TeacherDays Under the Crescent SunPune1990s

Ideas Over Commas

Reshma Shaikh Miss, one ten-minute essay, and a verdict I still live by

She wore every colour in the box, marked ideas above commas, and once read my handwriting better than I could. Then she called the mistakes small. The essay is at the end, red pen and all.

By Vinaay Patil7 min read
Ink-and-watercolour illustration of a sunlit 1990s Pune classroom. A young teacher with a long single ponytail walks in through the doorway, smiling, holding books, in a full-sleeve white anarkali suit with rani-pink embroidery and a sheer dupatta. Translucent squares of teal, marigold, coral and sage float on the wall, with round pictures of a book, a quill, a sprouting seed and a paper boat joined by dotted lines. Students in white shirts and yellow uniforms look up and smile. The blackboard reads: English, Ideas, Stories, People, The World.
Enter Ma’am. Colour arrives first; English follows.

Grace And Beauty

she walks in

Reshma Shaikh Miss was the most beautiful teacher of my Crescent life. She was graceful, elegant, a distinguished person. Everything about her was royal: her long hair, her dresses (usually full-sleeve Punjabi dresses, rich in the whole gamut of colours). And to top it all, she had a disarming smile, and she oozed positivity as she walked into the class.

An Accidental Teacher

a temporary fill-up

In many ways, she seemed an accidental teacher. She was well educated, with fine English, and had probably taken the job at Crescent as a temporary fill-up. She was probably there for just a couple of years, after which I never saw her.

Ideas Over Commas

marked for ideas

She taught us English, and her style was her own, which put her in stark contrast with the other English teachers.

Firstly, she was very soft spoken, never harsh, and this flowed into her teaching. Where an Amrit Dang would slice you into multiple pieces if your punctuation went wrong, Reshma Shaikh was very forgiving. It showed in the marks she gave in exam papers: every grammatical mistake circled in red, and still high marks, if the tone and tenor of the answer were good enough.

For her, ideas mattered. The rote reading of a typical English chapter would be done in the first fifteen minutes, and the rest of the lecture went on the ideas in it. The larger point, the idea the author wanted to convey, was what mattered to her.

The teacher, in a parrot-green suit with white embroidery and a long ponytail, sits at a wooden desk by a window marking a stack of answer sheets with a red pen, smiling. Above her, round pictures of a banyan tree, a sunrise, a quill and book, a lighthouse and two hands float on dotted lines. The blackboard reads “Ideas over Commas”.
Red circles, small. Ideas, large. The marking scheme, as I remember it.

The Essay Period

plant a seed

Her other particular focus was essays. She must have made us write more essays in one academic year than any other teacher. With everyone else, essay writing was a homework task; with her, it was a classroom activity. She would plant a seed in the first five minutes of the lecture, and then let us have a crack at it.

A packed classroom of students in white shirts and yellow uniforms, heads down, writing. At the blackboard the teacher, in a peacock-blue suit with white embroidery and a long single ponytail, has drawn a small chalk seed with one sprout and turns to smile at the class. Dotted lines run from the seed across the room, and above the students bloom dozens of round pictures: a kite, a train, a cat, a mango tree, a sunrise, a globe, a camera, a dancer, a lighthouse, a stack of books.
The seed. Five minutes of chalk; seventy-odd different essays.

The Ten-Minute Essay

no watch

My special memory of her is an essay she asked us to write.

It was an afternoon. The topic was “Autobiography of a Book”. As usual, she took five minutes to give us a rough structure, and we dived in. I picked a Tintin: The Broken Ear.

That day I was on a roll. I just wrote and wrote, for no reason; the letters were just flowing, and wallah! In the next ten minutes, my essay was done.

For those ten minutes I had only looked at my notebook. Then I raised my neck to browse around, and everyone else was still writing. I had no watch, so there was no way of knowing how much time had passed. I assumed I had taken a good twenty minutes, the usual time, and sat waiting for the others to finish.

