Feature

To teach is to touch a life forever

Saushan Rahman

Whoever said that good things never last long was so right. Let's take university life for example. I thought those would be the toughest four years of my life, and I wanted it to pass really fast. But as the last day of classes came close I realized those four years were undoubtedly the best four years of my life. I had the best teachers and the coolest friends.

The English Department of BRAC University is considered as the tiny one as there are fewer students compared to the other departments. Students of other departments often made fun of us. But many also admit that our department is different from any other departments.

My department is like my second home. The teacher and students share a rare strong bond. Often we shared jokes and even personal problems with them. They were more like friends. The teachers had their unique style of teaching, and all the classes had a special attraction. For example Manzoor sir is famous for his “commercial breaks.” While taking classes he would tell us jokes or make funny comments. One day in “Introduction to Drama” class, sir had to write something on the board, and was doing so with his left hand. When we asked if something was wrong with his other hand, his reply was, “Oh, I just got bored of writing with my right hand. Besides it needs some rest. So I thought I would give it a break.” Manzoor sir could make the topics interesting and easy to keep in mind. Not only that, often sir would draw pictures on the board on the topic he was teaching. I still remember his drawing of Hamlet. I got to admit, sir is an excellent artist.

Firdous ma'am, our chairperson, is beyond doubt the coolest lady I have ever met (I wonder what she will say when she reads this line). She has an amazing power to make difficult topics easy and interesting. During presentations, whenever I made eye contact with her, she would smile a bit and nod her head. I would get nervous while doing presentations, even in front of my friends. But her smile would give me the confidence to go ahead with the presentation. I have to admit that her smile had the magical power to drag all my fears away. We girls are not only fan of her lectures, but also her earrings. Whenever she would wear a new earring, we would keep wondering where she had bought it.

Nazmeen miss treated us like we were her own children. She taught us linguistics. Night after night she would stay awake, trying to make all the lectures and notes easy and simple, so that we don't have a hard time understanding the lessons. She would review the lectures over and over again. She would come to us and console us every time she would get angry with us. To be honest, each semester she worked harder than the students to help them.

Kaisar sir, well we all had a bit of difficulty with him in the beginning. The first course we did with him was “Modernism”. Whatever he said went over our heads. Sometimes I felt like crying my heart out, wondering whether I am too dull and stupid or sir is speaking in Greek. But eventually everything became all right. I have got to admit; I had a great time doing his classes. Along with having the privilege of doing his classes I also had the chance to attend an evening of Poetry Recitation where Kaisar sir recited his own poems. His parody of T.S. Eliot's Wasteland, Waistline was a hit.

Mohua miss is another amazing teacher whom I met at BRAC. She was a fresh graduate when she joined BRAC. When I first saw her in the classroom, I thought, perhaps she is a new student. After attending her classes we could hardly believe that she does not have any previous teaching experience. It seemed as if she had been teaching for years.

Shahina miss took our composition classes. She made us write in every class. Sometimes I did get tired of writing, but now I am glad that she did so. It certainly helped me a lot.

The only teacher we call didi is Sahana Bajpayee. For other student, she might be miss, and to most people she is a famous singer, but to us she is our didi. When we first met her, all of us were more than sure that she couldn't smile at all. Weeks had passed after she had joined BRAC and we barely saw her smile, let alone laugh. I even downloaded some jokes from the Internet just to check if she laughs at those. Well, fortunately I did not have to use them. We got to find out that she is a fun loving person, and anyone would have a great time hanging out with her.

Sohana miss is a soft spoken, calm and quiet person. Many of the students just loved to give her a hard time, either by bunking classes, or submitting the assignments late.

I wish I could say that I was one of those rare students who never gave her teachers a hard time. But unfortunately, that is not the case. I gave Nousheen miss the worse time of her life. She was my thesis supervisor. Though I did submit my drafts on time, I was not good at finding data for my paper. In fact she was more worried about my paper than me.

I was never a good student, thus I never liked to study. Besides I lacked the confidence. But all these people not only inspired me to work hard, they also made me confident and made me realize that if I try I can achieve something. All my life I thought of myself as a mediocre backbencher. But all that changed when I came to BRAC. My teacher will always be my greatest inspiration. They will always be my idols.

Saushan Rahman
Editorial Assistant
The Daily Star