ABOUT VARUN'S LEAVE NOTE AND KARAN'S JET LAG

“If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way.

If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”

Jim Rohn

 

Who wants long sermons early in the mornings? I am asking this: Do you think, that any college kid – a teenager – has the inclination or patience to listen to a teacher’s ‘sermons’ in the early mornings? Well, the ‘early mornings’ may be 8 or 9 or 10, you see…

At the end of my 9 a.m. class today, I heard myself telling this class-12 group… “Don’t worry. You may have to bear with my ‘sermons’ for a month more, maximum. You will be free after that… ‘Chutkara’, once and for all!”

Of course, my tongue was firmly tucked inside my cheeks as I was telling them what I was telling. I knew, that it was their age to resist… find a teacher’s sermons ‘boring’ and ‘repetitive’. But, I also knew, that the time to recall these sermons –  appreciate them, and value them – would, always, come later in life… It came later in my own life, and, it would come later for my young students, too.

When young kids come out with their excuses – for not attending classes or not doing their homework – their teachers don’t believe them easily. When excuses come repeatedly, habitually, teachers don’t buy them easily… For example, Varun* sent this ‘leave note’ to me – via WhatsApp - a couple of days ago…

I sent him this video…

Karan* comes out with very interesting and innovative excuses… “Sir, I have difficulty coordinating with Karan,” I wrote to Karan’s father, a while ago.

Karan and his parents had returned last evening from a foreign trip. Karan, who was regularly missing classes and skipping homework, had a very valid reason when they were to travel for ten days. But, now that they are back… I wanted him to join online this evening at 4…

“But, Sir, I have a jet lag,” came Karan’s reason…

“My boy, your dad has already resumed his office, this morning, and you will not be able to get out of your jet lag even in the evening?”

Last evening, my wife and I had gone to visit someone. As we were entering the gate of that society, a car was coming out and it stopped… Neeraj and his wife Ashwini were my students more than three decades ago. They and their teenaged son got out of their car and excitedly greeted us. “He was our favourite teacher,” the young kid was introduced to me by his proud parents…

Neeraj, Shankar and Rohan – the trio was inseparable while they would attend my classes when they were in class-12… I would give them the same daily dose of sermons even then. I was quite updated about their progress in life… All three, today, hold very big positions in global banks…

I spoke about these three students of mine as I was telling my present class-12 batch, “You may recall my sermons – appreciate and value them – later in life,” I had reminded them, this morning. Yes, we all have our own time to know the difference between an excuse and a genuine reason…

Nick Vujicic calls his life not as ‘a life without limbs’, but as ‘a life without limits’”…

Thirty years will be too long a wait for a 66-year-old teacher… How I  wish, I could bump into Varun’s Mercedes or Karan’s Bentley, thirty years from now!

And, how I wish the young kids could learn to differentiate between their excuses and valid reasons, early in life...

“I think the biggest disability we have as human beings is unbelief,” says Nick Vujicic, “Everything starts with a vision; and a man without vision dies.”

 

*Names changed

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s: 1. Pixabay  2. Varun

 

Video: 60 Minutes Australia