The retirement celebration for Mahua Ghosh was a highlight of Thanksgiving week. Mayor Johnny Hammock proclaimed Mahua Ghosh Day in Tallassee; former superintendents and principals were on hand to pay tribute to this legendary educator. There is literally no one to take her place. She was exotic! She had met Mother Teresa! She was probably the only native of India working in our system. We were asked to make farewell videos, but I put my thoughts into this letter.
Dear Mrs. Ghosh,
We have had weeks to prepare for this day, and I spent time searching for greeting cards that might send an appropriate message. I wondered, also, if there were a gift that might make sense or bring meaning to this occasion. When it came down to it, however, I decided to just write you a letter expressing my respect, gratitude and appreciation for what you have meant to this school and to me personally.
When I first came to Southside, you had been here a little over a decade and were considered a veteran teacher even then I had come from Montgomery Public Schools and was commuting from east Montgomery to Tallassee every day; at the first faculty meeting, you offered to give me a ride if I ever needed one (and I think we did ride together once or twice). That was the first of many kind gestures.
A while later, you invited me to a concert performance when your son Rohan was in the guitar class at Baldwin Middle Magnet. I sat a row behind your family; I think this was when your daughter Henna was in school at Robert E. Lee! It’s amazing to consider how long ago that was, but a generation or two has come and gone through this school since then. You shared so much knowledge with me over the years, such as your trips to Europe (I still have the pictures you sent me from the concentration camp), your tears over the death of a parent, and pride not only in your son’s accomplishments but in his Bollywood-styled moves.
When I came here, I think I just had two or three children and when I left, I had seven. The rest all got to experience what Ann Stuedeman called the “Annual Bird Baby Shower,” where you would make fun of me for having so many children! You’ve taught the majority — wait, civics class says the word is plurality — of BirdKids.
I still get tickled thinking of you holding a baby Gregory and calling him ‘Little Buddha,’ because he was so fat. When he made it to Southside, one day he came in with his long hair flopping in his face, and you said, “just because your hair is long doesn’t mean I can’t see who you are, Little Buddha!” And how could I ever forget, when the last Bird, Norah Grace, was in the hospital for several weeks, you sent about a month’s supply of Curry Chicken home with me?!
We will always remember famous Ghoshisms such as “deaf or defiant” (I tell you to be quiet, you won’t stop talking, so you are either deaf or defiant!), “ignorant and proud” (Don’t be ignorant and proud of it or its variant, you are an ignorant Alabamian), and many others. Those Tiger Paws that started every geography or civics class are, somewhere deep down, embedded in the DNA of nearly three decades’ worth of Tallassee children. Along with the annual World Day and activities that enriched understanding of other cultures and ideas, you truly have made a difference with your chosen profession.
That is your greatest gift. While not everyone can be converted to thinking outside of their own little box with a worldview that barely extends past the city limits, you planted seeds that are bearing fruit, generation after generation.
Mother Teresa said, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” You have been changing the world, one class period at a time, for 28 and a half years. I consider it a blessing to have worked in the same school with you, and for you to have taught my children. Thank you for all of your years of service to the children of this community, and for your friendship. I will always treasure the memories. Bhagwaan ka ashirwaad apke upar rahe.
Michael Bird is a music teacher for Tallassee City Schools and a longtime weekly columnist for The Tribune.
