Teaching- learning and the purpose of participation

Couple of years back when I was in the final year of my graduation, I got a call from the principal of the support school where I used to teach to the economically underprivileged kids, saying that there was a debate competition and he was thinking if the students can participate in it.

I told him instantly that of course students should participate, and also told him names of couple of students who were more articulate and talkative in class.

He paused a bit, and then continued, “The language allowed for debate is English.”

I went blank when I heard this. Since I was their English teacher, I knew that their comfort level with language was nowhere close to that of taking part in debate in English. However, I asked him what the topic was. “Corruption is for the rich, it does not affect the poor much” was the topic. “Students are supposed to participate in a team of two, one for the topic and another against it.

Without worrying of how students would react to it, I thought to take a chance. That evening when I went for my class I put forward this topic to them in Gujarati, asked them to think if they could take any side. Fortunately, they thought, not only did they think but they could also put the arguments in a decent manner. Next, I helped them with some words in English and asked them to speak in English. This was way too much to expect though!!

Since I also had my CAT exam that year, I used to meet them only once a week, so we hardly got a chance to practice twice before the final event, and in both the times they could speak in Gujarati but did poorly in English.

However, it was very clear to me and to them also that our purpose was not to win, we just wanted to see something new, calibrate ourselves, and experience something we never did before.

Some days later, I heard that out of two students who had participated in the event, both could put their point across – in half English half Gujarati- speech in front of a crowd of more than hundred people.

There was a temptation in my mind to prepare a whole speech for the students, and just asking them to mug it up and vomit it out at the competition; however it was only good not to surrender to that. That was the happiest day of my short teaching career as students had learned to think, and express on their own, their opinions were truly their own!!

Today when I look back at this event, I reconfirm the fact upon my mind that the sole purpose of participating in any event or competition is not to win it or see it as an opportunity to add a feather to your successes, but it is an opportunity to do, think, see, feel, something newer which one would have never had if one had not participated.

At times in this race, one tends to put away these important learnings, and focus more on immediate outcomes, however being reminded of the true purpose is always a great thing.

The Teacher - An Excerpt from a Book

A remarkable school teacher

Some times of an evening you might chance to see a frail-looking man, short and short sighted, in a black coat and with a prodigious head, walking along the oval pathway. He is a nation builder,- he has helped to educate two generations. He must still be coming back into the memories of thousands who have forgotten all that they set out to learn at school.

Life has not given Nusserwanji P. Pavri his meed of reward, but that has not dulled the edge of his cheerful debonair spirit. He evidently believes that Dante was right in condemning to Stygian marsh those who had been sad under the blessed sunlight. With all his sure and enormous erudition, he is Modesty in person. He has not produced any book. The result of his labour is not so many hundred pages but himself. The issue of his sustained mental effort is not a volume but a man; it could not be embodied in print, it consists in the living word.

Nusserwanji is a quiet man, not to be easily ruffled or rattled. Patience is an instinct with him. He has the simplicity of the man in Dostoevsky’s Brother’s Karamazov who used to ask the birds to forgive him.

He brought the human touch in the lessons; - it was always a lesson never a lecture. When Nusserwanji taught history facts were brought to life, the dry bones of history stirred, the ages began to masquerade. He conjured up before you the fog at Lutzen and the snow at Towton, the shower of rain that led to the American revolution, and the severe winter of 1788 that produced the famine of 1789 and thereby the French upheaval. You saw Brutus, the norm of republican virtue, extorting 48% interest from a wretched Cypriote community; you saw the lights burning low in the skies and the stage darkens in the middle ages; you heard the din of toppling thrones and the crashing of empires during the first world conflagration.

And never did his vision dim, his grasp weaken or his memory fail.

His learning does not consist merely in the stock of facts – the merit of a dictionary – but the discerning spirit, the power of appreciation and that of comparative criticism. Knowledge is to Nusserwanji the bread of life. He reads as if he were to live forever, even as if he were to die the next day. He inoculated his students with his own thirst for knowledge. He was a precision and a martinet in discipline. To him knowledge could no more be aquired without high seriousness than a symphony could be rendered upon the flute.

