Rusty
Roots.
Sometimes I lie, sometimes I have wild anger, sometimes I
break trust, Sometimes I get damn confused…
And every time I realize this ‘Sometimes’ of mine…my poor
self image pinches me ,after all from all the judgments we pass in life; none
is more important than the one we pass on ourselves…and so I start doing something like…
Well, I used to teach the slum kids dwelling at Race course
road. Those people have a life which all of us would state as ‘Mere existence’.
The day I decided to teach them gave me a proof that ‘Janvi, you do have a
heart!! Hurraahh!!’
I used to teach them the regular alphabets.
I taught them under a tree shade. I still remember their enthusiastic faces, so
live, so eager to suck the nectar of knowledge. A girl ‘Mungi’ was my favorite
student. She was dumb and deaf so her name was kept as ‘Mungi’. No matter she was the brightest student
there; it tested my patience to teach her as I had to act; if I needed to
explain her anything.
We all had so much fun. Slowly I was no more a stranger to
them. Slowly even the women’s started coming to study with their pen and paper.
Slowly, I could hear the voice of ‘A for Apple, b for Ball…’ from my students.
And slowly, I was trying to become a rainbow in someone’s life. But Slowly.
*
A day without meeting my kids was like a day without sun;
dull. But the real sun emerged in my life when I went to a nearby government
school to through light on the fact that their school is poorly run, having 5
classes managed by a total of 2 teachers! As I went inside I could see a group
of untidily dressed school girls goggling at me with their deep ignorant eyes.
I was marching towards
the principal’s office (thinking aaj to
duniya hilla dungi!), when I heard a voice from my back saying ‘Hey?! Whom
do you want to meet?’ Turning back, I noticed a woman of some middle age, in a
pink cotton saree with a simple brown unbranded watch, an imperial black
colored spectacle, a brown colored long bag hanging on her right arm, neatly
combed pigtail and a pair of outdated gold earrings fitted in her ears.
Politely I placed my point before her (And even proudly
informed her that I teach these kids – English), when she informed me of the
principal to have gone on leave.
‘Look, if Government doesn’t appoint teachers into this
school than it isn’t our fault so leaving aside that thing of 2 teachers and 5 classes
as by that we suffer more than you.’ Saying this she stopped for a couple of
seconds to take sufficient amount of oxygen and then she added ‘Moreover, I
appreciate your efforts to teach but let me say that at your age everyone
wishes to change the world! But glance
at the way you choose, you teach these kids English but rationally they should
be taught Gujarati as this is the language they already speak and about English
…your hairs will turn white the day they will finally learn English as after
all it is a foreign language! ‘
Neither I stopped glancing at her nor she stopped speaking
and she continued saying ‘If you wish to teach them, go for Gujarati language.
And start the things from the basics , the roots, like tell them to bath, to
cut their nails, to stop speaking cursing words, to brush their teeth , to value
health and hygiene , to wash hands before and after food…well, this are the
basics if you go on teaching A B C…without this; then it’s USELESS…’
Saying this she excused as a class was waiting for her
presence. But I was standing there crowded with a cyclone of thoughts. Her
speech resolved few of my questions but gave birth too many of them.
‘I am an educated girl, than how come I didn’t understand
that teaching is something more than A B C…?’
‘Why? …I never knew that teaching has to solve multi
dimensional problems, not one’
‘Why?...I never thought that to teach those kids to have a
better way of life instead of having a better alphabetic narration!
…A series of endless ‘Why’s’ lingered in my soul. That day a
wiser ‘I’ was born who would build a palace only after confirming about its
ROOTS.
*
The very next day I Knew from where to start...
I could see all my kids bathing using the
water pipe of the nearby garden. They were happy. They were bathing.
We are really lucky fellows who celebrate ‘New Year’ twice in
a year! Once according to the Guajarati calendar and another according to
English.
It was one such New Year, January 1st, 2014. We
were in our college as usual getting amused that it was a New Year just to make
each other feel that it was a NEW YEAR, without a New Year celebration.
We stood up to greet Smita ma’am when she entered the class,
with a face which signaled we-are-not-in-study-mood.
Ma’am entered and placing her bottle on one of the front
benches she started ‘well, I want all the English medium students to stand up.
Now.’
There were only 6 students in the class of 61, who came from
a throughout English back ground. And I was one of them, fortunately or
unfortunately!
We stood up and ma’am did a usual screening at us. And soon
she started saying ‘Yes! Premangi get up. And speak out the month of a Gujarati
calendar.’
Premangi sits next to me, so as she was made to stand up, I
got a red alert thinking ‘The next can be
Janvi!’
‘Kartak,
Magsar, posh, Maha, Fagan , Chaitra, Vaisakh, Shravan,….Shravan ,Bhadarvo and
Aso.!’ I rehearsed within me.
After knowing my innocence about the names of Gujarati
months, I eagerly placed my eyes on the standing Premangi, and I was comforted
as even she was juggling with the months.
(Being a Gujarati,
celebrating a New Year according to the English calendar and not even knowing
about the months of Gujarati calendar…It really happens in India!!)
‘Happy New Year. ‘These were the only words which ma’am spoke
after Premangi sat down.
*
Ma’am didn’t exploit her right to give us a big fat lecture
on our innocence about our own mother tongue.
But her silence said everything.
For me, Time just
pretended to stand still. I was again reminded of the ‘Roots’ ; an element
which was missing in me, or may be most of us.
In the further course of life this lesson of awareness of ‘Roots’ was always in the top shelf of my heart as It
is something more tangible than dusty memories that could be distorted or
forgotten at any moment.
*
Lesson of the day, a huge tree and a wise person both have
deep roots. And to examine your clarity about your roots; don’t look at the
screen, look WITHIN!!
*
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