The Essence Of Being A Teacher

There are two age-old sayings in Tamil that kept popping in my head last week while wondering - why am I doing what I am doing today?

Saying 1: Vaathiyar pulla makku. (A Teacher's child will be a fool.)
For the starter, I am not born to one but two Teachers. Perhaps that makes me double the fool that I should be. Quite true actually this saying and I fit in perfectly to this saying like a hand to a glove. I have always struggled with education, have always found myself being dragged into learning things I never wanted or often felt never needed to. I have always resisted learning than being able to see any possibility through education. I have often seen it as a tiresome, worrisome and wasted investment of time, energy and money. I am still allergic to chemistry and maths. I take a much longer time to understand things and wonder if I would be labeled a 'retard' if I did take the proper psychological tests. I try to understand and communicate concepts in the most simple way even until this day - not because my students are dumb but because I can't understand it otherwise.

Saying 2: Vuk'cuth'tha'vun Vaa'thi'yaan (The incompetent becomes the Teacher)
Holds true too (in my case at least). I have never been able to handle the politics and associated nuances required to survive the field. Very often I wonder if that is what brings me back to the comfort and safety of classroom walls from where the utopia can be dreamt in absolute complacency. No one can criticize me more than I can about my incompetency to put an end to fraud, malpractice, hypocrisy and pseudo-goodness often projected and existing in many organizations and institutions I have worked for - many times holding a leadership position - which if some else had held, might have perhaps used to do wonders. I have been the most incompetent in many ways especially when it comes to applying what I teach and am wonder stuck when I see many of my students, on the other hand, do a much better job than what I probably can or will ever be able to do. Perhaps if anyone must use a name more casually to establish the truth in this saying, they should feel free to use my name as a living example.

Mentioning these, if that is what makes a Teacher, well then the role I play fits me well and perhaps that is why I adorn and play it happily.
Yet, beyond all these, there is a happiness that I manage to reach by doing what I do that cannot be kept a secret - a happiness that unfolds and moves me everytime I see the brightened glow on a student's face if s/he has understood a concept when explained in a simple way - perhaps in a way that this incompetent fool has managed to understand in the first place - not because of the presence of ample intelligence yet the gifted absence of it.
May every Teacher - otherwise bright, wise and clever - and still the rest, have a 'Happy Teacher's Day' today. God save the world...  

A letter from a humble(d) Indian

Dear Rest of the World,

Its been a while I have been wanting to write to you. Been a while since I have been noticing how as one huge community in general, we belittle what we feel doesn't belong to us so much so that we take it for granted, like the ecology for instance and preserve and invest on what we think we owe like the economy for instance. Well, I intended to write not about the too-much-spoken already universal obvious yet a specific issue that bothers me from within the territorial borders of restrictions.

As a country, I have always witnessed that we export the the best of what we have; the best food we produce-grains, fruits, vegetables, butter and cream and what not?! Even the best fish we catch along our coasts we have always given you. Even at times when we gape with hapless awe at the size and quality of what is being caught, packed and boxed to be sent fresh, clean and as quick as possible to you, as we gather the left behind stray from rotting warehouses that we are expected to happy with or perhaps what our merchants consider us worthy of, we are happy for you. We take extra care in stitching the clothes, refining the sugar, tanning the leather, polishing those metals, stones you consider precious, sculptures and everything that you need or care with extra shine before we pack and send it across for you to hold and stare. Look around... even people we send from here are some of the best we had; the doctor, the nurse, the engineer, the teacher, the techie, the dancer, the musician, the singer, the clown, the scientist, the economist, the accountant, the writer, the people and every other professional now working for you. We have always been the slaves you wanted us to be; and you, we are made to consider our masters. Even the money made by hook and crook in our land, we have given it up to be stored in your land. We have even sat close and watched numbing pain, our people starve and even die as we loaded containers to fill your barracks; we smile even then and give you only the best... may be it is natural for us to do that cos our elders taught us so-to give the best we have to others even if it means to take the least of what is left for ourselves.

Well, when there is so much we do to take care of you like a pre-conditioned obligation of reminiscent master-worship by a slave, why in return do you always, every time you get a chance to sign a deal with us, extend a lousy hand?! Discarded cars rotting in your garage, poultry stinking in your cold storage, genetically modified seeds and fertilizers that kill our land, nuclear plants, poisonous gas, unreliable weapons for defense and unnecessary offence, even those pretentious food, drinks and people you send we near with dire suspicion. You send the illness and then too late the cure-both at equal costs we bear, you even chose to export your nuclear waste you consider too dangerous for you to be dumped in our coastal land... Why, oh why do you do this to us?! Godless people are you and heartless too; is it that your founding father's didn't teach you well?!

Get well soon I sincerely pray...

 A humble(d) Indian.

A mail to say its o.k...

Dear Commissioner,

Hope that this mail of mine finds you well. Was caught in a turmoil of conclaves, colloquiums and conferences where i had to render the key-note address from the Development Sector; hence the delay in responding.

Hope you are aware of the 'stun in awe' syndrome that affects people when they come across something as beautiful as what you had sent. w.r.t the opinion poll factor, legend goes that it is very difficult for mediocre files to pass the Commissioner's table... been there to vouch for it too. To prove the legend yet again, this ppt. that has come just off your table, is an ensemble of fine theoritical aspects that cry for the utopian (as if that is too much to ask for) that leans to strike a chord at the apathetic and ignorant crowd.

