Went to see one of my old teachers, the one who introduced me to the English language and pushed me past all the complex grammatical and vocabulary labyrinths as if it were a mere bicycle ride. I don't ever recall stumbling. She made it look and seem like a breeze.
Rachael Dominique Margaret Pathirana is her name. She is ageless. To this day, I cannot really place how old she really is. She is as beautiful as she always was with the spirit of a young girl, clad in her customary dainty frocks and ornate jewelry. I suppose being with children made you look and feel young.
We practically spent our lives in that class. From Grade 2 right up to O/Ls we were there, 2 times a week for 4hrs each day. And we were hooked. I think it takes up a special kind of talent and quite a good deal of that special kind of love to sustain children's interest like that. She has a very big heart. The ones who grew up in her shade, learning from her is as same to her as her own kids and her own grand kids.
She keeps all the keepsakes from all her students. Today she unearthed a piece of my poetry that she had discovered among the pages of a book I had given to her to correct when I was in Grade 5. To this day, I had not known she had it. I suppose these things are her treasures.
Her voice is musical. She had always had a sing-a-song voice, so sweet and so liquidy in the ear. We used to have sing-alongs at Christmas and she used to sing with us always, her strong sweet voice rising above our young and coarse ones. She had a tinkling kind of laugh too, one that would ring above anyone else's. She still has all that. Not much had changed.
That beautiful picture of the Christ still hangs on the wall as it used to. I remember gazing on it listlessly for hours and hours while searching for the correct answer during exams, that odd moment of blankness and etc. I had always been taken up by the sheer, almost ephemeral beauty of it. It is just as it had always been. Only its frame is new. The old gilt frame is now replaced by a gold one.
She is a devout catholic married to a Buddhist. Sometimes we would see pictures of Lord Buddha among her rosaries and statues of the saints. It was a fine melange of religious artifacts up there on her desk. A curious thing her desk was. Always cluttered with books, pens and pencils and the most interesting looking items scattered about, along with that little brass bell that she liked to ring from time to time in class.
The long benches and the desks that we sat at still stands. Only they had been painted a posh black. But I'm sure if I looked close enough, I would still be able to see our childhood scribbles and pencil tip carvings there. She had banned correcting fluids in the class back then. And all because we wouldn't stop doodling on the desks with those things.
She still calls me her little beauty. She cannot believe how much I've grown and how I have become a woman in my own right. She asks me how many hearts I have broken already. I laugh.
Those were beautiful times. Christmas was always special as we would visit her place with gifts. She would serve us homemade Christmas cake and the piano would be played either by her or by her daughter Jeewani akki. There would be a lot of laughter, a lot of celebration. However, after her husband passed away a couple of years ago, things never did seem the same. She only used to go to Mass on Sundays. Now she goes to Mass on Fridays and Sundays both.
She raised a beautiful and a strong willed daughter. Jeewani akki tutored me on English Literature for my O/Ls. I remember always looking forward to those classes. The conversations were always very interesting as she treated us as adults and not as kids. She was a university student with a vibrant personality back then and I remember being quite mesmerized by her wit and sizzle for life. I haven't met her much since she got married and I wonder what she is like now. Nevertheless, I suppose I was a fortunate child who has had the opportunity to mingle with strong female personalities right throughout my life.
I could go on but I just realized that it is late and that I must sleep. Its so very cosy the manner in which the mind stores up these memories, images, smells, sights and sounds. However, things have changed very much. She is all alone what with her husband here no more, her daughter abroad and her son having his own family, having not much time to attend to her needs. Yet in my mind memories are all intact as if nothing has changed. In my mind we are all in grade 5, fighting over each other to win a red star, trying hard not to get any black marks on our records for talking too much or creating trouble in class. It was beautiful. Those golden afternoons laughing and passing notes in class, standing in line to get our work corrected and rejoicing when we get a V.V Good next to the big, red tick mark lashed out right across the page.
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