Very few people talk about the emotional investment in teaching.  Without even realising it, teachers carry their students home in their thoughts. They don’t remember students merely by their marks; they remember expressions. As a teacher, you worry about projects, examinations, deadlines, and whether the class has understood what you are trying to teach. You correct mistakes, encourage the hesitant ones, tell the overconfident ones to listen, and try, in the middle of all the noise, to notice the one who is unusually quiet.

And then life moves on. The academic year ends; the class moves on. New students arrive, with their own names, voices, anxieties and ambitions. That is how it is expected to be. You imagine that this is where your relationship with them ends. It doesn’t. They remain somewhere in the corners of your memory, the quiet one at the back, the one who made everyone laugh, the one who always had an opinion, the one who needed a little more confidence, the one whose eyes told you much more than their answers did.

Every Teachers’ Day, a few of them come back through a message. Their names on the phone can suddenly bring back an entire classroom. Perhaps that is what teaching leaves behind. Not marks, not even the lessons we teach. What remains is precious. A student remembers that you listened and, when they weren’t sure of themselves, you believed in them. They probably think they are simply wishing their teacher on Teachers’ Day.

For me, I am happy to know that, after years, the students still know the way back to me.

Photos and text by Prerna Jain.