From long difficult years, Rasem-menla is today a distinguished and much-honored teacher.
Ashikho Pfuzhe
Dimapur | February 20
To those differently-able persons or people with disabilities (PWD) who tend to brood over their lot, here’s a no-nonsense lesson from a PWD: if you cannot walk or run, then crawl your way up to the ladder of recognition. That is exactly what 58-year-old Rasem-menla did. Recently retired assistant teacher of Government Primary School, Khar village, under Mokokchung district and a state teachers’ award winner, she was struck by the debilitating disease poliomyelitis. This happened to her at a tender age of only 3 months. Rasem-menla grew up with her left leg completely immobile.
Away from the playground, she took to reading and writing as a solace and enrolled herself in the village school. “It was moving to see my sister crawling her way up to the school those days as the school was located above our house. Though it was a daily torture for her, she was determined to get education” recalls Rev. Yanger Walling, younger brother of Rasem-menla, about the early sixties.
The second of seven siblings, Rasem-menla had also to shoulder family responsibility when still a child as her later father who joined the Naga underground movement was rarely around in the house.
Even her mother went to jail a couple of times and Rasem-menla’s elder brother too had to hide most of the time outside home on account of the father being in the underground movement. Despite the odds, Rasem-menla went on to finish high school through “sheer determination and grace of God.” She completed here graduation from Handique Girls’ College in Guwahati in 1973. The same year the Government of Nagaland appointed her as a teacher.
She then did her B.Ed from College of Education in Kohima in 1976 and later her MA (Education) (1982-84) from NEHU, Nagaland Campus. During the course of her service, she has been awarded Certificate of Proficiency and Certificate of Honour in teaching by the state government during Independence Day in 1986 and 1987 respectively. She also received a district award from the DC of Mokokchung in 2000, and another state award on Teachers’ Day in 2002.
In 1998, she was promoted to assistant headmistress in a government high school but could not join the post because of extreme physical difficulties. Asked if she has any message for other PWDs, Rasem-menla has only this to say: “Everyday we should perform our assigned task faithfully and there should be no room for laziness or complaint.” On post-retirement plans, the teacher said she would devote more time to her aged mother who is now 94 years. “Both of us will be confined at home, more or less,” she said with a laugh revealing her sunny disposition.
