Staying Young

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.

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.