Students check out greeting cards at a Boring Road shop in Patna for Teachers’ Day on Friday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Time and technology have shifted the focus from hand-made cards to digitised gifts but the bond between teachers and students remain the same even today.

Ahead of Teachers’ Day on September 5, the birth anniversary of former President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the students are thronging gift shops to get the best presents for their teachers to make the day special for them.

The shops have a wide array of gifts — from greeting cards, pens, personalised coffee mugs, photo frames, showpieces with lovely quotes to clutches and perfumes — to spoil the students for choice.

Shrinkhla, a student of Notre Dame Academy, said: “I want to gift the best cards to my teachers to show my gratitude towards them for being true guides. I bought a bag for my class teacher and a smiley key ring to match with it.”

Coffee mugs are also much in demand and are flying off the racks fast. Guddu, a shop owner of Archies Gallery at Patna Market, said: “Most of the students are buying coffee mugs and greeting cards. Some of them also give order for messages to be imprinted on the mugs. The glass showpieces are selling like hot cakes.”

Explaining the reason behind the demand of coffee mugs, Tanya Priyadarshani, a student of Ishaan International School, said: “Unlike other gifts, a mug with a special message would always remind the teacher of the student who had gifted that.”

No gift is more special for your teacher than a good luck token, feels Loyola High School student Shreya Sharma. “Throughout the year, the teachers work to make us study hard and build our future. A good luck token is the best gift to show our gratitude towards them. I am planning to gift a good luck tree and wooden wind chime to my teachers that will bring good fortune in their lives,” she said.

Some students are also taking help of computer technology to give their teachers a unique gift to make them feel special. Anshuman Singh, a student of St Michael’s High School, said: “I have collected six pictures of my teacher, make a collage with them and put them into a frame. I hope this gift will bring a smile on the face of my teacher.”

Some students like Shambhavi Kishore of St Joseph High School have decided not to go by the usual and trend and do something out of the box. Instead of gift shopping, she is busy making a PowerPoint presentation with the photographs of the teachers, some poems and quotes. “I hope my teachers would like my gift,” she said.

The teachers, however, feel it is more important for the students to understand the importance of the day. Don Bosco Academy English teacher Allan Cowell said: “It is good that the students want to make Teachers’ Day a memorable one for us. But more than anything else, we expect them to understand the importance of the occasion and respect and love their teachers.”