Remembering my teachers

Today is Teachers' Day, a day we celebrate in memory of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, our second President, and a teacher himself, who was born on this day, 130 years ago. I thought I will recall my education and some of my teachers on this day. I have been incredibly fortunate to have been educated and influenced by a large number of great teachers. I would guess that this is a statement that anyone who has seen any success in life would make.

The first teacher to remember is my own dad. He was a school teacher, officially designated as a teacher of political science, but every principal asked him to teach Mathematics. Our house was full of books on Political Science and Mathematics (and very few on history, the other Master's degree he had) and I would read a lot of them, and asking him questions about topics which I would perhaps study in school a few years later (and in case of political science, never). I had read many SC decisions at an age when my classmates perhaps did not even know what is Supreme Court. And I had won pretty much any award in mathematics in school. He was a great teacher not just because he could teach the two subjects so extremely well, but because of all the life lessons he would impart to me and my siblings.

The next teacher to whom I owe a lot was the principal of a small private school, Childrens' Home School (which no longer exists) near our home. She was truly generous, and allowed me to study without having to pay any tuition. School teachers did not earn much in those days and there was no way my father could afford to send us to a private school. (Teachers' salaries have become high only after 6th pay commission.) The primary school system in the government sector was run by Municipality while the secondary and senior secondary schools were run by Delhi government. The municipal schools were terrible. (I studied in one for a year, and if I had to study there for 5 years, I don't know if my education would have been as good.) So an offer to study for free in a private school was really something that I can never forget and has been a reason why I have been contribution a part of my salary for education ever since I started earning.

In my secondary school, Ramjas School, a school run by Ramjas Foundation and supported by Delhi government (and hence no fees), there were lots of good teachers. It was considered one of the best schools of that era. But strangely, the two teachers I remember the most are the sports teacher and the one who taught me gardening (we had a subject named, Socially Useful Productive Work, SUPW). The first one, Mr. Mallik, was managing the Bharat Scouts and Guides program at the school, and this school had the largest number of presidential scouts every year. If 8 scouts were chosen to represent Delhi, 6 or more would be from this school. He also managed the hockey team of which I was a member. He would make us work really hard, often 2-3 hours after the school times in harsh weather. Mr. Gupta, the gardening teacher, was not just teaching gardening but love for nature. He would also often discuss current events. He was a hockey fan, and would often discuss the decline of Indian hockey after the world cup win in 1975. So he wasn't bothered about the syllabus, and we loved him like anything. He was also a teacher whom we trusted blindly. If anyone did something silly, one could lie to all other teachers and principal, but if he asked you, it would be impossible to lie.

For my senior secondary (11th and 12th), I went to SBM school. We had shifted home and hence I had to switch schools. The teachers were completely focused on 12th class results. But when I met the teachers individually and explained to them that I wanted to prepare for JEE as well and therefore, I wouldn't be able to spend several hours a day answering 100s of questions every day, they not only agreed to give me less number of homework problems every day, but also ensured that the school bought a few books that would be useful for JEE preparation, since I may not have been able to afford them otherwise. I fondly remember Mr. Gupta, our Maths teacher, who was truly concerned about our future all the time, and was willing to spend any amount of time after the school hours, if we still had questions unanswered in the class. The vice principal was a terrible person though. (So even a community as great as that of teachers have a few black sheeps.) I remember we were playing the Hockey final at the intra-district level, and I worked hard to score an equalizer almost in the last minute. This guy was very unhappy that 11th and 12th class students are participating in all sports and extra-curricular activities. He went to the match referee and told him that the school concedes defeat and also when the district team is selected to participate at the state level, he should not choose anyone from our school. Our sports teacher was none other than Mr. Mallik Jr., son of our sports teacher in my previous school. He was like his father, always taking our side. He protested strongly, but Vice Principal had his way. After this incident, the VP was always mad at me. On more occasions than one, he would ask me to come to him, and then he will tell everyone that I am a proof that Goddess Saraswati and Goddess Laxmi can't live together. (That I had intelligence but no money.) He would make fun of my cotton clothes, or an inexpensive school bag or something else.

IIT Kanpur was fantastic. I must have enjoyed more than 90% of my classes, and the rest weren't bad either. Those were the days when teaching and learning was considered as the primary reason for a college to exist. It is not that faculty didn't do research then, but clearly the focus was on students' learning. With every teacher being so great, it is difficult to name a few, but I will try. The one I loved the most was Prof. Gautam Barua (now at IIIT Guwahati). The CSE department was a small one and they took all decisions by involving students. I was the representative of my batch in the Department Under-graduate Committee (DUGC). Every semester the faculty would meet to decide the next semester's courses and I would suggest if Prof. Barua could teach a course to our batch. And he would gladly agree. He not only taught Operating System to us (which was his research area), but even Data Structures, which was typically taught by theory persons. He also taught for the first time a course called "Distributed Systems" which was a precursor to the course on Computer Networks. I remember getting so excited by the course on Distributed Systems that I would spend long hours in library (the only semester in which I went to library) and read article after article in the journal, "Computer Networks and ISDN System." I also did my BTech Project with him and thus more than 1/6th of the credits done in all 4 years are with him. I would later apply for graduate studies and explicitly state in my Statement of Purpose that I wanted to study networks, when everyone would tell me that Theory was the hot area and easier to get scholarship in. And I specifically wanted to go to University of Maryland since I had read so many papers of Prof. Satish Tripathi. Other Computer Science professors who have helped me become what I am included Prof. Rajeev Sangal (now at IIIT Hyderabad), and Prof. Somenath Biswas (now at IIT Goa).

Among the non-CSE faculty, Prof. R N Biswas was the most fun who taught us the common compulsory course on Digital electronics. Other great teachers included Lilavati Krishnan (Psychology), and Mohini Mullick (Philosophy). I was really excited about Maths, and have taken almost all electives in Maths. My transcript would show about the same number of Maths courses as Computer Science, perhaps more in Maths. Prof. S K Gupta, Prof. Borwankar, Prof. S P Mohanty, Prof. B L Bhatia, Prof. R S L Srivastava and many more. As I said earlier, with so many great teachers, it is difficult to list everyone, but IIT Kanpur was home to the best teaching at that time.

At University of Maryland, I was fortunate to have Prof. Ashok Agrawala as my PhD supervisor, and as a life coach. We have discussed almost anything and everything under the sun, and have received valuable advise way beyond my thesis topic. One of the things I remember was his insistence that I be able to communicate my PhD work to a layman. Only after I came up with how I would explain my work to someone who hadn't known anything about computers or networks, did he allow me to submit the thesis. And that has helped a lot. Prof. Satish Tripathi (now at SUNY, Buffalo) was around whenever I felt low. On two occasions when I almost quit my PhD, he would leave everything aside and spend a couple of hours to explain why I should not give up. I also took a course of Prof. Pankaj Jalote (later, a colleague at IIT Kanpur, now at IIIT Delhi) and even interacted with him on research issues (and have joint papers). Prof. Uday Shankar was my MS supervisor and really taught me how to write research papers. At UMCP, in those days, the systems research group had four Indian professors, but students from about 10-12 different countries were there. And these students taught me history and culture of their respective countries.

I end this by appealing to all my readers to consider making a small gift to your favorite education provider, not just on the occasion of Teachers' Day but periodically. Teachers do a great job, but often the students need additional support. I just did before writing this.