When a teacher took a pause....

DEDICATED TO THE TEACHING FRATERNITY

FROM THE PEN APN

The whole class was silent. All the 128 students were silent because the teacher who was supposed to deliver his lessons was seen to be lost in a prayerful posture with his eyes closed, heads down and hands resting on the table. The silence continued........In the depth of silence the teacher tried his best to come out of the state of absorption but it was impossible on his part. The more he tried, the deeper he sank into his thoughts.

 A quote, which he came across, while teaching a text had struck a chord in his heart. The quote said, “Teaching is not a lost art but the regard for teaching is a lost tradition.”

He was a teacher in an institution but today in the class while reading the quote he experienced a flashback of his numerous teachers starting from the one who had taught him the alphabet to the professor of his last attended institution. All of them appeared in a circle as if they were playing marry-go-round keeping him at the centre. The teacher felt himself like a student and was lost in intense feelings of gratefulness for those persons who had taught him the ABC’s of life.

The silence was broken by a front bencher’s question, “What happened, Sir? Are you alright?” The teacher replied from a state of heightened emotion, “Yes boy, I am always alright in life because a few teachers had flawlessly shaped it. And you may take another 20 years to realize why I went speechless today.” The students could not understand what happened to their beloved teacher.

With a smile the teacher turned to the white board and wrote a sentence in capital letters to eliminate his students’ wide mouthed expressions. The white board was glistening with the words:

“A TEACHER AFFECTS ETERNITY; HE CAN NEVER TELL WHERE HIS INFLUENCE STOPS.”

Monologue of a flower

FROM THE PEN APN

I am a flower and in my short life-time I gather the beauty of creation and bloom with pleasant colours and fragrances so that men can see the beauty of creator through me. 

I am born to spread beauty. 

I speak subtly in the language of fragrance. I soothe the eyes and cheer both heart and mind. That is why I am plucked and given to your sweet heart as a token of your love. I am happy that I symbolize love and best wishes. 

The greatest time in my life comes when a lover offers me in the hand of his beloved and the beloved blushingly receives me. And accepting me the beloved accepts in her a chain of new creation that is love-marriage-children and so on.

But in some occasions I may fall also in the hands of a person who has a calculative mind and a stony heart and who may throw me on the table carelessly and will demand for a GOLD RING because for him/her I have no lasting value as compared to the yellow metal.

I do not know what hate is. That is why 20 years after when a ditched lover opens a book and discovers my dried corpse from the folds of the book, he places his hands on me, closes his eyes and draws a long breath. And from the corner of his closed eyes drops of shining tear come out. I am a witness of his love and he has preserved me carefully although his love-life was unsuccessful. 

What makes me live exclusively to myself

From the pen APN

Interacting with ideas and the laptop seems safer than communicating with other people around me. When I start positively with gestures of friendship, I find the responses of people around me to be too raw and bitter to put up with. And what I feel is that I have a very little patience. So I burst with fire and sound like a filament of an electric bulb whose fuse now blows out. Such violent outbursts cause momentary glare but in the succeeding calmness there is darkness or a dead stop. 

This is what makes me live exclusively to myself.

MEDITATION WITH/WITHOUT EYES CLOSED

From the pen APN

Closing my eyes I tried my utmost to silence many incoherent thought-waves that were appearing in my mind. I reclined on a revolving chair in the lecturer’s common room and slowly sank into the deeper realms of my being. I journeyed deeper and deeper into my being and became oblivious of time and my surroundings.

Breathing deeply I collected myself and consoled myself for being alive.Now I thanked the providence because I was not dead and above all I had some more time to live my life and follow my dreams. I slowly opened my eyes. The wall clock hanging above the world map in the common room told that it was mid-day.I saw the college peon, a man in his forties, dusting the office files and papers. He was completely absorbed in his own job. He had no time to read my mental reactions. Moreover, he did not know that I was observing him. I saw him and found that there was a rare level of satisfaction surrounding his face. He was lost in his wok and his satisfaction was nothing but the mark of his complete absorption in his job. He was truly meditating while on duty-the true karma yogi.

I told myself that I shut my eyes and need silence to experience meditation. However, he makes meditation happen in his normal activities by showing single-minded dedication to his duty.

