A
WhatsApp message beeped a few minutes back as I logged on to the Net. Write something in the blog; don't disappoint
your readers, said the message with a couple of emoticons. The message was from a student of mine.
Yesterday
my school officially bid farewell to the class 12 students. One of the students
mentioned that I helped her discover the poet in her and also that she was a
regular reader of my blog. Namrin, that
student, is an amazing poet. I’m happy to present her blog here. A class 12 student who can write lines such
as:
I was the one you were
afraid to have and lose.
Twisted, so is fate.
I want to own this record,
I want myself.
is
not just an ordinary student. Students
like her are a blessing to a teacher like me.
They keep me young.
The
other day a colleague of mine remarked that I belonged to New Gen though I was
the oldest in the staffroom. I said, “When
I was about 20 years, I stopped growing.”
One of the reasons why I love teaching is that the profession keeps me always
twenty-some. Being with young people is
the best way to keep you young. Of
course, you should learn to manoeuvre through the interplay of a wide variety
of emotions.
Sometimes
the love of a student can become uncomfortably intense. I once suggested a healthy distance to a
student. Her response dismayed me, “I
won’t keep a distance as long as you keep leaving footprints for me to follow.” Her response made me feel proud of her more
than myself.
Not
so long ago, a student wrote about the two drops of tears that fell from her
eyes on to her English notebook after the class 12 English exam was over. “I realise,” she wrote, “that in life, some
things are like that. We don't know why or how, but we feel strangely connected
to it. Be it a book, a smile or a person. These are real, but every connection
gets broken at some point. It's like the golden rule of connections.”
One
of my Delhi students of yesteryears warned me recently not to be too articulate
with my political views. When I said I’m
living in Kerala which is quite safe, his instant response was: “We live in a
connected world.”
We are connected.
We are connected.
Relationships
need not end, as I replied to one of them.
They don’t, in fact. Not because
I leave footprints, but because the tear drops and the smiles endure. My students mean the world to me. They keep me young.
This is a wonderful post. As far as connection is from both ends it is a healthy relationship but sometimes when the relationship is one sided it is painful.
ReplyDeleteThe connection between teacher and students is generally simple and innocuous. So it is mutual too.
DeleteYeah. Well said :)
DeleteThank you so much sir. For such encouragement and believing in me.. I'll never forget this.. And I'm sure I'll be grateful to you for all the good things that come out of this for the rest of my life. Really proud and blessed to have such a mentor in my life.
ReplyDeleteNamrin.
You deserved more, Namrin. In given situations our options are often limited.
DeleteBut you've opened me up to something that will keep me striving for more than just limited and that's more than I could have asked for from the past two years.
Delete