The nation is celebrating it’s teachers today, students across the country sending their greetings to those who have been their guiding lights. Teachers: they are the torch bearers of change and nation building.
I for myself have been a student, I am still learning; while I graduated from college a good 14 years back, I am yet to graduate from the University of Life!! Life, in itself has been a teacher to me, constantly teaching me a thing or two, putting me through tests, and more often than not; I end up failing. The lessons, nonetheless stay. I have been taught all through my life by people who made it up, made it possible for me to be the one that I am today. I am indebted, remain immensely grateful to the ones who were by any means just no ordinary teacher.
Life blessed me with my first set of teachers on the day I was conceived, my parents inculcated a sense of morality in me, which I believe I have been able to live upto. The very first step I took holding my father’s hand to the first word I spoke in response to my mother’s gesture, these were my very first lessons in life. To judge the right from the wrong, to understand the importance of moral values and virtues and to stay inquisitive: these were a few life lessons I learnt. A big thank you to Maa, for also teaching me the art of cooking rice and daal quite early in life, this helped me all through my college life.
School wasn’t that boring, was blessed with the best set of teachers one could have asked for, my literature teacher from high school however, left an indelible mark on my life. It was she who introduced me to the world of English literature: from Dickens to Tolstoy and from Arnold Toynbee to Franz Kafka, she helped me in discovering the love and joy of reading.
Love happened in real too, a lopsided affair of sorts; it taught me what it took to be in love. Perhaps, the person in question is just a figment of my memory now, I shall still be eternally grateful to her for walking past me, I hadn’t experienced that bliss ever since. She had been my teacher too, for she taught me that unrequited love is a bliss indeed.
My time in college was me idling away, fiddling with nothing and just writing exams. No professor I had inspired me enough; except for the Dean, who suspended me citing disciplinary issues. I thank him for doing that to me, I had the best time then. My teachers from college included my roommates: who taught me how rolling a joint was a pleasure in itself. I thank NPTEL and YouTube for being my saviors, I wouldn’t have been half the engineer that I am if not for the tutorial videos I downloaded from the sites; India was indeed going Digital then, and my laptop, dongle and a BSNL sim card were the only virtual teachers I looked upto.
The only good thing that happened during my time in college was me passing out, a piece of paper which certified that I was finally: partially employable. Employment did happen, and I found myself in the midst of my bosses who would go on to teach me as to how to stay employable. From negotiating to playing the diplomacy card, from office politics to working on excel sheets, I learnt lessons that weren’t covered by my academic curriculum. It was only a karmic conspiracy that I chose to resign from my job on a teacher’s day: I had learnt the most valuable lesson of my life then: Self-Respect!! A mere combination of two words, in which all the education of life must culminate into.
Life hasn’t stopped teaching, the lessons will go on: I have come across many a teacher, people who have inspired me in their own way. A special thanks to that one person who taught me the art of keeping calm, the one who inspired me write; I thank her for being my teacher, for being the source of all the words that come to me through her.
P.S: A shout out to all the other teachers I have had:
Steve Waugh and Steven Gerrard – I am the man manager that I am because of them, “A captain is always as good as his team”, a mantra I learnt from these legends.
Marshall Bruce Mathers III (Eminem) – for inspiring me with his rap, for teaching me that there is more to life than all the crap that flies around.
abhishek purkayastha 