A sunny afternoon classroom. Every student bends over a notebook, writing, except one boy in the middle row who sits upright with arms folded and his notebook shut, looking up at round pictures of a book, a tree, a train, a kite and a cat floating above him. The teacher, in a marigold suit with her long ponytail, glances at him from beside the window. The blackboard reads “Essay: Autobiography of a Book”.
Ten minutes in. One essay finished. Everyone else, still going.

“Have You Finished?”

called out

Just then Ma’am spotted me sitting idle and called me out: “Have you finished?”

I nodded.

Ma’am

“come here with your book”

I took my notebook to her and stood in front of her as she read the entire essay. Then she looked at me.

Ma’am

“Good one, now read it in front of class… attention every one, He is going to read his essay”

I took my book and, with a smirk on my face and a glance at my poorly gifted fellow students, began reading my great essay, to show them how it is done. My voice was loud and clear, so that all seventy-plus students could hear me.

By The Third Line

the horror

By the third line, my voice started to stutter.

I realised I had horrible handwriting. It was not that readable. Then I realised there was a problem in the neural connections from my brain to my hand. In my brain I had thought of a sentence; I was convinced that the same sentence was now on paper, and I had moved on to the next one. But, to my shock, my hand had written something else.

There were unnecessary capitals, articles were missing left and right, a leisurely two-line gap sat between paragraphs, and yet, for some reason, the bottom corner of the page was crammed with letters trying to use every centimetre of it.

I realised what a horror it must be to read my papers, and I decided I needed to re-read my answers before submitting them. An admirable thought. It got implemented only that year, because from the next year on I found myself using every minute of exam time to write answers, all through my college years. There are only a handful of instances when I finished a paper before time, and by handful, I mean the fingers of one hand. Otherwise I just used to digress while writing, and ended up using every bit of paper and time. (Some of you may have noticed the name of this website.)

The Prompter

word by word

But the most amazing thing was this: Ma’am was prompting me whenever I got stuck.

It was my essay, in my handwriting. She had read it for just two or three minutes, and yet she was prompting me, correcting me on the go. By the end of it, my balloon had been deflated. I had climbed down from my high horse and was standing meekly on the ground.

The boy stands at the front of the class in his white shirt and yellow shorts, holding up his notebook titled “Autobiography of a Book”, his face sliding into panic. Beside him the teacher, in a turquoise suit with white embroidery, leans in and points at a line with a kind smile. Rows of classmates watch with their chins in their hands. Above them, round pictures show a cheerful book’s journey: a printing press, a library, a train, a child reading in bed, autumn leaves.
By the third line. My essay, my handwriting, her prompting.

Small Mistakes

made my day

Then, after my reading, she stood up and patted me on the back.

Ma’am

“Well done, nice essay, few, small mistakes are there, pay attention to them next time, good work”

That encouragement made my day. (The essay survives, more or less, at the end of this page.)

To this day, I just put my ideas down rough: spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, the lot. Most of my writing seems odd to me on my own second reading, and yet, “they are small mistakes, overall it is a nice essay”.

“they are small mistakes, overall it is a nice essay”

Her verdict, still in use
The teacher, in a coral suit with white embroidery and a long dupatta, rests a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He hugs his notebook to his chest and looks up at her, shy and glowing; the open page shows a few small red circles. The class watches, smiling. The blackboard reads “Small Mistakes, Big Ideas”.
A pat on the back. The balloon, quietly re-inflated.

Mavashi

the wish

I never knew what became of her after that, but her encouragement and kindness stayed with me. Her smile, her grace and her soft-spoken nature all kept me in awe.

Secretly, I wished I had a mavashi (mother’s sister) like her: someone I could run to, hear stories from, and get that dose of positive thinking from, all the time.

As for the boy, he is still at it. Decades later, the handwriting has been replaced by a keyboard, but the grammar is as whimsical as ever, the articles still go missing left and right, and the ideas still go out rough, straight onto I Diagress, with the confidence of a boy who finished in ten minutes and assumed it was twenty. Nobody has asked him to read one out in front of the class. Yet.

(Thanks to AI, this article was readable, and did not need a frantic search for Reshma Shaikh Miss to mark it up and help you understand it.)

