NOT A NANO-SECOND MORE...

A couple of days back, I had sent off my final-year B'Com students. It being the last day, I had spoken emotionally and wished them well in life. They had stayed back in the class even after I had left, and, I wanted them to be with each other there in my class, one for the last time.

After an hour or so, all of them had left. Just before that, they came to my office to thank me, once again, and bid the final good-bye.

Later on the day, when I had walked into the class, I was surprised to see the white board filled to the edge with messages from my students. Most of them were my own pet phrases… dozens of them.  Yes, they were my pet lines… I would use them in the class, every day, over and over again… to make my point, to motivate them, stir them, to make them think, to make them amend, to leave on them the impact. And, I would do it through out the year… and, for some of them, for years! Yes, the same words, the same phrases… and, the same passion!

When I stood there in the class, all alone, and started reading them, one by one, I couldn’t hold back my smile… even the tears!

The students had gone. I was still there… The words were still there on the board, but I knew that was just the photo copy of the words imprinted on their hearts and minds.

Over thirty-three years or so…!

One phrase was missing on the board, that noon. “God has given only twenty-four hours to each one of us… Not a nano-second more, my young friends!” Yes, then, I would hammer it with even more authority, “Even Bill Gates has been given only so much… even Amitabh Bachchan... even President Obama!”

That was -  when they came out with their worn-out excuse, “I found no time!”

No time for doing home work!

No time to prepare for the test!

No time to complete your project!

No time to … !

Look, my students had, mysteriously, forgotten about my pet phrase about ‘No time’!

“We always find time to do what we like, what we love, dear!” I would remind them. “What we don’t like, what we don’t love… we tend to postpone.”

They would listen to me with rapt attention… though it did not mean, my words had transformed them! But, they would listen with a lot of sensitivity… and, that was exactly what I would be expecting from them. My job was to stir them, sensitize them and sow the seeds… and, I would be hopeful that the seeds would sprout when the time was right.

“What you postpone creates anxiety,” I would continue, “The anxiety brings fear… and, fear cripples u, breaks your self-confidence.”

Yes, in this world, 

whosoever has achieved 

anything worth talking about, 

has been done by him only with those 

twenty-four hours of the day… 

Not a nano-second more!”

 

Any question on this, my students?

Any doubt?

That afternoon, I simply stood there and read all their messages… my pet phrases. And, I smiled in my mind, “Poor kids! They must’ve run out of time… here, too!”

Just some nano-seconds before I started typing this post, someone asked me with all the seriousness, “Gerry, where do you find time to write so much, every day?”

I had only smiled and said what I had been telling all my young students, all these years, “We always find time to do what we like, what we love!”

The moment this person left, I said, “Chalo, let me take off from here…”

It is one more day… and, one more post.

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pics.: Vivek D'Cunha