Of all my favorite childhood haunts, I loved the large library building in my school the most . For it was here that my ever inquisitive mind found answers to the thousand and one 'irrelevant' queries that most adults did not find important enough to answer.
Then, with time, as I grew up more questions plagued me, the most nagging of them being the purpose of learning. Is it more urgent, for instance, to learn more facts, than answers to the queries that cannot be answered in class because of the rush to finish the syllabus? Do studies mean only remembering a few pages and reproducing it successfully in the public examinations?
Does it have any connection with life? I wanted to learn life. I wanted to be equipped to be able to unravel its beauties and I wanted to know how I could overcome the biggest hurdles on my way. However, where are these in my prescribed textbooks?
When the tiny river that snaked lazily by my suburban home in Bengal would swell up with the monsoon flood, our school used to send 'relief' and I, among the few chosen few be out to be our bit towards relief and community service. There would be no classes for a few days. At such times, we would be in our 'khaki' NCC uniform, busy cooking 'khichdi' and rolling and roasting the thickest possible 'roti' with shapes reminding one of the maps of various countries of the world. An inadvertent yet veritable lesson in geography and map-making!
Social service also involved transporting these food items to various other centers, distributing medicine and our old cloths-rejected the previous year on the grounds of being 'out of fashion'.
There were no 'academics' but these were valuable lessons in life that we learned.
Now as my own son is growing up, I wonder who will teach him and all others in his generation all these, and tell them of the pain of loosing the football match in the final of a local tournament and crying together, rubbing ice cubes on the wounds of the one who missed a penalty shot at the final moment? If sports mean developing the 'killer instinct' only, then who will teach my son and his friends the lesson of selflessness and cooperation? Who will teach them that the taste of bread is enhanced a hundred fold, when it is shared?
I hope it is their teachers who will take up this daunting task, so that just as they are prepared to face the ever growing competition for admission to good colleges, and access to satisfying jobs, they are well equipped to face life that is more than merely earning a hefty sum and becoming a successful professional.
As I think of all those teachers who taught me life with great attention and pampered my ever growing inquisitiveness, listened to me and tried to answer all my queries with tender care, I know that I am ready to be one among those many who have opted to take up the challenge of doing that daunting task. It is only then that I know that teaching is the only professions which matches with my inner 'me' and makes me feel complete.
