Diary Page - 05/09/2019 (Teacher's Day)

I was once told that I should not define a teacher as, first of all, we all have an intrinsic sense of what a teacher is and secondly, more importantly, “Who are you to define a teacher, let alone your teacher?” I was told that it was demeaning and misguided, though being well intentioned. So, what I had decided to do was to describe what my teachers have been to me. They were never infallible heroes in capes, or magicians who waved their wands and put stuff into my mind. Even though there have been such people who held the post of my teacher, but were extremely unsuccessful in teaching me a single word. But I don’t consider them my teachers, anyway. They were just people, who could not teach. I might have been a tough student, to them, but I was never afraid to ask questions. I never felt silly or stupid to ask a question on fundamentals, in advanced classes, and such “teachers” never left a chance for me to not feel ashamed of myself. But that is where my teachers shined. They took that and turned it into an opportunity to explain to everyone what the basics were, which were never what we understood them to be.

I had a chemistry teacher who explained to me for half an hour, what an atom looked like in my Second year of College. The teacher sat with me and explained using the most basic of words to make sure I understood. I was never ashamed to ask questions and my teachers always reciprocated with far more vigour than me. They put their heart and soul into making sure that I understood things. I had once found in a book somewhere what the true size of a heart of a whale was, and showed it to my teacher. The teacher was not only impressed on, but on seeing my subsequent curiosity, also explained to me how the human heart works, along with the different parts and numbers. The teacher explained to me how the heart pumps blood, how strong it is, how an entirely different set of muscle cells had evolved to cater to the needs of the heart. I was in the fifth standard at that time. The flood of information was overwhelming, but my teacher trusted me to understand, and understand I did. It didn’t miss my notice that the teacher was pulling punches in explaining that to me, so as to not lose my interest, but also providing enough force challenging me to be better than myself.

When I was in the first standard, our class teacher told us to write a sentence with the word “India” in it. Of course, the entire class erupted with sentences like, “I love my India.” and, “India is my country.” The teacher however had a card up her sleeve, every time a student would say a sentence, she forbade that sentence to be used by the other kids. So now we not only had to create a unique sentence, but also pay attention to the sentences of others. Many of us, were dealing with our neighbour friends on what sentences we were going to say, and helped each other to formulate their own. The teacher had made all of us fifty students, friends in one instant, but also forced us to become better than we were, to look for new grounds, to explore the unexplored. That teacher continued to be my favourite till the day I dropped the concept of favourite teachers. To the curious, my sentence was, “India is the seventh largest country in the world.”. This little gem was told to me by another teacher of mine.

I don’t think it is a very unique trait, but I have been travelling two states for my education. This creates a very specific scenario where, I don’t have a single friend who has shared the same set of 

teachers as me, ever. So, in a way, the spirit of “teacher” is very unique and specific to me. This created a varied sense of teaching in me. I have seen teachers who used very different methods to teach me, and all of them were successful. This was when I learned by myself the concept of Education. All my teachers would be replaced by an entity whose sole purpose was to make me a better person. The body of my teachers would be there but their personality would change. They would become someone else, someone great. They thought of multiple ways to explain a certain concept. What worked for me, wouldn’t necessarily work for my fellow classmates, so the method shifted. And it kept on shifting till my teacher was convinced that everyone, or most of them had understood. I understood since I was very young that teachers, parents, people in general are very vulnerable. They are fighting the same forces of nature and culture that everyone else is fighting. So, I never held teachers in very high regards, not at first anyway. I was extremely aware of their short comings and faults. But then some of them became heroes to me, because despite all the problems and melancholia of the world, they were focused on teaching, on making lives better. This spirit of teacher was like a God to me. This created a rift which made me focus more on the concept of teaching, and less on the human itself. Swami Vivekananda once said that if a teacher tells you not to do something, you don’t do it. Not because you choose to follow the orders, but because his speech, his act of telling you to not do something, renders you incapable of doing it. You may decide to do it, but will not be able to do it. That is the power of a true teacher. And I have had the fortune to meet many such powerhouses, who have not only made my life better, but also made better the lives of thousands, using their speech and actions. The person itself may be just that, a person. But that spirit of a teacher is what gives it its infallibility. But when this thread of reasoning was taken to its logical conclusion, I found that the spirit was inseparable from the personified body. I couldn’t bring myself to separate the spirit from its embodied form. That is why, when I bow to the Great spirit of the Teacher, I also bow to the person who is teaching me, and that raises the pedestal of a teacher higher than of the Gods. That is when one realizes why the great teacher Chanakya himself said, "There are no ordinary Teachers."

Meeting a teacher is always tense for me. If I am tense to meet you, you are probably my teacher. At least, I consider you as my teacher. It is tense, because teacher is “unknown territory” for me, quoting Jung. I don’t know how they think. I do not know what they will say next. But most importantly, I don’t know what challenge will be thrown at me by them. My teachers sometimes feel distant and ruthless in their pursuit of giving knowledge to me. They hold Himalayan expectations for me. And if I cannot achieve that due to some circumstance, then that puts Himalayan guilt over me. Being unsure of myself, I curl up in a corner hoping to miss the eyes of my teachers. But they find me, nonetheless looking like a loser. Yet, without losing their hope for me, prompt me to achieve something even greater, with even more gusto. They cannot see me fail. They will push me and push me to become better. They believe in me more than I believe in myself. This is why a teacher is an ambivalent, yet powerful entity for me. It fills me with hope and dread at the same time. It also doesn’t miss me that this act is the most selfless act I can imagine, done for the greater good. My teachers carry my failures for me, so I don’t have to, so I can work harder the next time till I succeed, and then some more. 

Therefore, I feel myself immensely lucky in finding the teachers that I did. One of my teachers, also told me not to believe in luck, but I will use my discretion here. Because, I never worked my way into finding these legends. I never seeked these individuals out. In a certain sense they found me, before I even opened my eyes. Whatever infantile knowledge I possess is a straight torrent flowing from my teachers. I certainly don’t deserve them or their knowledge that they have so graciously shared with me. That is the reason why I bow to the great teachers of the past, to the teachers of my teachers, and finally and most heartily to the individuals to whom I had the fortune to call “Teacher”.