Skip to main content

Learner to the last



I was immensely fascinated by an interview published in a recent edition of a Malayalam weekly. ‘I’m a little grain of sand in this world’ is the title of the interview. And that is spoken by the interviewee who is M K Sanu, well-known Malayalam writer, orator, social activist and a retired professor. Right in the beginning of the interview, the 95-year-old man says that he is a contented person. The humility in the titular quote and the sense of contentment that was palpable in the man’s words kept me glued to the interview to the last word. Here I wish to focus on that contentment which is something I would love to acquire as I’m moving rapidly towards the last stage of a person’s psychological development in Erikson’s theory.

Psychologist Erik Erikson would certainly approve of Prof Sanu who, at the age of 95, can confidently claim that he is contented with what he has done in his life. Sanu thinks that what really made his life worthwhile is the service he did for fellow human beings as another human being. That sense of contentment is what makes old age graceful. By around the age of 65, people begin to examine their own lives. How worthwhile has it been? Have I achieved what I wanted to? Have I learnt the essential lessons? Those who can answer affirmatively to those questions, like Prof Sanu does, are people who have acquired wisdom which rounds off life happily. Those who haven’t arrived even at the periphery of that wisdom are likely to be bitter about life.

Prof Sanu’s has been an ‘abundant’ life. He wrote, taught, spoke to huge audiences, and helped people. He has reasons to be contented. Not all are thus blessed. Forget all, not many are. Most of us have grappled with the inevitable horrors of life. The horrors may be caused by diverse factors. In my case, my own genes were my horrors. I was my own enemy. “There’s another man within me that’s angry with me,” as Thomas Browne put it.

Most of my life was a struggle to come to terms with that hateful man within me. A day before I stumbled upon the Sanu interview, I told Maggie during our evening walk that the futility of my life fills me with a sense of emptiness. The sun had painted the sky in front of us all crimson as it sank steadily. Maggie consoled me by listing a few of my achievements. Hmm, something.

When I read the interview the next day, I realised that I lacked the humility of “the little grain of sand.”

Humility was never my strong point. None of those great virtues of catechism classes were, in fact. But as I trundle along towards Erikson’s last phase, I see the fragments of my life struggling to gather together into a mosaic striving to make sense at least to me.

“Who hasn’t committed blunders?” Maggie’s question helps. If Prof Sanu is a little grain of sand, I’m not even a tiny atom of that grain. A tiny creature that failed again and again before the inevitable horrors of life. That’s okay. I hope I learnt at least some of the lessons those failures wanted me to learn.

I have never changed my self-description in my WhatsApp profile from the time I put it there years ago: “At school – always learning.” Some are destined to be endless learners. Prof Sanu belongs to the more fortunate lot. They teach. To Erikson’s surprise, I choose to discover grace in learning from them. To the last breath.

 

Comments

  1. Hari OM
    This post itself serves to the purpose of that attempt within you to reach a state of balance... bravo!!! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. Your regular presence in this space has contributed something valuable towards the creation of that balance.

      Delete
  2. That's such an important life lesson.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is such an important life lesson

    ReplyDelete
  4. I still remember the time when my results were on the web. I ran towards your class, you were teaching,I asked if you could come out.

    When you did, I was like

    "Sir, can I give you a hug."

    Your face was lit and then I saw you spreading your arms, all ready to give me that hug... I was very happy that day. It's not like you get to be hugged by a great teacher everyday.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember the incident. Your joy was palpable that day. I was happy for you. And I was happy for more reasons - your batch gave me the best results in my entire history.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Death as a Sculptor

Book Discussion An Introductory Note : This is not a book review but a reflection on one of the many themes in The Infatuations , novel by Javier Marias. If you have any intention of reading the novel, please be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. For my review of the book, without spoilers, read an earlier post: The Infatuations (2013). D eath can reshape the reality for the survivors of the departed. For example, a man’s death can entirely alter the lives of his surviving family members: his wife and children, particularly. That sounds like a cliché. Javier Marias’ novel, The Infatuations , shows us that death can alter a lot more; it can reshape meanings, relationships, and even morality of the people affected by the death. Miguel Deverne is killed by an abnormal man right in the beginning of the novel. It seems like an accidental killing. But it isn’t. There are more people than the apparently insane killer involved in the crime and there are motives which are di...

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...

When Cricket Becomes War

Illustration by Copilot Designer Why did India agree to play Pakistan at all if the animosity runs so deep that Indian players could not even extend the customary handshake: a simple ritual that embodies the very essence of sportsmanship? Cricket is not war, in the first place. When a nation turns a game into a war, it does not defeat its rival; it only wages war on its own culture, poisoning its acclaimed greatness. India which claims to be Viswaguru , the world’s Guru, is degenerating itself day after day with mounting hatred against everyone who is not Hindu. How can we forget what India did to a young cricket player named Mohammed Siraj , especially in this context? In the recent test series against England, India achieved an unexpected draw because of Siraj. 1113 balls and 23 wickets. He was instrumental in India’s series-levelling victory in the final Test at the Oval and was declared the Player of the Match. But India did not celebrate him. Instead, it mocked him for his o...