Author: Khusmand Buchia

I feel I have nothing to say…..yet each word that comes from my heart  feels heavy  with the depth of praise & admiration for a most wonderful woman….

Mrs Roy was a petite, simple,graceful, dignified personality….always cheerful.

Her work and administrative ethics were extra ordinary.

She was the silent backbone of the school administration system by the side of  Mrs Wilson – de Roze .

I greatly admired her strength and enthusiasm.

I  have never heard her raise her voice…..but firm she was.

A quiet disciplinarian not only with the students but also in her administrative work…..neat , tidy, everything in its place.

Be it Prize Day , Sports Day or Examination days. Mrs Ranjana Roy managed them all with her great organising capability.

A thought still brings a smile  to my face as I recall  a gentle reprimand..on Prize Distribution  day when the white table cloth laid out for the prizes was crookedly placed. Her sharp eyes noticed the disorder …This was Mrs R Roy.

Mrs Roy had a very sharp memory too not only of the contents in each file in her administrative  office……but also of passed students , teachers and school events.

She was greatly admired by all ….students , teachers and even support staff  for her gentleness  ,sincerity, thoughtfulness ,simplicity and acceptability.

I still remember her cheerful disposition when ex- students peeped into her room….she saw them…with a BIG smile and would say ..” Asho  , Asho” …….and began conversing with them …recalling their school days and making them feel welcome to their second home.

 From my seat in her room I noticed the joy on the faces of the teacher and the students.

Even students in  my batch of 1964   recall the then Ms Das teaching them Bengali.

After retirement when I visited Mrs Roy I could not help noticing her eagerness, her love , dedication and the pride that she held high for her beloved school…Modern High School for Girls….where she spent her life before and after marriage in moulding and enriching the young minds of the Lotus Buds.

My heartfelt thanks to Mrs R Roy for her guidance and practical lessons of life I learnt from her actions and words. I thank her for the love , acceptance and blessings I received from her…..even on her birthday ..6th July when I communicated with her.

When we were students of MHS, our earliest years were spent in the Theatre Road building. Then, as we entered Class III, we graduated to the school on Syed Amir Ali Avenue—a move that felt almost like a rite of passage.
It was there that Mrs. R. Roy became our teacher. She taught us Bengali in Classes III and IV, and I have known her ever since. It would be no exaggeration to say that she—and indeed all the wonderful Bengali teachers who taught us at MHS—laid the foundation for our lifelong love of the language and its rich literature. They did far more than teach us grammar and poetry; they awakened in us an appreciation for the beauty, rhythm and soul of Bangla.
As children, we simply found Mrs. Roy delightful. Her voice was gentle, her manner warm, her interactions with students unfailingly gracious. There was a quiet elegance about her that left an impression on all of us. And, somehow, she always smelt of lavender. Even today, that fragrance instantly brings her back to me.
Her reprimands, too, reflected her nature. We were certainly scolded when we deserved it—but never harshly, never unkindly and never in a way that diminished us.
As we grew older, we discovered more about her—as school students invariably do, being remarkably efficient private investigators! We learnt that she was the youngest of the celebrated Das sisters, five extraordinary women who were all teachers at MHS. They were far more than members of the faculty; they were pillars of the institution. Together they represented scholarship, refinement, dignity and extraordinary efficiency. Looking back, I realise that many of life’s lessons were learnt simply by observing them.
Mrs. Roy accompanied us on our excursion to Delhi after the Bangladesh War, when we were in Class X—or perhaps XI. One unforgettable highlight of that trip was the opportunity to meet Mrs. Indira Gandhi. We had all been instructed to ask her questions, but standing before such a formidable personality, we were completely overwhelmed into silence. Mrs. Roy’s exasperated yet memorable rebuke still echoes in my ears: “Jokhon kotha bolar kotha noy, non-stop kotha bolo; ekhon kotha bolte bola holo—shobai chup?” (“When you’re not supposed to talk, you chatter non-stop. Now that you’ve been asked to speak—everyone is silent?”)
Life came full circle when some of us returned to MHS as teachers. By then, the second generation of the remarkable Das family—the daughters and daughters-in-law—had joined the school as colleagues and friends. Mrs. Roy had become “Tutu Mashi” to everyone. She was Assistant to the Headmistress, with her office downstairs, and many of us would report to her with our corrected examination scripts.
She never treated that responsibility as a mere administrative exercise. She actually took the time to read through our marking, appreciated thoughtful comments written for students, and invariably left her own observations in her unmistakable green ink. I still remember how encouraging it felt when she complimented the detailed remarks I had written on my students’ answer scripts. It was her quiet way of mentoring us, even when we ourselves had become teachers.
Mrs. Roy was, in every sense of the word, an institution. She belonged to that extraordinary generation of educators whose influence extended far beyond the classroom. They shaped minds, nurtured values and set standards that continue to guide us decades later.
Teachers like her are not merely remembered—they become part of a school’s collective conscience. No one can ever truly replace Mrs. Roy, because some people do not simply serve an institution; they become inseparable from its very identity.