I’m learning

‘Can you teach a 55-year-old man to drive a car?’ I asked the woman who sat in the driving school’s office. That was four years ago. I had quit Delhi and taken up job in Kerala. Since Maggie and I worked in a residential school in Delhi which provided us with staff quarters on the campus, we had never thought of buying a car. For emergency, there was my ancient Bajaj Chetak.  

‘Why not?’ The woman gave me a broad smile. She was nearly as old as I was. ‘Recently a 60-year-old man got his license through us.’ Her son was the instructor and he succeeded in teaching me driving in a few weeks. I wasn’t quite confident in the beginning and even thought of giving up more than once.  My nights were haunted by spectres in the shapes of gear lever and other car parts. But learn I did. Eventually I bought a car and drove through the rugged terrains of surrounding villages just to reinforce the confidence that had found its way into my being.

I am not a reluctant learner, however. On the contrary, my WhatsApp status has always been ‘At school – always learning.’ I learn something new every day. It may be from the books I read [and I read a lot], from my students [and they are excellent teachers], or from the society around [at the workplace, especially].

My recent book, Autumn Shadows, is the story of my constant learning. Life has been an inexorable teacher for me. Even the publication of the book taught me a profound lesson: hardly anyone is interested in my life story. It taught me some minor lessons too. For example, a blogger friend of mine wrote the following review:

I learnt that people can lose their patience for very frivolous reasons. I messaged that friend on how to solve the problem the final solution being to return the book to Amazon and receive a refund of her money. That friend chose to ignore every message of mine! Friendships can be as brittle as that. But resilience is one of the many virtues that life has taught me.

I keep learning. Life is nothing but a series of lessons. And learning has no age limit. It should not have, at any rate.

PS. Written for

Another review at Amazon

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