Teacher or a Killer?

Yesterday evening was tiresome. Frequent power cut in the office made me sweat a lot and the heat on the top of everything agitated the mind. Fully exhausted me reached home and put the TV on only to watch news of random brutal killings happening all over the world.

A school teacher punishing a low performing student, Shanno, harshly, causing eventually the death of the later. This was the news of the day! What a news! Where the hell the humanity has gone? Teaching is considered to be one of the noblest jobs in the world and a teacher is supposed to help learn a student. If a student can’t read/identify an English character (which is learnt to be the reason why that teacher punished the student), in my opinion, it is her teacher’s failure. There are many ways to do any thing in this world. Why couldn’t Shanno’s teacher use a different way to help the child learn English?

And what great loss would have happened to the world if the poor soul hadn’t learn English, in the first place? I ask you, how many people in Power at various functions in the Government of India can Read / Write / Speak English fluently? Every function in the Govt of India works either in Hindi or in the Regional Language of the state. And if a poor child cannot learn English with pace others do, why force the poor child to such an extreme? Why such a big farce is created? There are hundreds of examples where people have become successful without knowing English.

And this is not just one incident. There are hundreds of Shannos in India who suffer everyday from such teachers’ brutally insane & inhuman acts.

This incident raised many questions in my mind…

Why Do the teachers in India assume the power to brutally punish a student?

Does a Degree in Education (D.Ed. or B.Ed) really qualify a person to be a teacher?

Is a school worthy to educate a student if a bribe of Rs. 500000 is taken by the management to designate a Tom Dick & Harry as a Teacher?

Do we want a false education system which focuses more on “remembering” than “Learning”?

Does a teacher (or anybody for that matter) value other’s Life equally?

With questions galore in mind I retire to bed, hoping only to see a better tomorrow.

Hobbies - A Pursuit of Happiness

“What are your hobbies?“ is perhaps one of the most common questions people ask when they turn the “introduction” page with you. And if you see around, the answers to that question are quite typical in a country where we are raised more or less very similarly! Playing cricket, listening to music, or rarely though – reading books also.

Some of my childhood years were spent in a village. 3 years to be precise- Class 2nd to 4th. And I had been in good touch with villages even in my college days, until I left for Bangalore for further study and job search. And you can, for sure find some really good, fascinating leisure pursuits among the children and youth in the villages.

In my childhood, some of my friends had had a hobby of collecting marbles. They were really beautiful. When I was a child, it was more of a wonder for me to see the perfectly spherical marbles. I would wonder, how glass could be cut into such perfect spherical shape. Some all-transparent, some transparent yet having some beautiful curvy design in them. Color combination was another wonderful thing about marbles.

I remember one of my friends had collected hundreds of such beautiful marbles. He used to keep them in empty plastic bottles. Of course he had not bought all of those marbles, they were won in the game of marbles. It was fun. But I could never go beyond having 10-15 such marbles, for one, I was not good at aiming them in the game and secondly, it was not considered to be a game for good boys by most of the mothers, including mine too! ( Moral of the story- I was a (I am a) good boy!)

Another such interesting hobby I saw was the collection of matchbox covers / pictures on them. You remember, the matchboxes have very good pictures on their top. Getting an empty matchbox, throwing away the cardboard container they have and cutting the top face of the rectangular box and putting it on to the stack of already collected ones. This was a great fun. Since many of the match boxes earlier were made of little hard wood, finding one made of thick paper was a little difficult task for the little guns then. Some would even grab one found on an empty road, seeing carefully that no one’s watching them. One of my cousins had this hobby. He had collected and made many bundles of such pictures and each bundle consisted of 50 pictures, a rubber band was used to tie the bundle so that the picture wouldn’t get mixed up. There were categories of the pictures too. Some “chaavi” (key) were among the most common. Some parrots, deer, lions were another popular stuff. And this one also was never my kind of hobby. But it was fun watching the collection of others.

And not being very different from my fellow friends I also have had some hobbies. The past tense here means many of them have disappeared away in the face of studies earlier and then job search for some time and more so after getting the job & subsequent responsibilities later. It is not that I never wanted to have a hobby.

I have tried to pursue both the hobbies above. What is that that I haven’t have tried my hands at. I have played cricket with my brother, my friends in school, college and even a couple of times with my colleagues in the recent past. Last year I played badminton with my colleagues in the indoor stadium of International School besides my office (having my colleagues paid for the club, I would enter in the court for free (kind of “buy 4 get 2 free”!!). There I realized that this also could have been my hobby, I wasn’t bad in that, although could not return some of the smash hits by the opponent. And later, since the members of our elite team didn’t continue the membership, the chance of me entering the stadium was ruled out and thus the nation lost a good badminton player in making.

