Neela Katary

It was with much sadness that I learnt of the passing of Mrs Katary in Bangalore on 28th April. Our family was on vacation and on 27th April I received a message from a school friend, in which she mentioned that Mrs Katary and her husband were in road accident and that she was critically injured. It was so unfortunate that she did not pull through.

Mrs Katary was a teacher at Baldwin Girls’ High School for many years. In Std VI (1981-82) she was my class teacher and taught Home Science. This was the year that I was elected by my classmates to be the Class President (one of the class prefects), so my interaction with her was frequent. Kind at heart, yet strict, she was an excellent teacher and very approachable. Home Science was a fun subject with most topics covered with life experiences. As with most of our teachers, she was always impeccably dressed, with a dab of makeup and jewellery coordinated to match her sarees. If memory is right, before we finished Std X, Mrs Katary left Baldwins and moved to the Gulf.

Neela Chandrashekar, as my mom (Rukmani) called Mrs Katary, was known to her several years earlier. They joined Baldwins at the same time, in 1966, and there was a picture taken for the school records. With the passing of Mrs Katary, mom says she is the only one in the picture still alive.