P. G. Bhaskar :
Last week India celebrated ‘Teachers’ Day’ as it does every year in memory of Dr Radhakrishnan, a teacher and philosopher who went on to become President. Many other countries celebrate the 5th of October as Teachers’ day. The USA, in keeping with its practice of doing most things differently – from spelling onwards – celebrates it in May.
To be honest, I don’t remember much of ‘Teachers’ day’ from my own school days. But then, in those days, we were so busy doing our daily thing that we had little time and inclination for anything else. Even getting back from school safely was an achievement of sorts because we had to cross a small bridge that would, on many days, be flooded over. Even if the public bus successfully negotiated the bridge, it meant a three kilometre walk from the bus stop, often in pouring rain. The wind would turn our umbrella into a parachute and we would hold on to it with our scrawny hands as if our lives depended on it.
But nowadays, with our lives more comfortable – with plenty of schools and school buses and cell phones and computers and everything else – we find plenty of time to celebrate ‘days’. We have days not just for mothers, fathers, teachers and valentines but also for uncles, grandmothers, polio eradication, secretaries, dental hygiene, artists, pomeranians and God knows what else.
But let’s come back to Teachers Day. At some Indian schools in Dubai, senior students wore a formal suit on the occasion. Teachers received cards and bouquets. There were two-hour long entertainment programmes presented by the children for their teachers. I mean, like, wow!
And then on facebook this year, some of my young friends sent ‘virtual’ roses to their teachers. A few even attached slightly nauseating poems. The relatively older ones who appeared to be somewhat of the narcissist type, declared loudly on their timeline ‘Dear Teacher, I am what I am today because of YOU!’.
I felt it was distinctly unfair on their part to try and shift the blame on to their teachers. They should be held fully accountable, in my opinion, for what they are. Justice should prevail! We don’t want elderly teachers cringing, quailing and being burdened with the dubious honour of being responsible for what their students turn out to be.
Other friends quoted from ancient Indian texts about the exemplary status of the ‘Guru’. Someone attached an article on ‘Dronacharya’ who, in the Mahabharata, is considered a great teacher. Some wrote – in uncalled for, painstaking detail – about their own teachers, going back several decades and also going into several paragraphs about each of them. The grammar employed in these notes was less than perfect and as I briefly went through them, I fervently hoped that their teachers weren’t on facebook.
A few youngsters wrote things like ‘Dear Tcha, U r gr8! I o u so much in my life! U r epic. Yay! My tcha rox!’ When I read this, I felt very relieved that I am neither a student nor a teacher in the current era.
All this emotion and warmth and hype is making me feel small and rather guilty. I hold the teaching profession in great regard and feel strongly that teachers are one of society’s important pillars. But I confess I have never given any of my teachers flowers. Nor have I thrown verses at them and rendered them immortal in rhyme. No ode have I written, no tribute have I paid. Not at least, in public. And definitely, not on Teachers Day.
I do have this excuse that that my schooling was way back in the seventies. I have another excuse too. I have been in seven schools and never in the same school for more than two years at a time. The bond that I developed with my teachers was therefore, slight. It was not helped by the fact that I was never considered a star student; having been happy to just cruise through without being noticed.
Besides, the few memories that I do have from my school days are not pleasant ones. Foremost among them is that of being caned vigorously and regularly at one of my schools. We were asked to choose the cane that we would prefer to be beaten with. In our innocence, we would choose the thinnest one, little realising that the thin one would hurt the most as it came down on us viciously like a venomous snake!
(P. G. Bhaskar’s latest book ‘Mad in Heaven’ is published by Harper Collins (India). Please visit www.pgbhaskar.com for more)