Today: a grown man with greying side-parted hair sits smiling at a laptop by a sunny window, chin on his hand. On the screen is a draft titled “Autobiography of a Book” with a few red squiggles. Behind him, drawn faintly like a memory, the teacher in a pink suit with her long ponytail smiles over his shoulder. Round pictures of books, Crescent School, a classroom and a sprouting book float on dotted lines.
Today. Rough draft, red squiggles, and the same verdict.

— Vinaay Patil

Appendix · Exhibit A

The Essay

Reconstructed from memory, mistakes included. The handwriting has been spared.

A worn book rebound in brown paper, with taped corners and a label reading “Adventures of Tintin: The Broken Ear”, stands proudly on a wooden shelf between other books, beside a pen stand, a globe and a toy bus. Round pictures on dotted lines tell its life: a printing press in an English city, a steamship at a dock, a company library sale, a father reading to his son in bed, a boy peering through the rolled-up book like a telescope, and a bookbinder at work.
The book in question. Printed, shipped, shelved, borrowed, bought, given away, rescued, bound.
English · Essay18/20

Autobiography of a Book

I am a book. My name is The Adventures of Tintin, The Broken Ear. I was born in a big printing press in England, in the U.K. Hundreds of my brothers waswere printed with me. We were packed in a Woodenwooden crate and put on a ship and we came to India. itIt was a long journey and it was very dark in the the crate.

In Pune, a Librarythe library of Bharat Forge company bought me. They put a sticker on my back and kept me on the top shelf. For years I sat there. Nobody took me., Becausebecause of my name. Parents with small childrenschildren thought "Broken Ear" is not for children,; it will be scary. And parents with big childrenschildren thought it is a comic, not for them. So I collected dust.Nice idea!

Then one day an Engineerengineer came. He opened me and he read one page standing only and he smiled. He knew Tintin is for children. He took me homhome. His son was in 1stfirst standard, so he can notcould not read alone, so the father read me to him every night. The boy laughed at Snowy. afterAfter a few days they returned me and the engineer told all his colleagescolleagues that I am a good book. After that I was never on the shelf. Everybody leasedborrowed me.borrowed, not leased

After one year the same engineer took me home again and read me to his son again. I think it became theretheir routine, father and son. Then the library put a notice,: Sale of Old Books, at discount. The engineer was first in the Queuequeue. I am an imported book, so new I was very costly, but at discount he could buy me and he was very happy. Now I had a home. I sat on theretheir shelf with pride and they read me again and again.

One day the sonsson's cousin had a birthday. There was no gift in the house. So with a heavy heart they wrapped me in a news papernewspaper and gave me. The cousin did not like reading. He did not like Tintin. He folded me in a round like a pipe, my pages became loseloose, then they started tearing and my cover was not new anymore. I cried in the corner.Oh no!

One day the son came to visit,. heHe saw me and he became very sad. He ran crying to his father. Father understood his mistake. They both ran to a toy shop, bought a toy, gave it to the cousin and took me back. They taped me and took me to the binder and he bindedbound me in a brown cover. Now I dontdon't look like Tintin outside but inside I am the same. I sit on the shelf. I am happy. THE END

Lovely ending. Good ideas! Watch the small mistakes.

Night in a 1990s Pune bedroom lit by a bedside lamp. A father with a moustache and glasses, in a checked shirt, reads a book with a plain brown cover to his laughing son in striped pyjamas. Round pictures of a steamship, a jungle river and a parrot rise from the book on dotted lines. An alarm clock, a mug and a toy car sit on the side table.
The brown cover. Not Tintin on the outside. Same on the inside.

Today’s Lesson

How to teach English, as she did it

  1. Plant a seed
  2. Let them write
  3. Read it out
  4. Prompt, don’t scold
  5. Small mistakes, nice essay
Ideas over commas · 18/20

Days Under the Crescent Sun

Stories from school days and a 1990s Pune childhood: plans that were too clever, teachers who were never questioned, and the people who made it all bearable.

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