A classroom can be an ordinary place.
Rows of benches, hurried handwriting, a blackboard covered in half-erased equations, and a teacher trying to make 40 students understand the same thing in 40 different ways.
But sometimes, a teacher says something that stays.
It could be someone who notices a quiet child has something important to say, tells a struggling student not to chase marks, or simply believes in a young person before they believe in themselves.
This Teacher’s Day, we asked our changemakers about the teachers who changed their lives.
For Manav Sony, who left a stable legal career to become an NGO founder, the lesson came from a teacher he never met in a classroom.
For Vaibhav Rathore, founder of Revamp India, it came from teachers who made him love learning and pushed him onto a stage when he was terrified.
And for Richa Jain, who began teaching on YouTube with just her smartphone and now reaches around 90,000 NET and JRF aspirants through free Hindi coaching, it came from her Hindi teacher, who taught her to believe in herself.
Today, all three are creating change in ways they may not have imagined as students. But their journeys carry the lessons of the teachers who shaped them.
‘Life is never easy. It’s how easy you make it’
Before becoming an NGO founder who has impacted more than 3.8 lakh people across 35 cities, Manav Sony had a very different dream.
A law graduate from Kolkata, he wanted to become a Supreme Court advocate and perhaps a judge. His plan was to intern at a chamber in Kolkata, move to Delhi and build his legal career.
Then, in 2018, a conversation changed his direction.
The person was Genie Tangri, a radio jockey whose show Manav regularly listened to. Tangri told him, “Life is never easy. It’s how easy you actually make it. You have to follow your passion, do what you love, and love what you do.”
A mentor’s belief gave Manav the confidence to leave behind a conventional career and build a life rooted in social impact. Photograph: (Manav Sony)
Manav considers Tangri a “teacher of life” who saw something others had missed.
“He saw that passion in me, that I want to do something for society,” Manav recalls. “He had that trust in me that even if I don’t do a corporate job, if I am into social work, I can become a very big person in life.”
In January 2020, Manav met Tangri and spoke about his growing desire to work for people who needed help.
“Don’t go for big things in life. Go for things which actually will give you a lot of blessings because blessings should be more important than money sometimes in your life,” Tangri told him.
Another moment gave Manav the confidence to act on that advice. While he was working with an NGO, Tangri recommended him to handle a CSR client.
Manav was nervous about handling such a big company. The night before the meeting, Tangri called him at around 11 pm and helped him prepare — what to pitch, how to speak and how to show that he could handle the responsibility.
The meeting went well. Soon, Manav was working on tree plantations and community initiatives.
“For him, it was a small gesture. But for me, it was something that changed my life,” he says.
Later, when Manav left his high-paying legal job to pursue social impact, he went back to Tangri.
“I cried that day. I asked him, ‘Sir, what am I doing with my life?’”
Tangri listened, then gave him a piece of paper and asked him to write what he truly wanted.
Manav wrote: I want to follow my dreams. I want to follow my passion, but I don’t have someone to encourage me.
Tangri’s answer was simple: “No matter who is there or not, I will stand by you.”
From late-night guidance before an important meeting to standing by his dreams, one teacher of life helped shape the person Manav became. Photograph: (Manav Sony)
Today, Manav leads the Funsmart Knowledge Solution Foundation, which has planted more than 4,000 trees, collected 12 tonnes of plastic waste and impacted lakhs of people.
But when asked what he thinks Tangri would be proudest of, Manav doesn’t mention the numbers.
“The person I became,” he says.
The bond continues. Manav calls him every Friday to share the week’s good news. When his story appeared in Dainik Bhaskar, Tangri ordered a copy from another city and kept it in his office.
For Manav, that is perhaps the greatest gift a teacher can give — not a lesson to memorise, but the confidence to become the person you were capable of being.
“Learning is bigger than marks”
For Vaibhav Rathore, some of his earliest lessons came from the classroom, but not always from textbooks.
His history teacher, Reshu Tiwari, changed the way he looked at learning.
“I stopped chasing rank and passing from her class,” he says. “It was more like I can understand so many things in the class.”
