A
husband at home, a teacher at school and a writer at the hobby desk: these are
the major roles I play in my life. Switching from one to another is a seamless
task for me. The easiest and the most
interesting among them is being a writer.
That’s a role which doesn’t involve any other individual.
Being
a husband is pretty easy too since only one other individual is involved and
she understands my eccentricities and insanities too well. The other day a colleague of mine mentioned
to me rather facetiously the counsel she gave to another person. If a couple can’t get along happily together
they should either separate or accept the destiny stoically. I think Maggie possesses enough stoicism to
make the getting along as happy as humanly possible.
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| Image from wallbee |
At
school, I am a professional performer. A
couple of weeks back, a student asked me in the class why I never smile outside
the class though I do it all the time inside.
That was an epiphany for me. I
used to think that I smiled a lot outside the class too. “You look too serious outside,” the boy
insisted on butting it in.
I
imagined myself looking like the biblical Yahweh with a grey head and a grey
beard rounded off with an executioner’s demeanour, outside the class. The thought amused me enough to smile at the
student who brought home an epiphany for me.
“Maybe
the smile is part of my job here,” I said to the class. “Professional smile.” I grinned.
“A year more and we will say goodbye to each other. You will go your way and forget me. I will carry on smiling at the new faces that
will come in.”
I
ignored the murmurs that rose in a corner like the sound of the dry leaves
falling from the teak tree on to the gravelled yard of my home in the dead of
the night. The real epiphany came the
next morning. A student confronted me
with the question, “How could you make such a statement?”
“Which
statement?”
“That
you will forget us after we leave school.”
“Isn’t
that the natural course?” I smiled. “We
all get on with our lives shelving the past into some cosy recess of our
memory.”
“There
was a big argument after school yesterday.
Some students were upset to think that you are a mere professional. Your smile is a pretension, they said. You love teaching but not the students, they
argued.”
I
smiled again. Am I merely playing
a role in the class? I put the question
to the student.
“I
think you didn’t mean what you said,” the student looked into my eyes
probingly.
“I
remember a lot of students whom I taught in 1980s, the beginning of my career
as a teacher,” I said. “Can we really forget people? Don’t they leave indelible marks in our
being?”
The
student’s eyes sparkled. “I knew it,”
she said as she turned to the door like a child who had got a new gift.
I
was left feeling staggered. No, I’m not playing
a role, I realised.
Written
for Indispire edition 207: The roles you have played in your real life so far. How easy has it
been to switch/transit from one role to another? How many more do you wish to
play? #rolespeopleplay
Nice, all the world's a stage.
ReplyDeleteGood one!
ReplyDeleteExcellent observation but do we really forget, I think we never also pupils also remember us to tell their stories to their next generations...
ReplyDeleteTrue. A lot of students linger on in memory for years and years. I'm sure we remain in their memories too similarly. I hope their memories are pleasant enough 😀
DeleteHope it should continue otherwise we will also become robots..
DeleteThe world is making robots of a lot of people. I hope it won't make one out of me too. :)
Delete