Memoirs of SUSCET - Stella

'May I come in mam?' I asked with unique innocence that I sometimes feel i can genuinely fake but most of the times it is genuine. It was third day in the row we were late to the lecture which no body in the whole class wanted to miss. In the mind I was cursing everybody I could think of. 'God damn Keshto, aaj bhi late karwa diya', 'God damn HoD. who asked him to keep this as first lecture' but knew that as usual it was me who was culprit.
She looked at her watch and before she cud ask me get out, in came the excuse 'mam, scooter puncture ho gaya tha'. 'Ashish, aaj bhi same excuse. Please go out of the class and close the door behind you' She said in bit higher tone. aye hye, she doesn't even know how to get angry. Like I cudnt always fake my innocence she cud never get herself be really angry. she used to fake it. 'Mam, please' I was embarrassed. I was supposed to be one of her favorites (at least i thought so) 'Please don't waste the time of the class'. class was laughing now. 'Jerks. wats there to laugh' I thought. 'Mam, only one last time' said keshto, who had just barged in after parking his scooter. 'Both of you wait till 10 to enter the class and please leave now'. Both of us knew it was useless to argue and we left for canteen. On the way or in the canteen, we were not calling her names as one wud if you r thrown out of class. We just couldn't.
She was our teacher in final year. We used to call her stella. She got her name from teacher's character in third class Hindi movie (I don't remember movie's name) courtesy one of us ( u know it probably). I think the similarities between her and stella were just teacher's post. Thats it. Ok ok her hairstyle too. but thats it. Our stella had grace, poise, intelligence and she was very sweet. All of us really admired her a lot. She had something, that x factor, which always enabled her to keep the unruly bunch quite. Always. Something, of which other teachers used to be jealous of. We used to put in extra effort to be attentive in her class. I cant imagine that we used to attend tutorials too. Although we hardly studied in those tutes but it was fun. Everyday some different thing. Once I gave a lecture on Yoga in one of those tutes u know. Pats did a lot of paki bashing in those. Those were really good times.
I never understood what was that x factor. Probably, we were impressed that she attempted her hands at UPSC and if I am not wrong, she almost cleared. Probably, because she knew her subjects. Probably, because all of us were of same age group. Probably, she had those naive, innocent and gullible looks. I really don't know and I don't want to know either. We never used to listen any criticisms for her. She was one of few teachers we never cribbed about.Never ever any negative feelings crossed to our minds for her. We just admired her. Though, I must say that she wasn't the best teacher I had studied under no way near that. But she was good. Now, I don't know what she is doing. if she is still teaching thats something she will not need any trainings. She will always have our best wishes.

Nostalgic,
Ashish

P.S. I don't know why I wrote about her that too after such a long time (psst...it took some real brain exercise to recollect her real name. its been so long i have thought of her) but then one doesn't always needs answers to all their questions. do we?