Teacher's Day

“I want to be a Doctor,” “I want to be an Engineer,” “I want to be a Writer,” etc. Okay… be it.

Step one: Get a tutor/Enroll in some institution. Why? Guidance. We need a teacher. Someone to tell us what to do, to teach us the exact game plan, to show us the path to the brighter side of this misery called “Life.”

A person to guide us through this crowded mess. Teacher. Celebrating a day, solely tributing it to them since the last 62 years as Teachers’ Day. A day laid at their feet for their remarkable contribution in our lives.

The most exciting day in an Indian teenager’s life. Teachers’ Day. They get to be the most feared humans of their schools, The teachers. But first! Let’s talk about the history of this occasion… Dr. Sarwapalli Radhakrishnan was born on 5th September 1888. It is said that a group of students wanted to celebrate his 77th birthday, which he denied and instead asked them to devote the day to their teachers. The day has since been celebrated as National Teachers’ Day. It has been celebrated in India since 1962. It is a day to recognize and appreciate teachers for their hard work and dedication to their students. On this day, students present gifts to their teachers and thank them for their guidance.

Do you remember how Teachers’ Day was celebrated in your school? I remember mine. We were assigned a subject and a teacher to be that day. I wore a Saree. I was a 10th-grade English teacher. Well, let’s just say… my students gave me a 5-star review (Okay, it might be the fact that I was accidentally a pretty known senior of the school due to a ton of stage performances, or maybe it was just that we gossiped more than we studied English that day).

Our Parents are our first teachers, no? Don’t we need to learn how to walk, talk, eat, write, bathe, even do special potty training? Yes, of course. So, a big thank you to them too for turning us into decent individuals.

Now, a question that’s been creeping up in my mind lately. Why do we not give our teachers enough recognition on a bigger level? I mean, yes we do… kind of… “I would like to thank my Mom, Dad, family, friends, and teachers for this achievement” the typical success speech we have all heard. Nothing wrong with that, yes, we are thankful to our family, friends, and teachers like we should be on any big achievement… But why not daily? Why only at our achievements? Why aren’t we seriously recognizing their contribution in the very small day-to-day things? Some of us do, yes, no doubt, but always? Why don't we thank them all for everything that we have achieved till this day?

So this Teachers’ Day let’s thank our teachers as well as our guardians for forming us into such respectable human beings.

-Monishka Chaudhary