Teacher’s Day Special: 21 Unforgettable teachers in Hindi cinema

- ADVERTISEMENT -

September 5 is known as Teacher’s Day across India. This day marks the birth anniversary of the first vice-president and second president of India, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. He was known to be a distinguished scholar and a teacher. In 1962, when Dr. Radhakrishnan became the President of India, his students approached him to celebrate his birthday. He suggested that instead of celebrating his birthday, the day should be dedicated to honoring all teachers.

In Hindi cinema, we have had some varied and interesting examples of teachers, some even humorous, others antagonistic. Here is looking at 21 memorable examples.

Aamir Khan / Taare Zameen Par

An Arts teacher helps diagnose a child as a dyslexic and teaches him with the special care and understanding needed.

Abhi Bhattacharya / Jagriti 

The chronologically earliest known example was of this film, in which an idealistic and unconventional teacher, in the neo-Independence era, educates students about the heritage of their country and encourages them to become model citizens. This also includes a spoilt, rich child.

Abhishek Bachchan / Ghoomer

A disgraced yet passionate cricketer takes the onus of training a woman who is handicapped to play, and makes her good enough to play and win for the nation .

Amitabh Bachchan / Black

An elderly, alcoholic teacher is employed to look after a blind, deaf and mute girl. A bond develops.

Amitabh Bachchan / Mohabbatein

Here, Amitabh played an over-idealistic, over-conservative head of a college who ends up making the lives of his students miserable. He clashes with a young music teacher (see Below), whose approach to life and students is way opposite his.

Amole Gupte / Stanley Ka Dabba

This time, we had a Hindi teacher who insists of gorging from the students’ ‘dabba’ (tiffin-box), especially that of a student named Stanley!

Boman Irani / 3 Idiots

He never appreciates independent thought, opposition to his dogmas and has little sympathy for anyone who does not stand first, believing for 32 years of his teaching life, that no one else can do well in life other than the best, as decided by a student’s cramming ability rather than imbibing true knowledge.

Boman Irani / Munna Bhai MBBS

This time, Boman played a harangued medical college dean, who does not take it lightly when a ruffian gets admission by foul means to become a doctor!

Hrithik Roshan / Super 30

A brilliant-at-Maths poor young man finds that other poor but deserving students cannot afford high fees and leaves his lucrative job to start a free coaching class for them. This was based on a true story of the Maths, whiz Anand Kumar.

Jeetendra / Parichay

A needy young man takes up the job of dealing with unruly children who have made several tutors leave because of their pranks on them. The film was loosely inspired by The Sound of Music.

Naseeruddin Shah / Iqbal

Another example of a frustrated and inebriated coach, once an ace cricketer, who takes up the challenge of training a deaf-mute to achieve what he himself could not.

R. Madhavan / Saala Khadoos

Again, the coach (this time for boxing) is a disgraced drunkard. But he decides to train a girl in whom he sees flashes of the right spirit and determination to become a champion.

Rani Mukerji / Hichki

In this gender-flip adaptation of a real story, Rani Mukerji has a physical impediment—a tic named Tourette’s Syndrome—that prevents her from getting a teacher’s job despite her academic distinctions. She then gets to educate slum kids under the government’s “Right To Education Program”.

Shah Rukh Khan / Chak De! India

Though disgraced in a frame-up, this hockey coach assembles a national team that is world-class. His precondition: think nation and team first, then region and self.

Shah Rukh Khan / Mohabbatein

A music teacher decides not only to train students but also give life’s lessons to his college principal, who has also played a cruelly crucial role in his personal life.

Shahid Kapoor / Paathshaala

Another music teacher faces several odds when he wants to uplift students in an institute that has now started giving a premium to money over education.

Shammi Kapoor / Professor

Parichay-style, but eight years earlier, a young man decides to be a tutor of sorts for four rich brats of assorted ages. He is rejected as he is young and two of the ‘brats’ are nubile girls, but as he needs the money, he comes back as an old man and gets the job, beating the four, who have not tolerated any other teacher for long, at their own tricks.  

Sushmita Sen / Main Hoon Na

This chemistry teacher will always remain the most glamorous of all in Hindi cinema, so much so that a covert intelligence officer on a mission, also falls in love with her in the same college in which he is posing as a student!

Swara Bhaskar / Nil Battey Sannata

A mother decides to become teacher in a school where her daughter is studying, to improve her Mathematics and also her approach to life.

Vidya Balan / Shakuntala Devi

This is a biopic of the Maths wizard, Shakuntala Devi, and also details the challenges she faced in life.

Vinod Khanna / Imtihan

Inspired by the classic Hollywood film, To Sir with Love, it revolves around an idealistic professor who decides to reform a group of rowdy students at a college.