Chapter 8: A New Chapter

I felt nothing at all.

No one knows those students better than I do.

They have no self-motivation, only know how to passively accept being pushed. Without me, the class teacher dragging them forward, just wait and see. I sipped my tea, watching the steam curl up, and almost smiled to myself.

After half a month of rest, Vidya Mandir School—the one that had tried to poach me before—called:

“Teacher Rohan, as long as you’re willing, you’re welcome here anytime.” The principal’s tone was warm, almost fatherly, as if welcoming back a prodigal son.

They still offered me double my previous salary.

Before going, I made one request: absolutely no class teacher duties.

As a subject teacher, I don’t have to worry about endless class management, don’t have to maintain parent-teacher relations, don’t have to deal with all sorts of bizarre requests, don’t have to worry about losing my personal time.

Just focus on teaching, and I won’t have to feel hurt about putting my heart in and getting nothing back.

“Teacher Rohan, your arrival is a huge help. Our previous maths teacher is on maternity leave, and we were just worried.”

The new class’s class teacher welcomed me warmly.

I was still teaching a graduating class.

After Teacher Lakshmi, the class teacher, added me to the Final Year Class Two group, I greeted everyone formally.

To my surprise, the parents were excited:

“Are you the Teacher Rohan who used to be at City Central School?”

“Teacher Rohan, I watched your public maths class. It was so clear, lively, and engaging. You teach so well.”

“I was pretty anxious before, but now that Teacher Rohan is teaching our class maths, I’m suddenly not worried at all.”

I responded politely:

“Thank you for your trust. I’ll do my best teaching maths for our class. If you have any opinions or suggestions about my teaching, please feel free to communicate with me.”

I thought some parents would add me as a contact.

At my old school, parents added every subject teacher just so they could contact them anytime, never respecting boundaries.

But to my surprise, in this group, not a single parent added me privately. There was a kind of dignity in the distance, like the unspoken respect between neighbours in an old colony.

“Teacher Rohan, you’re too polite. You’re the professional—we just need to trust you.”

Another parent said: “Teacher Rohan just arrived and must be busy with a lot of things. Let’s not bother him.”

“Yes, yes, we just got a little too excited.”

“Teacher Rohan, please go ahead and get busy.”

Maybe because it’s a private school and competition is fierce, the students are very self-driven. I quickly adapted to the new environment. The air was different—sharp with ambition, yet fresh, like the smell after the first rain.

Meanwhile, back at City Central School, the new class teacher for Class Six wasn’t having an easy time either.

Not even a month after starting, she was reported by the parents—just like me.

The reason was ridiculous: the teacher didn’t answer parents’ phone calls.

Teacher Meera told me this, so angry she was shaking:

“Just because she didn’t answer the phone, a parent went straight to the school and slapped Teacher Sneha.”

I was stunned.

They actually hit her?

“Teacher Sneha was in the middle of class—how could she answer the phone? And do you know why the parent called? Just to ask the teacher to top up his son’s canteen card. My god, his son is old enough—doesn’t he have hands?”

I was silent.

That’s exactly what those parents would do.

When I was there, WhatsApp had to be online 24/7, and I couldn’t ignore calls, even in the middle of the night.

If a student didn’t eat enough at school, drank too little water, or even if their collar was dirty, they’d come to me.

Some parents of hostel students even asked me to help wash clothes, because their child had never washed clothes at home. I’d draw the line, but each time felt like a new test of patience—sometimes I wondered if I was running a hostel or a finishing school.

Looking back, maybe it was because I refused so many unreasonable requests that those parents had long been dissatisfied with me.

And the parent who hit someone? None other than Kabir’s mother.

In front of the whole class, she slapped the teacher. A gasp rippled through the class, someone’s pen clattering to the floor. Even the usually chatty boys fell silent.

She didn’t apologise, and even played the victim, reporting the teacher herself. Her drama was straight out of a Star Plus serial—over-the-top, dramatic, and impossible to ignore. But nobody in the staff room was laughing.

No one could accept that.

Young Teacher Sneha immediately said she quit.

I quickly asked, “So how did the school respond?”