Two teachers made a big difference in my life, and certainly made me what I am today.

First of all, there was Ms. Peterson in my 4th class. She was the class teacher of 4A, and the most feared teacher in the entire school! When students in our school passed class 3, they would pray that they would not get into 4A, and every year, naturally, the prayers of 40-odd students weren't answered, as mine weren't.

One lesson to be learnt from Ms. Peterson was that being organized and disciplined makes your life easier. (a lesson it is difficult to translate 100% in our lives, unfortunately) She was a perfectionist, most feared for her resounding slaps in the days before the phrase 'corporal punishment' became a bad word. But Ms. Peterson also drilled in us the value of hard work, the skill of splitting a big, difficult task into small, manageable ones, and the determination to strive for perfection.

Later on, in classes 9 and 10, Mr. K.D. Thomas provided a role model for me. I don't know whether I started liking him whether I liked Physics or vice versa, but that subject lost its sheen in my eyes (to Maths) soon after he stopped teaching it to us. Of course, he also made the subject exciting and easy, but he was a friend, philosopher and guide who would always encourage and applaud. He was young, then in his early thirties and that was probably one reason we could relate to him.

He once asked our class 9 all-boys group, what we understood by the term 'manly'. The usual responses followed: "strong", "brave", "big", etc., after which he suggested that, "Manly means a man who has a healthy relationship with a woman." The subsequent discussion I think helped a lot of us in the class develop a more positive, sensitive outlook - rather than the typical macho, superiority-based one - towards gender issues and women.

I went on to complete my engineering from IIT and MBA from IIM, and all along I often felt that if I had been lucky in some respect it was in the quality of my primary schooling - with Ms. Peterson embodying the best contribution of of those years - and a guide like Mr. Thomas who was as much a friend as a teacher.

- Sridhar Rajgopalan