Our strict math teacher, Mrs V, a bespectacled, middle aged, Tamilian lady was strictly against anyone falling in love.
She used every opportunity to advise her pupils to avoid it like plague.
Two things she reiterated again and again during her lectures.
"Politics is a DIRTY game" and "Never fall in love."
I think she looked straight at me when she said the the latter.
I took it real seriously, while the others didn't, I'm not quite sure...they won't tell me !
(I'm sure some just ran off with their sweethearts before they even finished school).
So, I had to wait for years till my prince charming arrived to sweep me off my feet, while maybe others didn't have that much patience. I think that's the reason Ma'am liked me.
But the tragedy is that Ma'am's son fell in love one day!
She had loved her two sons terribly especially this younger one.
But now he had fallen for this lovely Maharashtrian gal.
She used to frequent his house, as Ma'am had asked her to help her with the tuition.
He a Southie, she speaking Marathi...how it happened no body knew.
They soon got married. Ma'am, absolutely wild with them, kicked them out of the house. They tried in vain to get back to her. She refused to even see her beloved son's face till she died.
I don't think she ever used her favorite phrase again.
Her older son, much wiser now, married a Tamilian girl of her choice. She looked after Ma'am, who had suddenly taken ill,
till...one day Ma'am passed away.
She had died of a broken heart.
:/ .. :( .. :'(