Life is defined by a few game-changing moments. Those moments account for over 80% of the overall definition of life. Sometimes these are caused by people and in other times due to events, a confluence of concurrent things or what we can only call destiny.

My mind at least once in a few days goes toward one such teacher who altered the course of my life. A person that I thank sub-consciously whenever my mind thinks about her. She was my C++ teacher at NIIT, her name is Anitha Pai.

The National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT) was one of the first few IT training organizations founded in India in the 90s. They offered a great course called the Graduate of NIIT (GNIIT), which at that time was responsible in no small way for India to become an IT hub, to play a key role in solving the Y2K problem and in general burgeoning into a software hub of companies such as Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, HCL and several others. The primary programming languages at the time were C++ and Basic. There was some COBOL and Fortran but these were not popular. C++ and later, Visual C++ (VC++) went on to come very popular.

Anitha was the teacher that taught the 3rd semester (Sem L) - so a very advanced level of VC++ course. She was a no-nonsense teacher who did not tolerate students that were too casual, not willing to experiment, not punctual and in general distracted the class. She was known to be a ‘terror’. I came to admire her sheer depth of the subject and what a kick-ass programmer she was, even before I came to like her teaching skills, which were unconventional. Her brain was literally software in itself, it adapted to students’ levels, did not have a standard curriculum or way of reacting to everyone and created a fun learning environment for everyone in class, if they so chose to dig in.

Up until the time I took her class at NIIT, I was at the top of my class in programming and almost became complacent. But when I got to her class, I was humbled by how much I still had to learn. In India, comparisons are common amongst a peer group, and for most academically driven individuals or groups, getting to the top of the peer group was all that mattered. For a very select few, that did not matter at all, I was one of them. I could care less how I fared relative to the other students in class. I was always more inclined to enjoy or detest the learning experience, soaking in everything I could, extracting as much as I could from the teacher. So, in a sense, the denominator, an absolute, was more important than the relative.

Many instructors in India were new to programming themselves, after all computing did not really go mainstream until the mid-90s. So, it was not uncommon for students, who were younger, had a keen sense of learning, more time on their hands, to outdo the instructors. So far at NIIT, whether it was Semester G, H, or K, I spent more time cozying up to the computer, trying out a bunch of new things, going beyond class material, and in general exceeding the skills of the instructors themselves. Not in Sem L! Ms. Anitha Pai blew away my imagination.

Anything I would take to her as a challenge, she would encourage me to think. She never gave out the answer or even the approach, it was always a question or a subtle hint. In the labs, she would come by and linger for a little bit trying to learn from me what she admitted to having missed herself. She never really thrust her weight as a teacher on to the students; instead, she collaborated as a peer and encouraged as a friend. It was very rare in India to find such respect for students from a teacher.

Overall, it is just too hard to put into words the impact of an encouraging, collaborating, challenging, and uplifting teacher. But Anitha Pai was all those things to me, and at a time when I was no good at almost anything else other than coding. By making me feel, I was really no good at this either, in absolute terms, taking meaningful steps could get me closer to being good. As long as I just showed up, took those steps, and got one step further each day the goalpost would just be one step away within no time. No need to look to see who else has made it that far, or how fast they are going there. Each one of us has our own journeys to complete and we should stay focused on doing what works for us. Sure the journeys of others, in this case, Ms. Pai’s own, overlapped for those brief moments in the lab or those classes, but they changed my journey very meaningfully.

The insights from this teacher changed my approach to learning and achievement forever. I am so grateful to this teacher to this date. The time I spent learning from her was just some short weeks, but the time I have retained them is 100x. That is game-changing.

Thank you for insights that carried way beyond VC++, Ms. Anitha Pai!

Life is defined by a few game-changing moments. Those moments account for over 80% of the overall definition of life. Sometimes these are caused by people and in other times due to events, a confluence of concurrent things or what we can only call destiny.

My mind at least once in a few days goes toward one such teacher who altered the course of my life. A person that I thank sub-consciously whenever my mind thinks about her. She was my C++ teacher at NIIT, her name is Anitha Pai.

The National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT) was one of the first few IT training organizations founded in India in the 90s. They offered a great course called the Graduate of NIIT (GNIIT), which at that time was responsible in no small way for India to become an IT hub, to play a key role in solving the Y2K problem and in general burgeoning into a software hub of companies such as Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, HCL and several others. The primary programming languages at the time were C++ and Basic. There was some COBOL and Fortran but these were not popular. C++ and later, Visual C++ (VC++) went on to come very popular.

Anitha was the teacher that taught the 3rd semester (Sem L) - so a very advanced level of VC++ course. She was a no-nonsense teacher who did not tolerate students that were too casual, not willing to experiment, not punctual and in general distracted the class. She was known to be a ‘terror’. I came to admire her sheer depth of the subject and what a kick-ass programmer she was, even before I came to like her teaching skills, which were unconventional. Her brain was literally software in itself, it adapted to students’ levels, did not have a standard curriculum or way of reacting to everyone and created a fun learning environment for everyone in class, if they so chose to dig in.

Up until the time I took her class at NIIT, I was at the top of my class in programming and almost became complacent. But when I got to her class, I was humbled by how much I still had to learn. In India, comparisons are common amongst a peer group, and for most academically driven individuals or groups, getting to the top of the peer group was all that mattered. For a very select few, that did not matter at all, I was one of them. I could care less how I fared relative to the other students in class. I was always more inclined to enjoy or detest the learning experience, soaking in everything I could, extracting as much as I could from the teacher. So, in a sense, the denominator, an absolute, was more important than the relative.

Many instructors in India were new to programming themselves, after all computing did not really go mainstream until the mid-90s. So, it was not uncommon for students, who were younger, had a keen sense of learning, more time on their hands, to outdo the instructors. So far at NIIT, whether it was Semester G, H, or K, I spent more time cozying up to the computer, trying out a bunch of new things, going beyond class material, and in general exceeding the skills of the instructors themselves. Not in Sem L! Ms. Anitha Pai blew away my imagination.

Anything I would take to her as a challenge, she would encourage me to think. She never gave out the answer or even the approach, it was always a question or a subtle hint. In the labs, she would come by and linger for a little bit trying to learn from me what she admitted to having missed herself. She never really thrust her weight as a teacher on to the students; instead, she collaborated as a peer and encouraged as a friend. It was very rare in India to find such respect for students from a teacher.

Overall, it is just too hard to put into words the impact of an encouraging, collaborating, challenging, and uplifting teacher. But Anitha Pai was all those things to me, and at a time when I was no good at almost anything else other than coding. By making me feel, I was really no good at this either, in absolute terms, taking meaningful steps could get me closer to being good. As long as I just showed up, took those steps, and got one step further each day the goalpost would just be one step away within no time. No need to look to see who else has made it that far, or how fast they are going there. Each one of us has our own journeys to complete and we should stay focused on doing what works for us. Sure the journeys of others, in this case, Ms. Pai’s own, overlapped for those brief moments in the lab or those classes, but they changed my journey very meaningfully.

The insights from this teacher changed my approach to learning and achievement forever. I am so grateful to this teacher to this date. The time I spent learning from her was just some short weeks, but the time I have retained them is 100x. That is game-changing.

Thank you for insights that carried way beyond VC++, Ms. Anitha Pai!