VILLUPURAM: The winds howled, whistling the approach of seasonal showers about to catch N K Hemalatha on wheels off guard, as eerie clouds hovered over her scooter carrying teaching materials and toys.
Her two-wheeler squealed on the sweeping Gingee-Villupuram highway for about 30km, reaching on time the Se Kunathur government high school in Villupuram, where Tamil-language classes have acquired a new dimension. As the drizzle swells into a downpour in a trice, the 53-year-old high school teacher is prompted to take a shield under the roof of a roadside bus shelter.
“Innu ennathu tha special, Ma’am,” the students of Class 7B of the high school, mildly running out of patience, speak in unison just when their favourite teacher enters the classroom nearly 20 minutes late.
“Mazhai tha special,” the teacher cracks a one-liner, settling into her comfort zone. The toys, most of them made of bamboo, are assembled on the table. The teacher picks up the shape of a spider from the lot.
“We government school teachers are paid well. We can afford to invest a part of it back into the children of our own schools. I make these toys myself,” Hemalata told TNIE. “I make use of toys to help the students enhance their cognitive abilities to better grasp complex texts like the Thirukural and the Puranaanuru,” she adds.
On other days, Hemalatha takes the lessons out of the box into the open: apart from language classes, she creates awareness on wide-ranging issues, including child abuse in the villages the students hail from.
“It is more personal when the children participate in such awareness programmes from their villages itself. It connects them on a deeper level to the subject, letting the thought flow freely. The parents, too, attend these sessions,” Hemalatha says.
One of her students, a Class 8 girl student, says Hemalatha traverses beyond the barriers of language to enlighten them on a freer, independent lifestyle. The teacher was featured in a Mann Ki Baat session in December 2020, where he praised her efforts in moulding words into the craft.