In ancient times, students used to stay with teachers and not only to gain knowledge, but to learn from their day-to-day experiences. This way of leading and teaching students by example has been long lost in today’s “marks-obsessed” society, but Pappu Roy, School Teacher by profession at St. Stephen’s School at Phears lane, has decided to change this scenario. Even though Roy requires dialysis twice or maybe thrice a week at times, he has never made his illness an excuse to stay away from his work. Most of us can only imagine how much the body goes through in a 4-5 hour long dialysis system, but Pappu Roy seems to have defied everything by virtue of his indomitable spirit, which probably helps him to walk to the Metro Station after dialysis, from where he has to ride for another 5 minutes only to end up at St Stephen’s School to teach his students for 5 long hours straight!!
At 32, Pappu has seen and endured a lot one may say. While his body often gives away, with headaches, high blood pressure along with vomiting and nauseas tendency being commonplace, Pappu Roy has so far only asked for a single concession, and that is to avoid starting his class from 11.30. He keeps one of his dialysis day as Saturday to reduce the chances of missing work. But his struggle and day never really ends at school, because straight after teaching at school, Pappu heads straight to a coaching institute to teach privately before returning to his Sova Bazar home at 8 pm, only to find another batch of students awaiting their teacher.
One of the main reasons for Pappu defying his ill health and working so hard is that he wants to fund his entire medication and treatment by himself. A rough estimation shows that Pappu nearly has to pay 15000-20000 per month just for his treatment. Dialysis is not really much of a headache for him but blood transfusion is the part that is of concern as his is a rare blood group. He recalled how it all started with a renal failure back in 2008 and 9 months later he found himself on the dialysis table. He is originally a commerce graduate from City College who worked in a coal merchants office since 2005. But as his health deteriorated, Pappu could no longer stay away from the city for 15-20 day stretches as his job profile included travelling a lot.
But getting laid off didn’t break Pappu who started throwing private tuitions and simultaneously got his MBA degree from IGNOU. He finally joined St. Stephen’s School Bowbazar couple of years back as a computer teacher. But as soon as he entered, Roy started expanding his reach, by going on to teach maths, economics and accounting as well to students of class IX and XII. He is a very popular teacher amongst his students who unanimously agree to him being a good teacher. His explanantion and his patience towards the students are all highly regarded by the teachers and students alike. Thus if a teacher has such an inspiring tale to share, who wouldn’t like being a student?
Source: http://goo.gl/ra90ip