Sometimes, we wonder in distress if the noise of the silent cry of the victimized and vulnerable is too hard for people to hear... is it so feeble that the doors at which empathy is begged for seldom opens and permanently remains shut?! A paradox where the struggle to connect to the heart has to surpass the mind's acceptance. The appeal is often made to the mind to reach the heart. A far more unreachable connect is the attempt to connect to the soul which we govern not speak any more. Its a lost world! And proudly lost too. Its people like you, the phoenix type, who destroy yourself to ressurect the dead (irony that the imp speaks of these during Easter).

The attempts that I made ever since I saw the slides open was to bring in more crowd to peep into my laptop... however, some lost interest in between the slides and some just stayed for my sake (just that they did not want to offend me by moving away unlike their less faking counterparts) yet some stayed glued, stuck to every word, image and numbers that flowed... these are my fellow "Develop'mental' workers and the amateur crowd". Nevertheless, rather than worry why it did not bother people, the shift was towards what bothered some. Learnt that the faint sign of hope in the utopian still remains in a few who stayed and wanted to work together than criticize, complain and crib. 'If change is expected, be the change' being the mantra. Deep inside, the devil's advocate professes that to help the children on the street care be taken that in a lusty haste don't forego your very own needs and cummulate with them in their own grounds on the streets. Some hands are helplessly bound in a trail of survival; the luxury to do what the heart wants to still being a lust perceived like a mirage in a distance.

A slide towards the end screamed for a change in the system and the "system" that needed a change can be interpreted in too many different ways for which I had to rely upon my friend Lenin (the Revolutionist) for support... 'Begin from the beginning' He said and so rightly said. So thus followed a lecture for the wilfully staggering crowd on primitive Communism where boundaries were erazed and it support rendered not to one's ability yet to one's need. Hope this band wagon that is slowly yet steadily rising string itself well and overcome the issues a.s.a.p... we shall overcome someday!

Will be in touch,

Fredjeev

Missed You Today...

(This is one among the few letters from the vault that I used to write to a very dear person in my life who passed away recently. Just felt like sharing. May her soul rest in peace...)

New Delhi,
11th December’ 2006.
2345hrs

Dearest Grandma,
Hope that this mail of mine finds you in good health. I was surprised, excited, moved and lost in wonder when I saw the guard at the office bring me your letter to me. The best thing of all is the fact that this is my first Christmas card for the year. Then as I started reading the letter, I could see those hands of yours that have got old serving wo/mankind inching letter by letter to communicate a message of love so genuine and true. I felt a strange sense of complete and immense bliss surround me. It was like I was lifted, I was floating and was softly touching the clouds and reaching out to heaven. I know that’s quite a fantasy yet something that I could experience through you.

Isn’t life blissful at times Grandma?

I was at Haryana and Punjab recently. Went to Kurukshetra, Panipat and a Commando training place (which was actually the ruins of a huge, really huge fort). If History would come into picture, there is a strange chapter to which these “supposedly” great places get connected to-WARS!

I began to wonder and wondering led to pondering in the place I was wandering. I think its easier to be in war than to live in peace. Its so easy! Yeah, yeah isn’t it easier to train the finger to pull a trigger than to train it to play the guitar. Isn’t it easier to kill rather than to save the dying? Isn’t it easier to steal rather than work hard for that one meal and eat it with dignity? Then the pride and the way warriors are showered with praise all ultimately touches rock bottom when I realize that all this barbaric rush to severe the head of one’s own species is all because we never try for the better option may be because the better options are never the easier options. We always stick to the easier one; the one that needs nothing to be given from our end even if it takes something out of our neighbour. So primitive and so grounded people are that civilization is a word that only a very few know if at all people understand.

Look around. The world is tattered. Children are crying with no one to comfort them. People-human beings-who suffer in silence due to oppression, corruption, violence, abuse, poverty, crime, suppression and what not? Look at them! Don’t we see hands that lift up tenderly to be held, hands that need someone to touch them and help them out; out of that hell they see on a beautiful earth that God gave us? Aren’t they worth enjoying God’s love? Aren’t they just like you and me who need food, water, strength and love? Aren’t they made in the image of my sweet Lord as well? How can I neglect them? Why should I let them suffer? What should I fear to help them? What would stop me? I have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. Nothing to lose because I am nothing and am just a sweet soldier in the army of my lord where love is the only weapon. My mission is to use the weapon as much as I can. I have nothing to gain as in this army everything is unconditional. My battle field is the whole world and to wherever it can be extended. I must conquer not to establish power yet to make conquerors out of the conquered. No weapon is more powerful than love. No army is more powerful than an army devoted to bring in peace. No man or woman is left unconquerable in front of love.

Many have tried to conquer the world otherwise through violence and have proved repeatedly to be fools who at the end of the day cannot take what they cannot carry. A war centered on violence only aggravates the curse of hatred. How wonderful it would be if we have the choice to love one another and are removed of the chance to hate? How nice it would be to smile and greet and touch and make a difference in the life of everyone we meet? How nice it would be? Can’t Christmas be a time when love is born not just in cards and messages but in every heart? Can’t these battles stop and a new war for love begin to convince the people who have lost hope and faith that there is still a reason to live and a reason for the people who die, to die with a smile knowing for sure that the world is a wonderful place to live in and the one’s they leave behind would be safe and fine? How peaceful and blissful the world would become if only it were showered with love. Can’t people be passionate to love rather than hate? Even though its easier to die than to live…

Miles to go before I sleep. Happy Christmas Grandma. You know how much I love you? Mmmmmh! Let me think! May be just as much love that Christmas can bring into this world.

With lots of love,

Your Grandson,

(Ajith Fredjeev Dinakarlal)