THE ENGLISH BAMBOO

There is nothing that we cannot accomplish if we really want to accomplish… and, if we consistently work towards it. There is one more thing: We need to have a very strong reason for accomplishing it. That has been my experience. And, I think, it applies to all of us.

My school medium of learning was not English. So, as a young boy, I, always, had this nagging anxiety about communicating in English, which had brought in me a killing inferiority complex. But, when Prof. B.S. Raman came to teach us in F.Y. B.Com, I started admiring him so much, that I desired to become like him – a good teacher and a writer. The reality was, that I wasn’t able to make a sentence in English, leave alone writing an essay. I was, also, terrified of the stage! Those two ‘problems’ of mine were enough to paralyze me completely. Yet, because my desire to become a teacher and a write was so strong – and so important to me – that, I was ready to do anything for it… including overcoming my handicaps of English and public speaking. In fact, these two weaknesses of mine became my biggest strengths later on… They became my constant motivators… the driving forces. The reason why I consistently and tirelessly kept doing efforts to overcome my handicaps was, that I wanted to be a fine teacher and writer like my idol, Prof. Raman…

Yes, that was my Mount Everest… and there was a strong reason why I wanted to climb it. Without a strong reason, it’s not possible for us to remain motivated for too long, and, we do not find enough energy in us to keep doing the efforts consistently to achieve our goals.

I share my story with young students in my every training session. “If I can, you, too, can,” I tell them. But, then, I add this forcefully: “‘I can’ and ‘I will’ are as different as heaven and hell.”

One of the things I did to overcome my problem of English was by learning to write and tell a simple story in two tenses – past and present. Like this kindergarten story – ‘Thirsty Crow’…

PAST: There was a crow. He was very thirsty. He searched for water everywhere; but, he did not find any water. At last, he saw a pot. It had little water. His beak could not reach the water. He got an idea… He brought small pebbles and dropped them in the pot. The water came up… The crow drank the water and flew away happily.

PRESENT: There is a crow. He is very thirsty. He searches for water everywhere; but, he does not find any water. At last, he sees a pot. It has little water. His beak cannot reach the water. He gets an idea… He brings small pebbles and drops them in the pot. The water comes up… The crow drinks the water and flies away happily.

During the training session in a college yesterday, I said, “Imagine the power of your consistent work… If  you write one simple story a day in both the tenses, you will be able to write 30 stories in a month… 365 in a year and 3,650 in ten years!”

I showed them one of the books I had written two years ago – ‘Good Old Stories Good Old Tenses’. The book was of about 250 pages and contained just sixty stories… Just sixty!”

“Sir, how long did it take for you to write it?” a young boy asked innocently.

“Obviously sixty days,” quipped a young girl as if she was answering on my behalf. Her logic was simple: If it took one day for a story, it must’ve taken sixty days for sixty stories!”

I smiled! I had just narrated to them the famous story of Chinese Bamboo…

A Chinese farmer plants the bamboo seed in his field. Every day he goes near the spot to water it, manure it and comes back home. He does that for weeks, months and years. Five years go by, nothing happens… But, he religiously goes near the spot to water and manure… He looks up to the sky and prays, hopes, trusts… He comes back home… His neighbours, often, laugh at him… “Stupid fellow… The seed must’ve died long,” they chide. At times, hearing the negative voices, doubt creeps into the farmer’s heart. But, he shrugs it off and keeps doing what he believes in. Then, one fine morning, there appears a small bamboo shoot… It starts growing up swiftly – five feet, ten feet… twenty, forty, eighty and ninety…  Yes, ninety feet in just sixty weeks!

So, the world concludes: “The Chinese bamboo grows ninety-feet tall in just six weeks!”

Does it? Or, is it five years and six weeks?

Every student, by now, is ready with the answer: “It is five years and six weeks. Sir.”

“What was happening to the seed for five long years when it was under the ground?” I ask them…

                                                                                   

“It’s roots were getting stronger and stronger,” they reply.

“Was the five-year period under the ground necessary for the Chinese bamboo to grow ninety-feet tall in just six weeks?” I ask them.

“Yes, it was,” they assert.

I was of my students’ age – 18/19 – when I had planted my own English-bamboo seed. I will be 61 in a few days. The young girl had confidently told her classmate, that it had taken sixty days for me to write my 250-pages book with sixty stories in it in two tenses.

But, was it sixty days or was it some forty years and sixty days?

“I had written those stories, narrated them, breathed them in and out for so long, that I could even finish writing them in just two days! Yes, writing was not an issue at all – just as growing ninety-feet tall was not an issue at all for the Chinese bamboo. The real issue and real challenge was to ‘stay alive and motivated’ during those long, hard years under the ground – when nothing appeared above the ground!

In life, all bamboos – whether Chinese, English or Indian – need that long, hard period under the ground… Nothing grows ninety-feet tall in six weeks…

This Indian farmer knows it, Sir.

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Pixabay

Video: inspirationbygod/YouTube