LOSING A YEAR, BUT GAINING A WORLD

 

“It’s not hard to make decisions

when you know what your values are.”

Roy Disney

 

Sometime before the pandemic broke out, my wife and I had been for our annual Tai Chi camp at Lonavala. As it happens at every such camp, this time, too, we got to meet and become friends with many wonderful fellow-learners. One such person was a senior faculty in an engineering college in Mumbai. During the course of our discussion, she narrated to some of us an incident in her teaching career.

Apparently, one of the students of our new friend was caught indulging in unfair practice during his exams. Consequently, he was failed. Being the faculty directly in charge, one night, she found at her door the student accompanied by his father. It seemed, that the family was well-placed financially and fairly educated, too. The house visit was to persuade the faculty-in-charge to ‘do something’ and promote the young man. But, our professor-friend, tried her best to explain to the son and the father, both, why it was not possible… “At present you may think, it’s a question of losing one year,” she said to them, “But, let me assure you, that after some years, you will look back at it and say, ‘I have lost a year, but gained a world’.”

Truly, like in a fairytale, it had come true!

After some years, the young man, who had done well for himself, reappeared at his professor’s door. But, this time, not only to tell her that ‘he had lost year, but gained a world’, but, also, to sponsor a cruise-trip for his Guru and her husband. “Thank you, Ma’am, for teaching me a hard lesson in life.”

I remembered this episode some weeks ago, when three of my online students tried to persuade me to ‘write their online Semester exams’. Their arguments were: “Sir, there won’t be any cameras.” … “Sir, all tuition teachers help their students (a lie).” … “At least, help us with answers on the exam day through our WhatsApp groups.” Etc., etc.

I am going to be 63 this year and I have taught for over four decades, without having to stoop so low. “It’s a new normal,” my students and some of their parents tried to convince me…

I said, “Maybe.”

In the following Semester, I lost all these three students…

“I have lost three students,” I tried to console myself with my Tai Chi friend’s words, “But, I have gained a world.”

A misfit?

When I was a very little boy, our Sunday teacher had narrated the story of Adam and Eve, the first couple God had created and housed in the fabulous Garden of Eden. “This is your paradise… Enjoy every bit of it… Do whatever you wish to… But, don’t eat the fruit of this forbidden tree. Some days later, came the Serpent (Devil) to tempt the woman: ‘O Woman, do you know why God doesn’t want you to eat from this tree?” he asked, “Because, He doesn’t want you to become like him.”

Thus, Eve not only ate the fruit from the forbidden tree, she seduced her husband to eat, too…

Well, they call that – ‘Man’s Original Sin’… which, apparently, had brought upon mankind all the troubles in the world…

It’s written, that God was disappointed, angry… He threw His maiden children out of the Garden of Eden.  He thundered, “From this day on, you will eat your food by the sweat of your brow.”

“Unfair?”  “Too harsh?”

I don’t know.

But, looking back at all the three episodes – my Tai Chi friend’s, mine and God’s – I think, they all seem perfectly ‘fair-tales’ and not ‘fairytales’!

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic's.: pixabay

 

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