"No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion."
These concluding lines of the poem "The Windhover" by Gerard Manley Hopkins have kept me enamoured for years not just by its poetic beauty but by the way it had changed my life at that impressionable age.
As students of English literature, we had Poetry as the main subject during the second year of our Degree classes. And to teach us poetry we also had our Geetha Miss, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. However it was her down to earth nature that turned out to be more charming as we got to know her more.
In the first term, we had to cover this wonderful poem by G M Hopkins. The poem with its rare rhythmic format had seemed quite a tough one at the onset. But our Geetha Miss guided us through its maze with such ease that we could really enjoy the lasting beauty of the poem. It got etched in my mind in such a manner that at the first term examination, the answer for my annotation could capture the poem's essence very aptly. It is at juncture that I had the most surprising experience in my life. While distributing the answer sheet back to me, a beaming Geetha Miss amply made it clear that she was highly impressed with the answers I had given for the poem. I had never had such a straightforward appreciation ever from any of my teachers till that day and I felt really indebted to her for having recognized some worth in me.
That single incident had a a lasting effect on my life as it changed the way I looked at myself. It boosted my confidence which was non-existent till then and I even began dreaming of building up a career in the future. A little time later I got another opportunity to savour the goodwill of this teacher. My interest in the current affairs saw me participating along with my friend, in the Quiz Competition, which was supposed to be meant only for those "brainy" people. As we sat huddled in a corner on the stage, we found to our surprise that we were able to answer quite a lot of questions and we ended up winning the second prize. On the next day, Geetha Miss was simply waiting to congratulate us as she said, " Just imagine...all this time, these two girls were sitting right under my nose and we never knew them. "
Looking back, I can vouch for the fact that a Geetha Miss had changed my life for good, as a teacher should. To adapt Hopkins' lines, the blue-bleak embers had gashed gold-vermilion under a true teacher.
