Our MKG at Sarada Vilas High School

He had the same initials as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, MKG!  M. K. Gopala Iyengar. He had a Gandhian discipline, was slim, fair and soft-spoken.  This teacher used to occupy one of the slots usually in the after-lunch sessions about twice a week.  MKG was always clad in a spic and span white kurta and pyjama, neatly pressed.  He came on his shining clean bicycle that had a nice cane basket hung to the handlebar. 

The filled the "Work Experience" class which we used to like. I remember that MKG's hobby was tailoring and sewing.  He had made us to learn simple sewing techniques and he used to tell that they are very useful skills that can be handy all our lives. He had made us to buy a thimble, a needle, white thread, some buttons and some white cotton cloth.  I have not forgotten the hand sewing skills he taught - hemming, buttoning, making the buttonhole and using the thimble on the middle finger-tip for protection and as a tool to push the needle while hand-sewing. And the thimble I bought in 1972 is still with me, though the finger has overgrown. Here it is: 

We used to like his session better than the one occupied by another Urdu language teacher [MSK]. MSK would just sit and doze on his chair. When he was awake, he would make use of this time by cleaning his nostrils using his left hand fingers and making a tiny dry-mucous ball and......?  This was the noisiest 40 minuets besides the Sanskrit class which Somayaji was handling.  MSK could ever control the boys who went on murmuring and chatting but his shouts only dissolved in the noise.  He too did not bother much and just spent time till the bell. This was one leisure period that all of us enjoyed in that way.  Some of them used the time to finish their homework to save time for play at home!