On Teachers' Day, a thank you note from a gay professor to his students

I’m a columnist, activist, radio presenter etc, but the one role I’m especially proud of, is that of professor. I’m part of the visiting faculty at the Guru Nanak Khalsa College, in Matunga, Mumbai — also my alma mater. I’ve also been invited to institutes like the IIMs, XLRI, IIT — Bombay, city colleges like St. Andrew’s and Wilson, to deliver lectures on equal rights and other issues.

No matter what the topic I’m teaching, I make it a point to come out to my students within the first 10 sentences I utter. You may ask, ‘Why do you need to bring your sexuality to class?’

That’s because my sexuality is not detachable from who I am. I am ‘out’ publicly. So before it becomes ’news’ that their professor is gay, I believe it is better that I tell my students myself. The statement is sometimes met with chuckles in class; at other times, there have been snide remarks. But within 10 minutes, there is usually a wave of acceptance.

The relationship between a student and professor goes beyond ensuring the former gets an ‘A’ grade in his/her examination. The relationship I share with my students is no less than the one I have with my friends or family. I don’t believe in standing on a podium and preaching what they need to brush up on to ace their exams — this may work for some teachers; it doesn’t work for me.

My advertising class has male students working on a commercial for sanitary napkins, or the girls working on an ad for a men’s underwear brand — it’s a way of breaking taboos while learning, and the results are always stunning. Not only do the students come up with great advertisements, they’re also able to better empathise with the other gender.

Sometimes, I ask my students to debate on issues they don’t feel strongly about — like having a group of female students justify why girls shouldn’t be allowed to study or have male students make a case for equal rights for women. The pronoun I prefer to identify with is ‘he’, but sometimes I also address myself in class as ‘she’, so that my class understands that gender is a social construct worth deconstructing. It gets my students to think from another perspective — and that is what teaching should be about. Views take time to change, but they do change if we persist.

I ensure that this is shared within the realm of the syllabus, just as I ensure they enter their professional lives with as little misogyny, homophobia, casteism or other prejudices as possible. All my classes end with a Facebook Live in which they discuss what they learnt, with the world (such as this one on building your own perception , or this assignment, where a student wrote a monologue on male rape ).

The classroom is more like a fun family where we learn together and discuss everything. Not just the teachers, the institution itself has to ensure that the education being imparted is truly inclusive. (For an instance of thought being converted to action, Guru Nanak Khalsa College’s head of the department of Mass Media Simran Chawla and Prof Harpreet recently organised a gender-neutral, age-neutral and ability-inclusive Raksha Bandhan celebration .)

I take pride in my profession; teaching is indeed a noble calling. I don’t earn a huge sum as a teacher, but a chance to impact other lives is one you should never take lightly. Just as a mother is born when she gives birth to a child, a teacher is born every time a student takes the examination called life. Thanks to my students, I have passed — with grace marks — this examination. I guess.