Day in the life of a retired teacher

LIVES WE DON'T KNOW

Vasudha Zora

Bengaluru: My name is Sumitra Shankar. I am a retired private school teacher who lives in an old-age home. I taught the Hindi subject to high school students. Back in the day, I even had a tuition centre but had to stop everything as my health deteriorated.

I have two sons and one daughter. My elder son and his family of two met with an accident a decade ago and since then my other two children look after me. My husband died shortly after our marriage, so I brought up our children as a single mother. I was a teacher for 35 years and since I am 80 years old now, I can barely remember anything I taught at that time.

My younger son Somashekara is a software engineer and works for a multinational company in the United States, and my daughter Akriti is based in Bengaluru and is a Human Resource Manager in a start-up.

As we come from humble beginnings and with no ancestral property, we have done everything from scratch. I live in a privately owned old-age home, as my children are afraid to be alone in the house. My day’s activities are reading books and newspapers, and knitting sweaters for my grandchildren. In the evening, I feed dogs that live and guard my room. I spend most of my time praying and meditating.

I also do light yoga exercises that my doctor has asked me to do since I am a heart patient and a diabetic. I like to listen to bhajans and Carnatic classical music. On weekends, I collect children from the house, help with work in the old-age home and conduct reading and storytelling classes.

We also try to teach children about the different languages and cultures of our country. I have a couple of friends who live on either side of my room with whom I drink chai late evenings and discuss religious texts. We have healthy arguments in terms of world politics and environmental issues.

My friends Mridula and Bhavani work as lawyers in the district court, they are younger than me but my very close friends. They come to me for guidance and call me Didi.