Sukram Tamang, the former headmaster of Margaret’s Hope High School in Kurseong, received the surprise of his life on Sunday.

The Telegraph team reached Margaret’s Hope tea garden, about 14km from Kurseong to hand over the Dr AP O’Brien Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award of the Adamas University Kolkata presents The Telegraph School Award for Excellence 2024 (north Bengal) to Tamang.

Tamang was supposed to receive the award at the ceremony held at Dinabandhu Mancha in Siliguri on November 19.

He could not do so due to reasons beyond his control.

In a special gesture, The Telegraph Educational Foundation, which has been organising The Telegraph school awards since 1999, decided to send a delegation to Margaret’s Hope to hand over the award to Tamang on Sunday.

The team included Jeta Sankrityayan, former head of the economic department, North Bengal University (NBU), and one of the 10 jurists on the award panel, apart from journalists.

Members of the Kalu Busty Ekta Sangh Samaj, a community-based organisation from the Ringtang tea garden, organised a major event at the Rashik Rangamanch to felicitate Tamang for the award.

People from the area, including neighboring Ringtang and Balasun tea gardens, gathered at the Rashik Rangamanch to congratulate “SK Sir” as he is fondly known.

The auditorium was packed to the rafters. Loud applause rang out often.

Songs and dances by students, too, were organised as part of the ceremony.

"Fate seems to work in its own way. We were destined to honour SK Sir in front of his own people, in front of the very same people whom he served,” said Sankrityayan.

Tamang started his 34-year-long teaching career as a volunteer teacher of what was then a primary school at Margaret’s Hope.

He worked hard to ensure that it was converted into a high school.

To retain students, mostly children of tea workers and first-generation learners, Tamang also privately financed a supplementary nutrition programme on the lines of the government’s midday meal scheme.

"As a long-serving school teacher, Sukram Sir’s teaching has always pivoted around the needs of his students,” said Sailesh Chhetri, a local resident.

Tamang retired from Margaret’s Hope High School in 2015 after teaching generations of children.

Almost a decade since then, he proved that a good teacher remains in the hearts of countless people.

After The Telegraph team handed him the award, he was virtually mobbed by the crowd. Many were former students. Many were grateful parents. The Astha self-help group of Rajdal busty, Hitashi Sathi, a Darjeeling-based NGO, and a retired teachers’ association of the area also independently felicitated Tamang for the recognition at the function.

"I was unaware that some people had been constantly observing the work that a simple person like me was doing. It is a great honour to be recognized by The Telegraph Education Foundation. I was surprised by the details that the foundation had collected about me,” said the humble game-changer.

A one-time scholarship for Megha Tamang, a class VIII student of Holycross Girls High School, Sonada, and a resident of Margaret’s Hope tea garden, was also announced by the foundation.