Punctuality was with him a passion. You could set your watch, correct to half a minute, by the time he came into the class. His private library was at the disposal of all his pupils, and so were his time and learning. There never was a man more generous in encouragement or gentler in reproach. By personal contact with him you not only learnt something, you became something. Contact with him moulded your character and taught you, in the most impressionable years of your life, to beware of ideas half-hatched and convictions reared by accidents. Only thoroughly good man could be so great a teacher as Nusserwanji indubitably was.

He was unerring in his acumen to scent the latent ability in a student. In that great tempest of terror which swept over France in 1973, a certain man who was every hour expecting to be led off to the guillotine, uttered this memorable sentiment:

“Even at this incomprehensible moment, when morality, enlightenment, love of country, all of them only make death at the prison door or on the scaffold more certain, - yes, on the fatal tumbril itself, with nothing free but my voice, I could still cry Take care to a child that should come too near to the wheel; perhaps I may save his life, perhaps he may one day save his country.” Nusserwanji had this large and inspiring belief in the potentialities of a Kid. He was personally and vitally interested in the progress and career of all his pupils.

Many other things could be related about Nusserwanji from the wide leaved book of memories. The associations of travel fade the incidents of life press so closely one upon another that each in turn is trampled under foot, but one’s associations with a teacher like Nusserwanji remain forever unchanged. He has now retired but the energy of his educational service remains. This soothing thought must have opened a larger meaning and a higher purpose to his daily work. His personal influence has not fallen silent. His pupils will long feel the presence of his character about them, making them ashamed of what is indolent or selfish and encouraging them to all disinterested labour both in trying to do good and in trying to find out what the good is.

Where to Go?

Days end…..

Changes have been so common that now eyes and mind have become too numb to notice them. Each day is very similar to the other day; at times it seems the whole day was just a Xerox copy of some previous day.

There is a discomforting feeling of end approaching, stealthily. However this feeling is also mixed with some sort of fear.

Fear of stagnating, not moving. At times mind thinks that given a chance it would run fast as it can, the only question stopping it from running is.

Where to go?

Two interpretations of a wonderful song.....

Thoda hai, thode ki zaroorat hai....

This post refers to the different interpretations of a song. The song in question is “Thoda hai, Thode ki zaroorat ha” Film Khatta-meetha.

The first line of the song leaves the listener with two possible interpretations.

It says “Thoda hai, thode ki zaroorat hai”

The immediate interpretation is that of all the necessities and requirements some are fulfilled and others are not fulfilled.

After a little while, I thought something different. Does it also not leave room for an interpretation like, “one has modest resources and the requirements are also modest in nature/amount/type.”?

Second line of the poem says “Zindagi phir bhi yahaan, khoobsurat hai”. After listening to this one is sure that the poet indicates the first interpretation, however I believe the second interpretation is also equally likely.

Don’t you think so?

And now Let Me Sleep – P K Balakrishnan

Single story, So many strands…

The epic of Mahabharata leaves so many questions unanswered. Therefore any work that puts the story of Mahabharata in perspective draws special attention. This type of literature plays significant role in the way we understand, interpret and appreciate the epic in better manner. The epic in its original form is so huge, wide and deep that it is often difficult to construe it in a single go.

The present book, “And now let me sleep” takes out the two most crucial and most emotive characters of the epic and puts their stories into a unique perspective. The story of the novel revolves around the anguish, confusions, dilemmas and evolution of the characters in the post war phase. The fact that story is based in the post war backdrop, makes it even more interesting and important.

The main strand of the story emanates from the agony of Draupadi for Karna. Yudhishthir, having known that Karna was his own brother, is in irrecoverable pain and guilt. He loathes himself for having killed his own elder brother. In this sorrow he decides to leave everything and go for penances. His detachment, over the sorrow for the death of Karna, is unthinkable for Draupadi. She is still seething in the rage over her insult by Karna when she was unrobed in front of the entire assembly. Through the counsels of various characters that Yudhishthir seeks, author sends out a profound message of insignificance of human existence. The Dialogues between Krishna and Draupadi are also very significant in shaping the understanding of the epic. Krishna tells her, “Draupadi, you have seen the face of karna in the assembly in the most cursed moment of deterioration. You have seen a wicked man laughing in intoxication at the sight of a renowned princess being unrobed in the assembly. What you saw that day was real, but you must understand that it was only a single drop in the entire ocean of a man’s existence.” This is the first time when conception of Karna starts changing in mind of Draupadi.

