There are many ways to measure one’s life. And I mean measure in a literal sense. You could measure it in birthdays, anniversaries or promotions. You could, like TS Eliot’s Prufrock, do it in coffee spoons. There is another way though, albeit unconventional. You can measure it in the number of good teachers you met as your biological clock wound down. These are the people who forever illuminated some part of the jumble that passes off as the universe.
(This story appears in the 21 December, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)