Darkness in the Classroom!

When I was in school, in my second standard, I was a child who had the worst handwriting in class. I was often used as an example of how not to write by my classmates. My hands used to sweat, they still do and that used to turn the four lined notebooks into such an ugly mess, that at the end of the day, I used to hate myself for being such a failure, for being so clumsy and used to go home and break the pencils in rage. The mere sight of a four lined notebook with those red and blue lines used to make my nerves restless and I would shrink in fear.

And one fine day, I found myself in the third standard. Our class teacher was a very prim Anglo Indian Lady. Her name was Ms.Mitchel. She used to write for us on the blackboard and we used to copy it silently on our notebooks. She once walked by me and happened to notice what I was writing, to her horror and my embarrassment. That day, she asked me to stay back during lunch and sat by my side. She took my hand in hers and slowly made me write the alphabet. She did it around five times and then suddenly let go of my hand. You can imagine the joy I then had, when suddenly there flowed out from my hand, freely written beautiful letters. Now this is not something which my teachers in the earlier classes or my mother had not tried to do with me, but that moment was somehow so magical for me and from that day I wrote better, I wrote more legibly.

Now there is no reason for me to have remembered this suddenly, but the fact is that after reading about the recent events which have been happening across the country, I am totally devastated. In Maharashtra, we witnessed the death of Prof. Harbhajan Singh Sabharwal, a sad result of the students going haywire due to political motivations. A big blemish on the student community, this one incident shall remain forever. Later in another separate incident we heard of a teacher in Jammu and Kashmir, who had poured acid on few of his students in a school, scarring them for life. How can we not feel confused? How can we not feel anguished? The purity and importance we give to the student-teacher relationship is suddenly being tested in a way, which has both put us to shame as well as had us seething in anger.

I have always remembered all my teachers, though I have committed the mistake of not having gone back to them later, once I got promoted or once I passed out of the school and had to go to another city to join college. I could not get time to go and meet them. However I shall make no excuses. That was a mistake on my part.

But today when the word classroom creates in our minds a feeling of emptiness, a feeling of having been enveloped in permanent darkness, I am crying out to my teachers, that I love and respect you from the bottom of my heart and sincerely hope that you will always consider me as a good student of yours. Some of you have hit me, some of you have scolded me but none of you have inflicted grave pain on my heart or scarred me permanently. I thank you all for that.

Over the years my handwriting did deteriorate, but whenever I wanted to write something neatly, I always reminded myself of Ms.Mitchell and later did a good job. There is right now darkness in the classroom of our minds. Let us hope it is temporary and that classrooms the world over will continue to spread light, will continue to spread warmth.