Slowly as the story moves Draupadi compares her grief to the grieves of other characters, Gandhari, Kunti, widowers of warriors and Karna. She realizes that her life closely resembles the life of Kunti. Another profound realization that occurs to Draupadi was that due to love for the Pandavas, various characters have often transgressed the moral limits in their conducts in Mahabharata. For example, Bhishma, Krishna and Kunti all asked Karna to fight from Pandavas’ side. She further resonates her mind that all of them were observing the duty of their love towards Pandavas, in dissuading Karna, however Karna did not have anyone to advocate his interests, he was not loved, and he was unfortunate. When she saw this in the light of the fact that the lives of his husbands is in fact the alms from Karna her view for Karna changes.

The most touching moment comes in the novel when in the end, Draupadi too, like Kunti craves that both Arjuna, and Karna remain alive, in her dream Draupadi when seeing Arjuna, shooting an arrow at Karna, she shouts, “Arjuna don’t do that, don’t do that.”

Last half an hour

Everything was set, completed, finished, closed, sealed and packed. All those things that cannot be ended and packed were left in their own states and stages.

Eyes were observing things as if it were gulping them inside. Without any work I had taken couple of rounds of the entire house, just to see things again and again. In undue worry of “lest her son would forget something important” my mother too did two rounds of checking the entire luggage and made me see what all I was taking with me. All this while, my eyes kept falling on things that I was not taking with me.

· The old bat which had turned red due to some long practice sessions and innings

· The cupboard which contained some of the most read books, old diaries and some brilliant films.

· The couch placed right in front of the television, where so many hours of all my vacations have been spent.

· The big mango tree which used to be a resting place while playing in the backyard.

· That corner where cat had kept her kittens

There was deluge of memories in mind. I was trying, in vain, to hold the clock still.

The most difficult thing about this half an hour is that you know that after so small a time you will be going away from so many beautiful and meaningful things. YET YOU CANNOT HOLD ON TO THEM!!

During my train journey I wondered if our lives are also like that, the only difference is that we do not know which half an hour will be our LAST HALF AN HOUR!!

What happens when a fish Falls in love….. ?

There was a beautiful river. Whenever it used to flow with its full force, it looked as if diamonds were flowing in a seamless flow!!!
However, beneath this beautiful surface, there was even more beautiful world. The world of fishes. They were all very beautiful too.
One of them was a little different. That fish was always out of the groups of other fishes, it was never found in any get-togethers of fishes. Others considered it to be snobbish.
It was not particularly snobbish fish, but it was little more reserved and introvert than others, hence it avoided going to various places. One day, when it was sitting on a stone, brooding over some philosophical thought. A crocodile came to eat it up!!!
It ran hard; crocodile ran harder; just as it was about to be eaten up the current of the river suddenly changed. River took charge of the young fish and took it way ahead of the crocodile.
From this day, fish became fan of the river. Both became close friends, they grew so fond of each other that they even forgot the basic and indelible differences that existed between them!!! They continued to cherish each other’s company for long.
One day, fish asked the river if she would marry him. River told that it was impossible, as her existence was to dissolve into the sea one day. River also told fish not to expect anything in this regard as it would be impossible for a river to marry a fish. Fish wanted to know the reasons why river considered it to be impossible. However river refused to give anymore reasons.
For days together the fish kept mulling over and over the refusal. It seemed that it could not accept it perhaps.
River occasionally spoke to fish but those conversations lacked the personal intimacy and warmth that once flourished between them. Fish tried to empty its mind, but unfortunately, its existence seemed to be the subset of the existence of the river.
Fish was in a bad condition, it could neither get out of the river, nor could it get the river out of it.!!!!!!
This happens when a fish falls in love......