A Letter To My First Class
To my first class,
I write this to you on a bright, blue day sitting at the Blue Tokai near my house in Delhi. I don’t know if they still exist in your time (I sure hope they do), but you must know, I’ve felt the safest and happiest here for a long, long time.
I suppose I’ve taken on a rather audacious task of writing to you on your 24th birthday, for what do I know about life that I’d want to hand over to you? As I thought at length about this question, trying to recollect all that I’ve done, all that I’ve learnt, I realised that perhaps the most monumental learning I had was during the two lucky years that I taught you ~ 2024 to 2026.
I don’t expect you to remember anything from those two classrooms because by now, I’m sure you have realised the elusive mechanics of this funny little thing called time and all that it does to insist that we stay fully in the present. It’s on us to take that specific cue, instead of the red, horned one of having done too less and wanting to do more.
Moreover, I’d like to think it is now my time to remind you of all the wonderful things you taught me all those years ago. Things that I lost touch of as I grew up, that have drastically changed the trajectory of my life, that I never thought I’d be fortunate enough to learn at such a young age of twenty four.
I write this next part with a warning that my knowledge of the written word will probably never suffice to encapsulate the breadth and weight of the things you’ve left me with.
I stepped into your class with my pink head of hair at a point in time when the world was trying to take away all the life out of me, life that I hadn’t realised was within me. I didn’t realise I had stopped being shamelessly joyful and free until I met you, my forty five beautiful little students, my first class, that I will continue to love till the rustling of the very last leaf.
From you, I learnt to love unconditionally again, to be forgiving, for I messed up oh so many times in my duties as your teacher, but you always chose to receive me with a chubby smile on your face and a heart full of love. And so, remember to love as much as you can, find the little joys that await you, fall in love with nature, find your place in the trees and worship the mountains!
From you, I learnt to believe in myself, unabashedly and unapologetically! You taught me to never think twice about the constraints the world pins me down with and believe in the sheer life and grit inside of me. Because of you, I learnt to dream again, to reach for the possibilities that the world had shut my doors to. And so, I want to hand this back to you, this stubborn and rigid belief. You’re on the cusp of a life that could unfold in so many different ways and as you figure your special set of circumstances out, I hope and ask of you to never settle for what the world demands of you, to resist, to hope, to build your own village, to believe in yourself and all that you had planned. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again ~ trust me, you’ll move mountains kid!
There often come times when we tend to become lax with our words. Remember how upset both of us used to get when I was maybe not the gentlest with mine and you, not the quietest with yours? You taught me that my words carried weight ~ to hurt you, upset you but also, to calm you down, to make you laugh, to make you believe in a beautiful life for yourselves. And so, remember to go about life choosing to be kind with your words, to be bold with them, to use them to demand what you’ve dreamed for yourself. Remember that they carry enough weight to change the world young one, for they certainly did change mine.
Most importantly and I hope I do justice to this part, I want to remind you of the lovely, lovely ways in which you lived. My little one, you taught me what generations fail to learn ~ to live, live & live! in the face of adversity. When the world told you you weren’t enough, you danced! When it tried to fit you into narrow boxes, you jumped & hopped & trotted! When it tried to isolate you, you sat with your friends and giggled! When all the odds were stacked against you, you loved and you hoped!
Watching all of you choose every single day to be happy, to be infectiously joyful, changed everything for me. I realised that life was never something that came at me, it came from me. And so, on days good or bad, I dance! I laugh, I hope and I dream!
My dear little one, always remember that happiness is in you. Go for a long walk, stare into the bark of the tree next to you, pet the cat that slowly blinked at you, dance on your way to your job & sing on the way back, smother your hands with paints of colours manifold, drop the little bug that landed on your table back to the nearest leaf! Remember, once you choose to be happy, once you choose to start living, no reality will ever be bleak or strong enough to hold you back. Remember, you are the very life that you’re waiting to live.
As I come to the end of my ramblings, I want to acknowledge how difficult it was for me to leave the bunch of you. I wrote this letter in four days and from four different locations ~ all saw me cry and sob, and held my heavy, heavy heart with care.
My first ever class, I hope you know that I loved you with all my heart, and I will always continue to do so. I hope we’ve stayed in touch and if not, I hope you find me and reach out to me! Always remember, I am the one person in this world that you can ask anything of with no shame or guilt. Ask me for the moon and I will bring it to you. Never hesitate to come to me with the craziest of demands!
Thank you for letting me be a part of your precious little life, for letting me be your friend, for handing me the world ten years ago!
I wish you the happiest of birthdays and days filled with love, joy, art and music ahead! And class class? I love you, so very dearly.
~Love and only love,
Sanjana
8 May, 2026
