There are teachers and then there are those who are more than just teachers. Ms. Catherine Simon, who taught Chief Minister Jayalalithaa at the Presentation Convent in Church Park, Chennai and who passed away here on Wednesday afternoon, belongs to the second category.
“She was a great influence on my life and we shared a very special relationship as a teacher and student,” is how Ms. Jayalalithaa reacted to the 88-year-old’s death. She added that she had the “good fortune of being her student from 1958 to 1964.”
Ms. Simon had taught Physical Training at Church Park between 1950 and 1969, but for Ms. Jayalalithaa, she was clearly so much more. “My mother wrote her a critique of her dancing in the film Ayirathal Oruvan . It was a personal letter but later in an interview to Kumudam (magazine), Ms. Jayalalithaa mentioned her by name and spoke of how much she appreciated those comments,” recalled Ms. Simon’s daughter Angelin James.
Ms. Jayalalithaa, who was a State topper in the matriculation examination, was also selected as the best outgoing student of her school. “She was an all-rounder, my mother would say. They were favourites to each other,” added Ms. James.
At Velachery’s Our Lady of Our Perpetual Help Church on Thursday evening, those delivering eulogies struggled to capture the spirit of Ms. Simon: she had training in Carnatic and Western music; was part of Handel Manuel’s MMA choir and had done background vocals for feature films; was always well-dressed; went on to be a librarian at Hindustan Teleprinters Ltd. after resigning from Church Park; and after retirement, returned to be a librarian at St. Ursula’s on the same campus.
“At some point, she did choreography for the (1963) Italian film Sandokan (The Great),” said Ms. James. Ms. Simon was also the sister of film director A.B. Raj.
The teacher and her pupil barely kept in touch, but Mrs. Simon and her elder sister Ramani Rajamani were among a few teachers invited to Ms Jayalalithaa’s swearing-in ceremony as Chief Minister a few years ago.
