The many teachers that shaped this 26-year-old’s journey to becoming a writer

When Prarthana Earla was in school, her English teacher Nirmala Srinivasan was the one who encouraged her to write poems, even if they were nonsensical. Since that both Prarthana and her poems have matured, it was only fitting that when the 26-year-old released Find Me, her first anthology of 26 poems (Yes, the number of poems in this book and her age are the same. Coincidence, much?), she dedicated it to her beloved teacher. Along the way towards writing her book, she had many other teachers who believed in her talent. But after her academic life, at the fag end of which she pursued a Master’s in Neuropsychology from National Forensic Sciences University, Gujarat, she pretty much had to chart her own life’s course without her guiding lights.