Means differ but the goal is same.

A realization that came up while Googling

From the pen APN

 

In the last few years my brain has learnt not to depend on memory but to rely on Google. It is devastating as I know but the ease of not consuming my brain is highly alluring as compared to press my palms on my cheek and then wreck my brain for a piece of information. Searching through Google is like firing a guided missile to its target which has both speed and accuracy but remembering facts is like throwing a knife at the target by hand. In the latter case there may be hit or miss if you are not adept in your art. And perfecting an art is a matter of great effort and practice.

Now the question is how many of us would like to master the art of remembering things by proper training of their minds. Very few will devote their time to build a razor-sharp memory. It is because no one will like to travel on a bicycle by straining physically i.e. pushing the paddles, if he/she has the resources of traveling on Mercedes Benz. Although paddling on the cycle strengthens your muscles and lengthens your stamina, the journey by a car is preferred. The undeniable fact of life is that we are very much comfort loving.

As a citizen of the poorest of the poor state like Odisha (which is also in some way self-labelled) I easily find countless examples which can be cited to explain the dangerous height of human love for comfort and laziness. One of the brighter examples is our present complacent life with rice @ Rs 1 per kg. Similarly, importing bulk amounts of fish, potatoes, onion, etc from neighboring states to nourish our love for comfort has left us at the mercy of others. Our LAZINESS is slanting down the curve of our state’s economic growth and we are likely to make ourselves the worst beggars of a nation. 

At such a juncture, do not we need a change in our attitude or acts? 

Buddha Purnima

“All knowledge depends on the calmness of mind.”

                                                                                                                            -Swami Vivekananda

From the pen APN

14^th May, 2014

A mid-summer’s evening. The moon was big, bright and silvery. The low-height thick branches of a dwarf cashew tree cast a prominent shadow on the field where I was standing. I was standing and enjoying the beauty of the moon, the stars and the sky.

Then I felt close to the earth in my heart and I sat on the ground with my legs crossed. I closed my eyes. I forgot myself and I could see that one law is governing all. All anxieties died away, all troubles vanished and a deep sense of calmness prevailed.   

In the sky above, the moon was shinning and the field was glowing to me with the new understanding of life.

I am no Buddha but the day was Buddha Purnima and the moon whispered into my ears that I should enjoy the flow of life effortlessly because there is a law of Nature supreme to all. Understanding it makes life the very embodiment of peace.

A presiding officer’s diary

FROM THE PEN APN 

Case1

An illiterate woman entered into the voting compartment and got utterly confused after she saw the sophisticated ballot unit of the EVM. What to press for what-she could not comprehend. The next voter stood waiting but the woman was still in the compartment undone. The polling officers, staying outside the compartment, tried to make her understand the act of pressing a switch against her preferred symbol/candidate.

Many onlookers were restless at the enormous delay. The polling was halted. And then to the surprise of all a beep sound was heard. The polling officers along with some aware voters shouted in joy, “Oh Ma, it is done! It is done!” And now that woman came out of the compartment happily beaming with a smile of utter satisfaction.

As a presiding officer I wanted to record that joy and smile of that woman on my presiding officer’s diary but that official format of diary which was supplied to us did not have space to record the enormous aspirations with which an illiterate woman of India voted.

The right to vote is priceless......

For 5 years you will pay taxes and in return you will get a single chance to press a button on EVM. But I failed to understand the importance of casting my vote. As a presiding officer I conducted election in an interior pocket of my state but I missed my voting right because I was too lazy to fill my forms for postal vote.

Looking at the joyful face of the lady I thought that I was really doing a commendable job.

Case2

A young boy came into the polling station wearing a green shirt and green trousers. So he looked like a bunch of tall and green rice plants. Seeing him I asked, “Is it your first time to cast your vote?” He smiled and nodded his head in affirmation. The first polling officer checked his identity and found everything correct. When he allowed the young voter to cast his vote I looked at the boy and wished, “Go and press the right button so that my country becomes all green like the colour which you have chosen to cover yourself in.” All my polling officers realised that we now need rapid progress.

