IN THOSE SMALL STEPS HIDE OUR DESTINIES

 

“Your present circumstances don’t determine

where you can go;

they merely determine where you start.”

Nido Qubein

 

Two young boys have just joined me for class 12. Both have two things in common: 1. They have been referred to me by two of my well-wishers and friends. 2. Both boys come from under-privileged families.

After more than 45 years of teaching the same thing, over and over and over again – many ask me this question: “Don’t you feel tired and bored?”

I do, sometimes… Sometimes, tired… sometimes, bored… and, sometimes, even, impatient, frustrated and angry.

So, why do I still continue teaching?

That’s because, I only wanted to be a teacher, and I still want to be a teacher… I do not see myself as anything else. Even in my writings, I still see myself as a teacher…

Therefore, despite my occasional fatigue, boredom, temper and frustration, I consider, that teaching is the medium through which, I am destined to make the maximum difference…

I deal with young lives… I deal with them at their impressionable age… They are moldable, shapeable… and, I know that. At the end of the day, the thought, that I make this crucial difference in the young ones’ lives, helps me to sleep well…

To me, that’s the feeling of ‘Success’…  Period.

The two boys, my new students, who come from humble families, have the two challenges before them:

1. they both are weak in the subject of Accountancy;

2. they both (being vernacular-medium students) have to deal with their English.

Besides, they are joining me late, when I have already completed some chapters…

So, do I have enough patience and compassion to deal with my own challenges?

For the answer to this question, I have to take you back to the time when I was of these boys’ age… I, too, came through a vernacular medium, and suffered from a nagging inferiority complex... I, too, was weak in studies and clueless about what I wanted to do in my life. Things had begun to change from my F.Y. B. Com days, when, hugely inspired by my own teacher, Prof. B.S. Raman, I dreamt of becoming like him – a fine teacher. There were two challenges to achieve that goal: My English and my low self-confidence. Fortunately, I realized early, that to achieve my dream, my dream had to be stronger than my fears. So, I was determined to overcome my two handicaps – slowly but steadily. Eventually, the very two handicaps became my greatest strengths, my blessings… Along with teaching the college subject, I used the insights gained through my own struggle to help young kids to overcome their low self-confidence.

“I do not need your past marks, and I do not need the level of your present self-confidence,” I told these young kids, today, “What I need is how determined you are to start your journey, today, and how determined you are to face your challenges.”

In those small steps, taken today with a bulldog resolve, hide our destinies…

In them, hid mine…

In them hide my two young students’.

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Marta Nogueira/Pixels

Video: truly