They both wore saris and taught English. One of them taught me in school from class 6 to class 8, the other in college while I was doing my BA.

I wouldn’t say they inspired me or shaped my personality in the conventional sense. They did not make learning in the classroom any fun either. They only came to the classroom in time, on most days of the academic year, taught with diligence, checked our copies a little more carefully, not forgetting to write down some remarks they thought were pertinent. Also, they both stayed away from the staff room buzz! That is it.

Yet, there was something about them that has not let me forget them. Perhaps they did change my life after all.

Ms Waheed was an odd enough name for a female teacher. I still remember the long ‘W’ on our checked copy work by way of her signature. Was it her husband’s name or her own? Soon we found out it was she herself. Ms Waheed.

Queen Mary College, an English medium public sector school in Lahore, was a fade remnant of a once glorious institution. In the late 1970s and early 80s, most children of the country went to public or missionary schools of all hues; the private sector was just beginning to make inroads into education. The public sector institutions, in particular, were reeling under the sheer weight of ineptitude.

Around the time when the subject of Social Studies was being replaced by Pakistan Studies amid orders that all school girls must cover themselves in chadars and offer zohr prayers in the newly introduced ‘long break’, in walked Ms Waheed into our classroom, wearing her pastel coloured sari, her hair tied neatly in a bun close to her neck, giving instructions in immaculate English. There she stood looking both gentle and stern, in sharp contrast with the fast-transforming world outside. She was one of the few teachers who drove their own cars.

In a matter of weeks, she became my favourite teacher. I think it was because she took an extra bit of interest in me. In a class of almost 60, this attention elevated me in my own eyes and I was encouraged to do better in her subject.

Most of our class was clueless about English language despite going to an ‘English medium’ school. Ms Waheed introduced the dictionary to us. She began by giving us the meanings for difficult words and then made us look for them in the dictionary. This exercise gave us a grasp of language: we could read and comprehend stories and had developed a vocabulary bank before we even knew it.

I was lucky Ms Waheed stayed with us till class 8. In the three years she taught us the basics of language, the rules of grammar and what not. Creative writing was not part of a public school’s curriculum then (not sure if it still is). If it were, she sure would have turned some of us into brilliant writers.

The next four years were spent with mediocre English language teachers, forcing me to draw from lessons taught by Ms Waheed.

In my third year at Lahore College for Women, again a public sector college, I found Ms Zakia Chaudhry who taught us both language and literature.

An almost barren setting where it was considered more useful to bunk most classes, we rushed to take the English classes from this sari-clad upright woman, with henna-dyed hair tied in a bun.

Always there before the girls turned up, she was trying to do the impossible -- teach the basics of language to a class that did not have the privilege of being taught by a teacher of Ms Zakia’s calibre in their first twelve years. She was persistent, giving the class her best, convinced that she could.

The literature class was different -- the girls were initiated at least partly. As Ms Zakia brought alive the dark setting of the witches prophesying about Macbeth, his own ambition and the goading by Lady Macbeth in those 40 minutes, we could only yearn for more.

Someone said a teacher in school can only make you interested in a subject while it’s the teacher in the university who inspires you. I am not so sure.

As I grow older, the affection for these two teachers and the regret for not having met them again, even once, become deeper.

Therefore, an opportunity like this is readily taken, for it allows me to say something I’ve been wanting to, for years.

The author may be contacted at ramisj@gmail.com.