I`ve always wanted to be a teacher, since I was about five or six. Other kids wanted to be doctors, engineers (yawn!), postmen or engine drivers (theek hai). Or, if your parents were buying you British or Russian children’s books common then, then fire engine chief was the hot thing to be, roaring off to save the world.

At that age, my teacher chukker was mostly about the opportunity to hold a ruler in my hand with authority, and boss over others. No noble intentions kit-kit. I grew up in a modest house in Santa Cruz with three rooms and an asbestos roof. But we had a lovely garden in front of and behind the house. I’d teach mathematics in the front garden to all the trees and plants, a subject I knew the least about, simply because I understood early on, that power flows from the barrel of a foot-long, plastic ruler. I couldn’t possibly whack the tender jasmine creepers tumbling over the gateway arch, or the delicate aspidistras. So the poor mango tree, with a solid wooden trunk, bore the brunt of my whacking, for never doing its homework. Kneel down, I’d order, parroting my teachers’ favourite punishment. The crows commented archly on my class from the mango branches.