TRYING TO EMPTY THIS OCEAN

 




“Pride feels confident in how much it knows;

humility is humbled by how much it has to learn.”

Collins Hasty

 

I write these Blog posts in English; and I do it almost daily. I have put together – written/edited/published – more than thirty books for the Dawn Club. I have been teaching Commerce students for over four decades, for which I create material…

Yes, I do all this in English…

But, English was not my medium when I was in school. I spoke Konkani at home and Kannada was my medium in school. I had a huge fear towards this language, which had added to my inferiority complex. It was only in my degree college, when, inspired by my idol, Prof. B.S. Raman, I was desiring to become a fine teacher and writer like him, that I resolved to overcome my handicap of communicating in English. I was 17 or 18 then. I am 64 now. Even though more than forty-five years have gone by, I still consider, that I have miles to go as far as learning to communicate in English is concerned… I still learn, I still grow… Meanwhile, my life as a good teacher and writer goes on well… I am happy with how I went about dealing with my handicap.

One of the blessings in disguise – when you deal with your handicaps – is, that it makes you empathetic… Helps you understand people with similar handicaps. It motivates you to empower them, and, in the process, it helps you feel good about yourself.





Niranjan*, a young married-man, who works for a multinational company, had approached me a week ago for help in English. He is good at his job which calls for his technical skills. But, coming from a vernacular background, he has been feeling not good about his communication in English. He seemed extremely sincere, humble and keen when he approached me…

We took off. It’s exactly a week today.

“Niranjan, whatever you are learning here, go home and share it with your wife and two children,” I have been reminding him, “Teaching is twice learning.”

“I have been doing that, Sir,” Niranjan told me today, when I repeated it, once again. He added, “In fact, my two children are not facing this issue as they have been schooling in English medium. They regularly correct me.”

It sounded very familiar to me. My wife and son, who studied through English medium, here in this city, did not have to go through the similar struggle. English had come to them quite naturally, and, getting corrected by my wife and son had been a familiar part of my learning process.

“How does it feel when your school-going children correct you?” I asked Niranjan, quite curiously, “Do you resist? Feel low or offended?”

“Not at all, Sir,” Niranjan replied, “They correct me at home, not in front of outsiders. So, I willingly allow them to correct me… If it helps, I grab it.”

I liked what Niranjan said in the end… “If it helps, I grab it.”





Humility makes us realize how small we all are. We all know a little bit of everything… But, none of us know everything of anything. Every time I pretend, that I know something, I see myself standing before the vast ocean with a little spoon and trying to empty the ocean… I, also, see myself looking at the galaxy of starts in the sky… and feel that smallness…

Maybe, by the time you and I end our journeys, here on this planet, we may end up filling a couple of buckets through our little spoons… and, maybe, keep jumping a little higher each time with the hope of touching at least one tiny star…

So much for that terrible thought in us – ‘I KNOW’!

 

*Name changed

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic's: pixabay

Video: His Holiness Radhanath Swami

 

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