Dawn and Commitment

Dawn was the most reliable colleague I ever had. She was the paragon of commitment. If she took up a responsibility, she would go out of her way to perfect the output. We worked in the same department at Sawan Public School, Delhi. One of our many duties in that exclusively residential school was preparing students for such interschool competitions as debate, declamation, etc. Whenever I needed help with such tasks, I fell back on Dawn. Very few people are so entirely reliable.

We were happy colleagues for over a decade doing a lot of things together like directing the English play for the school’s annual day, anchoring sports events, organising inter-house competitions related to our subject. There existed a rare camaraderie between us that made the tasks all too easy. There were moments when I thought she overestimated me because of which she suppressed her dissent with my way of carrying out certain duties and activities. Almost a decade after we parted from each other, I once did tell her that she was overestimating me. It was in another context altogether, related to a project I took up post-retirement, thanks to Dawn. She didn’t endorse my humility, however.

 Humility is one of the many virtues I never managed to acquire in spite of many arduous efforts I made. Dawn is not humble either. The difference however is that she doesn’t possess the arrogance I do. I usually succeed in suppressing my arrogance, while Dawn didn’t have to grapple with that vice.

When Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] took Sawan captive, the system underwent many changes. One such change was related to the anchoring duties that Dawn and I used to carry out without any hassle or glitch until then, especially on the Annual Sports Day. We used to do that job impromptu because of the nature of the function which could not all be pre-planned entirely. Many events change sequences, the names of the winners will come up in the last moment, and so on. Even the valedictory function didn’t have a rigid order, especially because the Head of the physical education department was notorious for last minute arrangement of every possible thing. Dawn and I had got used to it and we knew how to handle the situation.

But RSSB insisted on readymade written anchoring scripts. “Write down everything from the start to the finish,” the new Manager ordered imperiously when I met her in her office on summons. Worse, she gave me some yellowing sheets: the anchoring script she was using in her school for years and years. “You can use this as guidelines.” I felt nauseated. I could never work that way. I have never delivered a speech from any stage with the help of a written script. Reading out a written script has no life. You speak from the heart if you want words to have life. Never mind even if you commit an error or two. People don’t mind errors as much as they get bored with written scripts.

The first thing I did after coming out from the new manager’s office was to meet Dawn. Shoving the yellowing pages towards her, displaying my displeasure arrogantly, I told her what had happened. Dawn knew me. She knew I wouldn’t work with a readymade script. “Leave it to me,” she said. “I’ll do something.”

Dawn was ready with an entirely new written script the next morning. She followed the example in those yellowing pages from the manager’s ancient history and made her own script. She imbued the spirit of the manager’s script and did a better job with it. The manager was happy. That was the last annual sports day in Sawan. The manager wrote a new script for the school which killed the institution soon enough. But her new script made her the Director of the dying school.

Dawn left the school before the manager became the director and a new manager named Pranita (who has made umpteen appearances in this space and will make one more in this A2Z series) took over with the gusto of the bulldozers she brought along to pull down the buildings one by one.

Many people had left Sawan already when Dawn was given her official farewell. Many had been thrown out by the director and the manager. The remaining started leaving on their own. Dawn was one of those. I had prepared an affectionate farewell speech in my mind for her. But I couldn’t deliver it. I mumbled some absurd sounds and ended my speech. I don’t recall what I said. Words cease to have relevance in certain moments.

Our friendship has continued to this day. I got a lot of help from her until I retired from teaching a few weeks back. Anytime I wanted some help with CBSE’s latest changes or orders or something like that, I only had to text Dawn and the answer would arrive in a jiffy. If she didn’t have the answer, she would go out of her way and find it for me. When I ask for a flower, she gives me a whole season of spring.

Even after I retired from teaching, Dawn keeps sending me certain information that she thinks I should have. The latest that came from her is about the new curriculum of CBSE which seeks to decimate English gradually from India’s schools. Hindi is being thrust upon all students. Moreover, in a devious process of Indianisation, attempts are being made to smother local cultures and traditions. Dawn warns me of these changes because she is concerned about what is happening in the country, especially in its schools. Like Diogenes, Dawn knows that the foundation of every state is the education of its youth.

People like Dawn are the reassurance that goodness hasn’t vanished from the world of humans. 

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