Story of a Teacher

The useful part

Shyam Lal Labroo will be remembered as a dedicated teacher associated with Islamia High School, Rajouri Kadal, Srinagar, where he served for almost four decades. Belonging to the educational culture of old Srinagar's Bulbulankar, he was known for his commitment to students and his belief that education should shape character as much as intellect. His scholarly interests found expression in an English Translation, prepared in collaboration with D.

How it works

• Raina, Principal of National High School, and Tulsi Nath, Inspector of Schools, Baramulla, and published by Kapoor Brothers.
• He had a rare ability to make an ordinary student feel important, a poor parent feel respected, and even a troublesome boy feel that something good remained in him.
• In the crowded lanes around Rajouri Kadal, a teacher could become popular through examination results, but Labroo became popular through the lives he touched.
• His real experiments were with human beings, and each experiment began with a problem that most teachers might have treated as punishment but which he treated as a matter of understanding.
• Instead of asking why he was late, he quietly asked him to sit near the fire and share a book.

What to take from it

Later, he learned the boy's father had fallen ill and the boy had spent the morning helping his mother. He simply asked the boy to stay after school for several days to complete missed lessons. When the boy performed well in an examination, Labroo did not praise him publicly.

Details worth keeping

One winter morning, a boy arrived late with wet shoes and a torn pheran.