HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY

A few months ago, I was invited by a couple of business schools to share my knowledge and experience in Integrated Marketing Communications with their MBA students. The opportunity to me was indeed a unique learning and growing experience. 

While I started teaching professionally just over two months ago, my association with teaching goes back to before I was born. How can that be possible?

Yes. it's true. My mother is a retired teacher, and studied for her Bachelor's degree in Education while she was pregnant (with me). So that should explain my attraction to the teaching profession. Further during our toddler years, we used to have to invent games, and one of the favorites - especially during the long summer break - would be to play school. 

I studied in three institutions all my life...and I'm extremely fortunate to currently have associations with two of them. My children study in the same school as I did - Our Lady of Perpetual Succour (OLPS) in Chembur. That's what gave me the chance to go back and train the choir for the school feast. I am also associated with the Management Institute I post-graduated at, since that's one of the places that I currently lecture at. 

This Teacher's Day sees special felicitations at my college and B-school. While Podar College celebrates its 75th Year, so does the extra-ordinary gentleman who was Principal at my time - Prof. Sahuraja. Also today, a new and hi-tech NMIMS inaugurates the new library dedicated to Prof. Y.K. Bhushan, the Director during my time at the institute. 

While I congratulate these great educationists on their achievements and contributions, I wish all the teachers who have taught me right from Kindergarten onwards - A Happy Teacher's Day. 

I'd like to extend this wish beyond the boundaries of formal education to every individual who gives their time and effort to teach others something, however insignificant it may seem. And to do it in a musical way, I leave you with a song of gratitude that I sang to a teacher on the first Teacher's Day I remember... and to make it even more special, the song is sung by my six year old son.