Chandana Mookherjee and Sidhnath Verma

New Delhi, Sept. 9: Chandana Mookherjee travelled from Rahara on the northern outskirts of Calcutta to Delhi and proudly picked up the National Teacher’s Award from President Pratibha Patil after teaching English to school students for 37 years.

Delhi wrapped it in humiliation.

Abuses, snide remarks and even rude pushes greeted some of India’s best teachers, invited by the Centre to receive the annual awards on Teacher’s Day.

Three hundred and fifteen teachers from all corners of the country arrived as “state guests” on September 3. For the next three days, everything would be taken care of, their invitations promised.

Like other state guests, their three day itinerary included a meeting with the Prime Minister, which most described as “very pleasant”.

The President, in her speech, also gave the teachers no reason to complain.

What rankled the minds of many was the manner in which they were treated in between the “pomp-and-show” official programmes.

For Mookherjee, the headmistress of Rahara Bhabanath Institution for Girls, the trauma started as soon as she arrived at New Delhi station on the Sealdah Rajdhani, accompanied by her son and brother.

Unable to find taxis — the human resource development ministry had not bothered to arrange transport — Mookherjee and her family tried taking a pre-paid autorickshaw.

Then came their first serious brush with official India.

A traffic constable — Mookherjee’s son Sutirtho Roy said his name was Dinesh Singh — they asked for help first refused and then abused them.

When Roy told the officer that his mother was a National Teacher’s Award recipient, the constable apparently turned around and said: “100 dial kar ke complain kar le. Dekhta hoon kya ukhad lega... (Dial 100, the police helpline. Let me see, you try and hurt me.”

With no arms, and just one leg, but the enthusiasm of a child, Sidhnath Verma, an assistant teacher from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, managed to move the President to spontaneously come down from the podium when receiving him at the ceremony.

“But the moment I stepped out of the ceremony, I heard two security men passing snide remarks about my physical disabilities,” he said.

During his three-day stay in Delhi, no organising official asked if they could help him.

“I don’t know...perhaps they just didn’t care,” he whispered towards the end of cere-mony when the President was heaping praise on teachers.

“There is no more noble profession than teaching,” she said.

Within minutes of Pratibha’s speech, Verma and the rest were herded into buses. “Jaldi karo. Varna hotel khud aana (Move fast, or come to the hotel on your own),” one official shouted at them.

The HRD ministry shrugged off the charges. “No one has filed a police complaint.”

Not that Mookherjee wants any action against the officials — from the traffic constable to the transportation organisers. “It’s sad, you know. But not their fault, really. They probably just didn’t know better,” the teacher said.