#OnceAtSchool Contest: Tribute by Her Students

“Good morning ma’am,” greeted Ms. Trisha’s students, as she entered the seventh-grade classroom.

Ms. Trisha was loved by one and all. She was stout, chubby, and sweet. She used to teach ‘English’ language. Her students loved her for her attitude towards her students. 

She never compromised with studies, but she was very friendly and always used the most polite way to correct the mistakes her students made.

“Sorry ma’am, we are absent yesterday, so we could not do our homework,” two girls said who approached Ms. Trisha while she was collecting the homework notebooks.

“It’s O.K. kid if you could not do homework because of leave. But it’s not we are absent. You should say we ‘were’ absent yesterday,” Ms. Trisha explained with a pleasant smile on her face.

These words boosted up the confidence of the two girls like never before. One of them named Kriya was little embarrassed but at the same time relieved inside. The respect for Ms. Trisha increased even more in her heart, realising what if there were some other teacher and could make fun of their wrong English before the whole class. This thought gave her shudder.

Kriya looked up to Ms. Trisha as her inspiration from that day onwards. Ms. Trisha equally loved Kriya, for she was a sweet, shy yet intelligent student.

Whenever Ms. Trisha saw Kriya strolling around in the school corridor with her two friends, Vanshika and Srishti during recess, she would joke to Kriya, “stop being in the company of these two notorious little fellows. They would spoil you.” Kriya and Ms. Trisha would stand there grinning while Vanshika and Srishti would laugh it off because they knew Ms. Trisha was just creating joy. Those two were good girls too in Ms. Trisha’s eyes. Every student was good in her eyes.

Sometimes, Ms. Trisha would not teach regular textbook lessons, but she would sit in the classroom and share her school and college life experiences with her students. They were the most productive lessons for life. Students used to listen to each and every word carefully because they knew that she was building their moral character in those classes of ‘no textbook lessons’.

4 years passed happily as Ms. Trisha continued to teach all the classes from fifth to twelfth grade. When Kriya and her friends entered the eleventh grade, the school chairman’s grumpy daughter, Ms. Shreya, who disliked Ms. Trisha’s friendly behaviour with students, ordered her to teach only fifth and sixth grades.

Kriya and her friends’ hearts were shattered. They were so habitual of learning English by Ms. Trisha that they could not imagine not having Ms. Trisha around. Fifth and sixth grades were on the second floor of S.M. International School. S.M. stood for Shreya Mehra, that happened to be the name of school chairman’s daughter.

Days passed, many new English teachers came and gave demo classes to students, but no one could teach students the way Ms. Trisha did.

One day, Kriya was on the second floor, in the library. “Kriya, please go and call Vaibhav from class sixth B. Tell him that he needs to return a book that he issued last week,” the librarian asked Kriya.

“Yes, sure miss,” Kriya replied. When Kriya was coming out of a noisy sixth grade after informing Vaibhav, she met Ms. Trisha at the entrance of the class. Ms. Trisha’s heart skipped a beat seeing one of her old students after so many days. She did not say a word.

Kriya was equally emotional. It was the first time Kriya saw Ms. Trisha after the tenth grade result day. Thousands of words were running in her mind, but she could not speak anything at all.

“We need you back,” she wanted to scream so loud that her voice reaches Ms. Shreya’s ears. But she cut her gaze and headed straight back to the library without uttering a word, controlling her tears.

Ms. Trisha was upset. She was missing her students. She never got a chance to see the ground floor students because Ms. Shreya had instructed the teachers to use the lift that was near school reception. And students were forbidden from roaming unnecessarily on any floors other than the floors they had their respective classes on.

Kriya returned to her class and told her friends about meeting Ms. Trisha. And suddenly an idea struck Kriya.

“Hey friends, isn’t it the time to repay Ms. Trisha for everything she has done for us in past so many years?” Kriya said to her friends. “She was always with us when authorities tried to impose wrong rules on us. Her concern for her students made Ms. Shreya dislike her.”

“You’re right Kriya,” together said Vanshika and Srishti.

“Are you guys with me?” Kriya asked.

“Yes, we’re with you.”

That evening at Kriya’s home, Kriya and her friends made placards and posters. Then they prepared a notice that asked all the students to come and join the protests at school reception to get back Ms. Trisha on coming Saturday at 8:00 AM.

They printed out 20 copies of the notice and next day, on Friday, pasted on the entire ground and first floor. Ms. Shreya was luckily absent that day and other teachers of the school were with the students in their campaign.

On Saturday morning at 8:00 AM, the students from seventh grade to twelfth grade gathered at school reception, loudly chanting, “We Want Trisha Ma’am, we want Trisha ma’am.”

Ms. Trisha was on leave that day. Ms. Shreya called her and asked her to come to school immediately, “come and have a look what your students are up to,” she yelled in the phone and slammed it down.

Students held placards, and posters were stuck on every wall at the reception. The crowd of students stretched from reception to the main entrance of the school. People started crowding outside the main entrance of the school and it was becoming hard for the security to shoo them away.

All the teachers were now pleading Ms. Shreya to do as the students say. The students’ demand was not wrong or unachievable. Ms. Shreya remained adamant and did not come out of her office.

The students started protesting even harder. Some students started yelling outside her office. Ms. Trisha was badly stuck in heavy traffic on her way to school. She tried to call the school reception but could not go through. She was tensed. She did not know what step her students had taken. How was it related to her?

At last, after 3 hours of protests, Ms. Shreya had no way left but to listen to the students because they could not be stopped even after their parents showed up at school.

“We accept your request to get Ms. Trisha back to teaching all the classes. Now go back to your classes and stop this nonsense,” Ms. Shreya said, inside, she was burning with anger. This was the way she used, to talk to students. Non-sense!

All the students jumped and screamed triumphantly. Finally, they had their beloved teacher back.

After about 25 minutes, Ms. Trisha made it through the traffic and then through the crowd that was now thinning because the protests were over. When she entered the main entrance of the school, she was surprised to see students lined up on either side of the walkway and were clapping as she walked through it.

Kriya and her friends came and hugged Ms. Trisha, enclosing her in a circle. Ms. Trisha’s eyes filled with tears seeing the posters and placards and realising what had happened in the school.

“We’re so glad to have you back, ma’am. We won,” Vanshika said.

“Thank you dearest students. This is the best ever tribute, a teacher ever received by her students. I love you all,” Ms. Trisha said, gratified.

“Thanks to you ma’am, for everything you did for us always,” Kriya reciprocated the gratitude. Finally, Ms. Trisha was back to teaching all the classes she earlier used to teach.

Teaching not only textbook lessons but the life lessons too. I am so proud to have students like them. I could never be paid back better – Ms. Trisha thought while students of eleventh grade were busy doing a worksheet.

This post has been shortlisted as part of #OnceAtSchool contest. To read other shortlisted contest entries, click here.