai!

MR Anand

The tiniest woman clad in sari I have ever met was Rukmini ma’am. She looked more like a bonsai than a human being. She was my teacher when I was in second standard. She was around 50. We looked up to her, not as a teacher, not even a mother, but a grandmother — an embodiment of indulgence and kindness. She wore Gandhian spectacles and always carried a copy of the Tamil weekly Ananda Vikatan and an umbrella. In her bag, she kept a foldable accordion hand fan since our classrooms had no fans. Only the headmaster had an old wall fan. After signing the attendance register kept in the headmaster’s tiny cubicle, she would walk down to the classroom to stay there till 4 in the afternoon when Munisami, a septuagenarian, the only peon of the school, rang the day’s final bell.

In those days, all that we were supposed to learn during the entire academic year of second standard was Tamil and English alphabet and construction of small words. Not even arithmetic tables were introduced at that level. We were not in a hurry to cram our heads with numbers. We loved to, and were allowed to flutter around freely like butterflies. Hardly any one of us was precocious. We were seven years old and behaved like them. We were like plants growing organically. No pesticides, no fertilisers. Our parents wanted us to grow into big trees and give shade to our family, society and nation. They never wanted to spoil us by transplanting us in foreign soil. We were not carrying big loads of books like present-day children. We just carried a slate and a baked stick of lime to write with.

Rukmini teacher took special care of me since she knew my father was a teacher. At times, she even shared with me her lunch that she carried in a small tiffin box. From her, I learnt my life’s first lesson that one should not judge people by their looks. Sometimes God hides a beautiful soul in a seemingly unattractive body. Reticent, she taught me more than all those loud teachers who unleashed on me unending harangues about the need to participate and ‘win’ in the never-ending rat race. Faces of my college lecturers and professors completely faded from my memory, but faces of my primary school teachers remain fresh.

A tree should not look down on its roots. A building should not forget its foundation which remains humbly underground. We can never grow bigger and taller than the angels, our primary school teachers. When we stand before them, we shrink to become a small child again.

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