Last year, the alumni and staff of Rajkumar College, in Rajkot, honoured the memory of legendary educator and teacher – Rati Cooper – with the unveiling of a bust carved in her likeness, on 15th August, 2022. This year, the ‘Old RKCians Association’ – Ahmedabad chapter, organised their first memorial lecture for the visionary educator, which witnessed the attendance of over 200 former students of RKC from different cities of India and overseas.
On 8th March, 2019, Rati Cooper – one of our Community’s foremost educators, based in Lahore, passed away at the age of eighty-nine. Popularly known as ‘Miss Cooper’, Rati Cooper brought about a huge difference in the lives of thousands of students who had the good fortune to study under her passionate zeal comprising wisdom and compassion in equal measure.
RKC principal Yash Saxena, Ayaazkhan Babi, Himanshu Jani (motivational speaker and ex-RKCian from Delhi) and Bharat Avlani (storyteller, memory creator and ex-RKCians from Malaysia) were the keynote speakers. Babi, a former teacher at RKC Rajkot, was presented with the lifetime achievement award, which also carried a cash prize of Rs. 10 lakh and a citation.
Considered to be one of the finest teachers by her students, Cooper was born in 1930 in Mumbai to Framroz and Maneckbai Cooper from Lahore. A young lady in her twenties, from a sophisticated and elite Zoroastrian family, Rati was persuaded by the British Council to take over a school in Rajkot in March, 1958 and proved to be its greatest asset to the school and the students alike. She was highly qualified and experienced – Bachelor’s degree in English, French and Philosophy from the Sacred Heart College, Master in Philosophy of Education from New York State College, Albany, USA, and a summer course in English language from Oriel College, Dept. of Extramural Studies, Oxford. She was a recipient of the Fulbright Award for Travel and Study in USA and the British Council Visitorship Award. She had done several courses in Western Classical Music as well.
Miss Cooper brought with her a passion for education, unadulterated affection for children, devotion to duty and commitment to her chosen vocation and respect for her seniors and rules and regulations of the College, serving as Principal Emeritus towards the end. “The political divide between India and Pakistan may keep getting wider, but because of Cooper Ma’am, the divide among people got narrower… She was the bridge between the two (countries),” summed up Malaysia-based Bharat Avalani, the first RKCian to visit her in Lahore, who kept in touch with her till she breathed her last.
In Cooper’s memory, RKC has built Rati Cooper Kala Bhavan on the campus where her bust was installed in 2021. “She lives on through the lives and memories of a host of loving RKCians, relatives and friends,” the grave in Lahore sums up her life.
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