Reading books is my another such hobby which is like rains. Some time back, I saw a picture and the line beneath it read “ when it rains, it pours”. This line perfectly described my hobby of reading, but other way around, I felt. In the college days, I have read some brilliant Marathi books by equally brilliant writers. I have read “Mritunjay” by Shivaji Savant, which was the first book of my new hobby then. Later I read P L Deshpande, the king of Marathi Comedy. But again, like rains, this hobby disappeared, and not for a year, for a longer time. Reading continued, but what used to be the books of sheer delight, were now replaced by enemies like Lipman, Tanenbaum, Comer, Schieldt et al. Still, as I said like rains, it all came back to me. Some months ago, zestful me, went to a book shop and bought a couple of “life” related titles and couple of novels. And I’m yet to complete a single of them.

Music is perhaps the only hobby I have been consistently faithful with. It is also perhaps inherited from my brothers who are great music lovers too. I have spent nights listening to masters like Kishor Kumar, Asha Bhosle, Jagjit Singh, Ghulam Ali . And so is the collection of songs on my machine. You name it, you’ll find it with me. I like English and Marathi songs too, selectively though. A few Telugu and Tamil titles too have made their presence on my disk. I had a radio too- which had inherently come to me from my elder brother. Radio is perhaps the “Beginner’s Device” for any music lover. We had a cassette player at home for some time. And then came a CD player. When I saw the collection of 150 odd CDs my elder brother brought from Singapore for me, I was like a child who is given a bunch of chocolates. I am an ardent fan of A R Rahman too. And what would be of more delight than Rahman winning a double at Academy awards this year. After getting job, I purchased a SE-W810i music phone and that made me happier even more. I have a 4GB MP3 player too. An iPod is going to be next soon. My music starts as soon as I open my eyes every day. (This used to irk my ex-roommate sometimes!). I listen to songs whenever possible, even in the office sometimes. And my phone plays “good night” songs by my bed, until I’m fast asleep.

And very recently I discovered in myself, this hobby of writing, which, I would say is like full-moon – once in a fortnight. And this does not happen even with that regularity of a moon. It is not that I don’t really have time to write or I’m very exhausted every evening. But for me, to write something, I need a calm mind and surrounding both, a fresh & cool mood, which is rare in the crowd of this big city.

Whatever I have written so far, has been an experience of kind of meditation to me. And little resolute, I have told myself to pursue writing for a long time in life. Whether Reading is your Hobby or not, I will write!!

Choosing a Mentor

I realize that for a human being to be successful two things are always required, Her own desire to be excellent and a Mentor. And this combination varies person to person. In some, it’s solely the person’s own desire to learn the lessons and excel in what s/he is doing, which dominates to a level the need of a mentor for him/her. For such people, a mentor is someone who gives sheer boost to the excellence they already have. The desire to be excellent comes from within. A mentor comes after you get the desire and you sight a goal.

However, people seem to be carrying misconception about a mentor, and more in choosing one. It’s a bit worth to differentiate between idol and a mentor. An idol could be someone who has achieved a great feat in what s/he does but need not necessarily be able to guide you, nor you have ever met him/her. A mentor is someone who has achieved a decent success (may be not as heroic as your idol) and necessarily you can be in touch with him/her and ask for guidance time to time. Idol is more of an inspiration. Mentor shows you a path and teaches you how to walk the path.

I do have a mentor. Some might have more than one too. It is always good to have someone to guide you when s/he knows you for many years, have stayed with you for some time. Age, caste, gender should no more be a barrier in choosing a mentor.

First and foremost important thing for you to choose a mentor is that s/he should understand your language and your need, dream or goal. A mentor would be able to show you the path to reach your goal only when he visualizes your dream the way you want. And for him to have this power of a rational vision, he must hold that experience in the domain of your goal. I believe that His experience need not be counted only in terms of time duration. You should also see a mentor who have climbed at least two steps up the ladder to his goal. This, for him, certainly accumulates the experience to understand your goal.

The mentor you choose must definitely be good at his work. He must have passion for his work, commitment and dedication are the inherent characteristics of a person who is passionate for his work. Look for the recognition and appreciation that your guide has received at his workplace for it is the testimony of his success and excellence at what he does, and an inspiration for both of you.

The bond between you and your guide should have an equilibrium and continuity. That your mentor should be willing to guide you beyond his boundaries of geography, time constraints and hurdles you and he faces time and again. And also on your part you should be willing to accept his light shown and walk the path with a sustainable acceptance and energy, not to look back or step back because of any failure towards reaching the goal. Neither should you divert from your efforts and focus nor should you be irresponsible any way such that the mentor loses his interest in benefiting you of his skills. The only thing possibly happens in this is You lose!

And it’s very true that if you love what you do, you can do it at your best. So love what you do to reach your goal. Also do your own work, Keep Walking! Your guide can show you the path to reach your destination and show you the ways to reach there but certainly can not hold your hand and walk with you all the way. Your effort is all that counts. For people it is your success, not your mentor’s. For you it is the achievement for both, you and your guide. Do not forget to acknowledge your guide when you achieve what you wanted.

After all, do remember, all that you achieve and you have is temporary. It’s of no use to gain something and go to heaven without benefiting others. Someone next is going to be looking at you as a guide for him. Give all that you can to the generations to come. Because what we give to others is remembered and stays in the world for long time, even when we are gone.