Manoj Sir reached the final page. The last entry, in shaky handwriting: Manoj Thakur, All Subjects, 2024. That was him. Beside it, no stars yet. Only a question mark.

As he wrote the steps on a broken slate, he realized: the Bihar Board Teacher Directory was never a record of names. It was a promise. Each teacher, a bridge. Each student, a future.

He flipped. Fateh Singh, Mathematics, 1991. Fateh ran a small shop. But last year, his son had topped the board exams. Fateh had cried, touching Manoj Sir’s feet. “You taught me the tables, sir,” he’d said. “Now my son knows calculus.”