Learn before it is too late

The news of the demise of Mr S.C. Sharma, my teacher in class VII, immersed me down the memory lane of school days in the mid-1960s. As a teacher, when he invited some of us to speak on the day’s topic, ‘Tolerance’, one Dinesh raised his hand in willingness, as usual.

Otherwise known for his kind and humane demeanor, that day the usual cold response of students infuriated him. He asked us to do the ‘Murga’ (rooster), a common form of corporal punishment in schools of Delhi those days. It was a strenuous feat, more so in movement, even for stout-bodied ruffians. After a few minutes, Sharma Sir took pity on us. He relented, made us comfortable, and emotionally impressed upon us, “Today I feel disgusted at your reluctance or hesitation in coming ahead and speak out, if only a few sentences. As you grow older, such opportunity shall be hard to come by, and you could be overcome by the vocal and dashing ones, losing your prospects to win.”

As the years passed, I realised the significance of snatching one’s turn and boldly advancing one’s viewpoint during job interviews, group discussions, meetings and negotiations. It is ironic that we often awake to precepts in mature years by which time we have already lost significantly, like the proverb we were taught in cursive at pre-primary level, “A stitch in time saves nine”. It is this revelation that imparts uniqueness to the teacher-disciple relationship that is ever so sustaining. Extending his jurisdiction beyond delivery, content or skills, a model teacher inculcates values with positive implications. “Those who educate children well are more to be honoured than they who produce them; for the parents only gave them life, teachers the art of living well,” said Aristotle.

The elderly, with their own foibles and eccentricities, are not foolproof. So the convocation message by Acharya in Traitreya Upnishad enjoins the graduating students to espouse only his virtues, and not the vices (Yanyasmakam sucharitani, taani twayopasyani, no itrani). Life is not long enough to learn only from one’s own experience; wise are those who learn from their own follies, the wiser learn from those of others with minimal loss of time.