Case3

A talkative woman, perhaps a teacher, came to the polling station. She completed all the formalities of a voter that is required before casting her vote. She showed her voter’s id for identity check.  She signed on the voter’s register. But she stopped at the second polling officer and vehemently objected to apply the indelible ink mark on her nails. I was called in to see the matter. I asked the lady why she refused to have the ink mark. She answered me, “The ink takes a long time to remove and it will diminish her beauty.” I was dumb-found. I took some time to keep my composure and then gave a strict order, “No ink mark means there is no access to the voting compartment.” The lady shouted at me. She told, “I will see you. How can you debar me from casting my vote after all I have already signed on the voter’s register?” This time I lost my patience and in the most solid voice I declared, “Under rule 49, I have every right to debar you from the polling station.”

However, she was allowed to cast her vote when she agreed to follow the rules of voting procedure. After she left the polling station, the polling agents revealed that the lady once faced a road accident and she behaved abnormally after that accident.

A chunk of my life.....

From the pen APN

In the morning at about 7 o’clock, I switched on my laptop. The translucent aero theme of windows7 gleamed on the monitor.

With the opening up of the operating system my brain also restarted. My hands were at rest on the keyboard and at the same time my wife brought the morning tea in a special mug. The mug was special because it was coated with a beautiful photo of my wife or, in other words, the photo of my only son’s mother. The mug was presented to me as a Valentine’s Day gift this year.

Sipping my tea one or two times I started writing and listening to a specific song which I often listen when I am at home. I closed my eyes contemplatively and stretched my back on the revolving chair on which I was sitting. In my mental eyes the face of Mr. Kundu appeared. Yesterday I had met him. He was on his way to Tarlakota, a village in Malkangiri district. He, after a long career of teaching as a subject expert in English, now devotes some of his time for imparting quality education to the tribal students of Malkangiri. When I saw him at Govindapally (My work station) yesterday, my joys knew no bound.

He is a very outgoing person capable of engaging his audience with his unique dramatic styles. This time, white beard had covered his face. He had become little older than he was when I had met him last. He got down from the vehicle. He was in a pair of blue denim jeans and his feet were covered by a pair of sleepers. He looked like a social worker. The meeting was made very short because the heat of sun compelled us to part soon. I waved my hands and they moved away from me sitting in the vehicle.

Life goes on with its little surprises, small achievements, simple joys and little pains.

Yesterday I was returning from Jeypore to Govindapally. On the way I halted at a spot because that place reminded me of someone who was once a close colleague of mine. It was the very place where, one evening, that colleague’s motor cycle had got punctured and I had attended him with a rescue team.

Some places, some songs and some people suddenly remind you of some life’s incidents so strongly that you go speechless for a while. And then you take a little time to come out of the strong influences of those past memories.

That is why, somebody has rightly said, “With the right music, you either forget everything or you remember everything.”

A partial view of an exam valuation zone

Drawing a full breath, I acknowledged the unbearable heat of a mid April’s tropical sun and looking at the feebly moving ceiling fans in the valuation hall, I pitied upon the general discomfort of the examiners who were sitting with me in that hall with bundles of answer scripts for valuation. I looked around, stopped my pen and relaxed for a while and started observing and thinking........

Occasional gossiping among examiners was the only form of refreshment amidst the back-paining job of valuation. And sometimes when some benign natured examiner amongst us sponsored refreshments for the unit, either in the form of cool drink or tea or ice-cream, unknowingly dazzling smiles would spread on the faces of all         the examiners.

Apart from gossiping and smiles there are also streaks of seriousness. For example, some examiners will come to the valuation hall with a very serious visage. They will sit glued to their bunch of answer papers constantly without raising their heads even for a second. They will spare no efforts to devour the answer papers greedily like the hungry cows grazing grass. They won’t say ‘hello’ nor discuss politics although the election is at hand.   

And another group of examiners are there, who sometime take rest and sometime run fast. They are of the normal category, analogous to the experienced bikers who move in variable speeds depending on the traffic and condition of road. Also, we come across another type of examiners who are termed as the ‘Loud Speaker’ type of examiners. Such examiners cannot take up paper correction work quietly. They laugh and speak so loudly that the noise level of the hall may rise to 120 decibels as that of a speeding bullet.  

Whatever may we be, we, the examiners, keep the ball rolling and every year lakhs of students appear exams and lakhs of students come out with flying colours.