She taught history through stories, bringing events such as the Battle of Panipat and the Indus Valley Civilisation alive.
His mathematics teacher, Vipul Sir, gave him another important lesson: confidence in public speaking.
In Class 9, Vipul Sir asked Vaibhav to speak a quote at the school assembly. He was terrified. His teacher simply asked, “What is the worst that can happen?”
Vaibhav went on stage to recite Don’t find mistakes, find remedies. Nervous, he said it incorrectly and ended with, “Thank you and have a nice day.”
Vaibhav’s teachers taught him that learning is about more than marks, it is about curiosity, confidence and finding joy in the process. Photograph: (Vaibhav Singh Rathore)
It wasn’t his finest speech, but it was the beginning. By Class 11, he was sports captain and conducting assemblies himself.
“I said the quote wrong, but my life went in the right direction after that,” he laughs.
Reshu ma’am also taught him to take pride in his work, regardless of recognition.
“Whatever work you are doing, you should do it with full dedication irrespective of result,” Vaibhav says.
Today, that philosophy shapes his work with schoolchildren through Revamp India Foundation. Through initiatives such as Faldaar, students have helped saplings reach a 75 percent survival rate by developing a personal connection with the trees they plant.
His teachers also shaped the way he interacts with children.
He remembers visiting their homes during Holi as a child. Today, when children surround him after workshops for photographs and autographs or message him with questions, he feels the same connection.
A simple push from his mathematics teacher put Vaibhav on stage; years later, he is helping children find their own confidence and voice. Photograph: (Vaibhav Singh Rathore)
“I feel that I have done something right,” he says.
During a seven-day programme across 11 districts on examination stress, one session lasted more than four hours because children kept asking questions. Many still message him.
For Vaibhav, listening to children is part of what makes a good teacher — along with genuinely loving the work and working hard for students.
“The student you taught to believe in herself is now teaching others to do the same”
Richa Jain describes herself as an ordinary student. Academics were never her greatest passion; like many students, she simply wanted to get good marks and move ahead.
That experience, she says, helps her understand her students today.
The teacher who changed how she saw herself was Dr Sakshi Singh, her Hindi teacher.
“She did not merely teach me a subject; she taught me to recognise my potential and trust in my own abilities,” Richa says.
Their relationship went beyond the classroom. Richa could confide in her about personal and family matters, seeing her as both a teacher and an elder sister.
During exam preparation, poor test scores would sometimes leave Richa discouraged. Dr Singh told her not to compare herself with others. Instead, she should focus on what she had learnt that day and whether she was better than she had been the day before.
She also assured Richa that she would eventually clear the exam.
That advice stayed with her. Even today, when she faces failure, she asks herself: Am I a little better today than I was yesterday?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Richa had time to reflect. After qualifying for the NET/JRF exam while pursuing her studies, she realised that her preparation and knowledge could help other students who needed guidance.
She began sharing her learnings online, initially using only her smartphone.
The belief Richa received from her Hindi teacher now lives on in the way she empowers thousands of students to believe in themselves. Photograph: (Richa Jain)
What started as an attempt to make students’ preparation easier grew into a community of around 90,000 NET and JRF aspirants through her free Hindi coaching.
The experience also shaped her idea of what a teacher should be.
“A teacher’s role should be to empower the student so that they can eventually make their own decisions,” she says.
For Richa, teaching is not about making students dependent on a teacher, but helping them become self-reliant.
She hopes Dr Singh sees that same lesson in her work.
If her teacher visited her class today, Richa says she would ask for honest feedback.
“I still wish to learn from her,” she says.
And there is one thing she would like to tell her teacher:
“Ma’am, the student whom you taught to believe in herself — today, I am trying to instill that very same belief in my own students.”
The lessons that stay
Perhaps that is what makes teachers more than the people who stand at the front of a classroom.
Their words can become anchors. Their encouragement can give someone the courage to take a risk. Their belief can stay with a student long after the classroom is left behind.
For these changemakers, the teachers who shaped them taught different lessons — but the impact was much the same.
Sometimes, a teacher changes a student’s life without ever knowing how far that one lesson will travel.
