‘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 |
xZx
It is a nice post. Thanks for sharing it. Your book is on my reading list :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Vartika. I'd love to hear your views on the book.
DeleteYour own life is a great example of how learning is a life long process.
ReplyDeleteThe tragedy is that a lot of people stop learning too soon.
DeleteLoved this: 'At school - always learning!' :)
ReplyDelete😃🙏
Delete