LIFE IS NOT A CONDUCTED TOUR






Pic.: Anima D'Cunha

“Don’t allow your teacher to think for you, plan for you, take risks for you,” I was telling my CPT (Entrance for CA) students, last morning, “Let your teacher only give you a broad framework, inspire thirst in you, motivate you to succeed…. But, you do the real work… you discover the new ways of solving the problems… you develop a scientific mind, a creative mind… Please, stop depending desperately on your teacher… Please don’t expect readymade solutions… I don’t want you to come out as third-rate Chartered Accountants.”

Well, this kind of long monologue comes to me at the drop of a hat… Nothing can substitute discovery… being on your own. Nothing can substitute a childlike, awe-struck mind… Nothing can make us self-confident as robustly as self-trust and self-responsibility can…

“You find out,” yes, this is one of the gunshots I fire at my students very regularly, whether they love me for it or hate me… “You will understand it now or never,” I put it point blank.

On last Sunday, in our Tai Chi class, Kannan also was telling me about how all friends of his son (who live in a hostel of an Engineering college outside Mumbai) often urge him (Kannan) to join them whenever they plan a tour. “They all love me… talk to me freely… seek my advice… Probably, because, I do not deal with them like a typical parent does… However, when they ask me to join any tour or party, I tell them straight this: “That’s ‘your’ tour… ‘your’ party… Go and enjoy the way you should, not the way I want you to… Don’t take your parents when you friends hang around… Let not parents guide you or influence you when you make your discoveries, trusting you… Just see that, you act with responsibility… But, no, let them not spoil the fun of discovery… Life is not a conducted tour, sweethearts!”

Wow! Did I say the same thing, last morning, to my CPT sweethearts?

GERALD D’CUNHA



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