Finding ‘Darling’ Miss …

Have you ever had a teacher whom you really loved ? You’d probably have one . I will rephrase the question. Have you ever had a teacher whom you really loved but didn’t know her name ? Well ,the chances are pretty slim..

She was my sister’s favourite teacher. Everyone called her “Darling” Miss , so much so that some children didn’t even know her real name. My sister belonged to that category . Darling Miss was her only silver lining in going to school. I have never seen her but I knew Darling Miss meant a lot to my sister as she even wrote a blog about it . (You can read it here ).The saddest thing about the story was that one day while my sister was watching TV she saw Darling Miss in a programme about Old Age home-inmates. My sister was a little devastated for she never imagined in the slightest way that Darling miss would end up in such a condition.I have listened to this little story a number of times. Every time I hear it, there is always a haunting feeling about it..

I was not fortunate enough to be one of her students as I was just two years old perhaps when she retired .However, I had always been curious (in fact excessively curious ) to find out the name of that woman who had left such an unceasing impact on my sister. So, I began my work one fine day . As they say ,all things enter your mind only during your exams and I too started my hunt just a couple of days before my Java exam . Previously , I had googled for it but in vain .This time I google frantically and at last I found a related result . It was an Orkut alumni community for our school . There were some vague sentences with the keywords “Darling” “miss” highlighted. I could already sense the excitement rising in my stomach .I clicked the link on “Google” anticipating a good outcome. The page loaded and I read various posts from old students reminiscing their school days. There was one particular post which mentioned these lines :

“…’darling’ Sundari Balakrishnan miss. Sundari miss was everybody’s darling and so was she to all..”

So her name was “Sundari Balakrishnan” .I couldn’t contain my excitement and I mailed my sister right away about my little quest . She was really really surprised. I found it at last – nearly after 18 years since she taught that 2nd standard class ,unknowingly motivating a shy little kid .Sadly ,Mrs Sundari Balakrishnan passed away .As the old student in the group put it :

“Students stood in queues whenever she passed by outside classes for her to tap the palm and blow a kiss.she, sadly, is no more and i had the pleasure of seeing her in her last days some eight years or so……Even then, she was very darling and thrust my palm for her routine kiss”

and I thought my sister is one lucky girl to have got such a wonderful teacher. Here’s to “Darling” Miss, a wonderful teacher!

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