Sad. Indeed, very sad news. Some teachers enter our classrooms to teach a subject. A few quietly become part of the story of our lives. Ruchira Didimoni belonged to the latter.

I joined Raisina Bengali School in 1976 in Class IX, and she was teaching us Chemistry. Those were our growing-up years—those awkward, fascinating years when adolescence was trying to make sense of the world. She herself was just out of university, in her twenties, dressed invariably in crisp cotton sarees, with sharp, observant eyes and the quiet confidence of a young teacher beginning her journey.

Like every teacher in our school, she inevitably acquired a nickname. We mischievously called her “Bagola”, simply because she wore sleeveless blouses—something that was enough to ignite the overactive imagination of a group of fourteen-year-old boys in the 1970s. Looking back today, it makes me smile more than anything else. It reminds me how innocent, immature and irreverent we really were.

Our 1980 batch was perhaps not the most academically brilliant batch the school had produced. But we were certainly among its liveliest. We had debaters, storytellers, musicians, footballers, cricketers and voracious readers. We were all-rounders in the truest sense—curious, energetic, argumentative and, admittedly, rather noisy.

For a young teacher, we could not have been an easy class.

In Class IX, Chemistry largely meant Inorganic Chemistry, much of which depended on memorisation. Many of us believed we could master it on our own and probably did not show her the same deference that we instinctively reserved for our older, more established teachers. She, meanwhile, was trying to understand and manage a classroom full of spirited teenagers who loved questioning everything.

But something changed over time. The chemistry had finally begun to bond.

Of course, we still argued with her—especially after class tests. Whenever she deducted marks, we would confidently protest that the Board examiner would never be so strict. We debated every half-mark as though our future depended on it. We would never have dared argue like that with our senior teachers. Yet with her, we did.

Looking back after nearly half a century, I often wonder whether it was simply chemistry—not the chemistry of molecules, but the chemistry of human relationships.

Were the atoms arranged differently? Was there an invisible bond between a young teacher and a classroom full of energetic boys? Or were our reactions simply more energetic because she was close enough in age to understand us, yet just far enough away to command our respect?

Whatever the formula, it produced something remarkably stable. Those bonds have survived almost fifty years.

She fascinated us. She inspired us. She mentored us—not as a stern disciplinarian, but more like an affectionate elder sister who happened to be our Chemistry teacher. Perhaps because she was so young and so far ahead of her time, she understood us better than we realised at the time.

Who knows? Perhaps she quietly inspired many in our batch. Quite a few eventually went on to study Chemistry with Honours. Teachers rarely realise the silent influence they have on young minds.

Life eventually took her far away. She settled in the United States and built a new life there with her family. Yet she never completely lost touch with many of her former students.

Only a few days before her passing, on 30 June, we exchanged messages on Facebook after Morocco’s dramatic penalty-shootout victory over the Netherlands in the FIFA World Cup. An avid football lover, she was following every match with her characteristic enthusiasm. It was one of those casual conversations that friends have, never imagining it might be the last.

On 7 July 2026, thousands of miles away in the United States, Ruchira Didimoni breathed her last.

Only a few hours earlier, she had shared her thoughts on Facebook after the Argentina–Egypt match in the FIFA World Cup. That comment became her final post on the platform—a small, ordinary expression of her love for football, unaware that it would become her last digital footprint for all of us who knew and admired her.

Life is strange in the way it preserves such tiny moments. For us, that last post will remain a precious memory of the teacher who remained curious, engaged, and connected with the world around her until the very end.

Today, with her passing, we are not merely mourning the loss of a Chemistry teacher. We are mourning a chapter of our own adolescence. Those impressionable years when we slowly transformed from mischievous boys into young adults.

Chemistry was only the subject she taught. The real chemistry was the bond she unknowingly created.

One teacher stirred our imagination. The same teacher quietly changed the chemistry of our lives. Time has carried all of us to different corners of the world, but some teachers remain permanently present in the laboratory of memory, where the reactions never really end.

Farewell, Ruchira Didimoni.

Thank you for your patience with a noisy batch of boys and a few girls.

Thank you for believing in us before we fully believed in ourselves.

Thank you for showing us that some bonds take time to form—but once formed, they last a lifetime.

You inspired us. You fascinated us. You mentored us with affection rather than authority, more like an elder sister than a strict teacher. You will forever remain a cherished part of the chemistry of our lives.

Om Shanti. 🙏

May your noble soul attain Moksha, be freed from the eternal cycle of birth and death, and find everlasting peace in the Divine. Though you have left this world, the bonds you created in so many young hearts will remain unbroken for generations to come.