Education is what remains after one
has forgotten what one has learned in school. ~ Albert Einstein
Einstein was right here as well. Education is
not just what we get from the school; it is a lot beyond the concept of coerced
discipline and morals inculcated within the students.
Somebody’s said “Education is not just
preparing for the life; it is life itself.” An entire lifetime is short enough
for a person to get educated to the fullest. So, why the caption ‘Half an Hour
of Education?’
I do agree that most of the values I have in
myself are due to the proper schooling I got up to tenth standard at St.
Joseph’s. I owe a lot to that school and of course, my parents. Being at Mallinson,
I’d on no account ever in my life like being called a Mallinsonite. I would
always identify myself a Josephite and I am proud to be one. I’m swollen with
pride while saying that I have never let down the motto I lived for twelve
years “Manners Maketh Man”.
But has my current school given me anything
to hold on to all my life? Has it taught me something about life that I can
boast about tomorrow? Has it had even an ounce of credit on me being educated
or moulding my character as a person? I
am afraid to say, no. It hasn't. So, does that mean I’ve ceased to progress as
a human? That I am not being molded anymore? That my education has come to a
halt for the past two years? I am lucky and proud to say, no. It doesn’t.
There’s been this wonderfully wonderful man,
who has taught me the greatest values of life over this one and a half year.
There’s been this brilliant man, about whom I would have thought a bazillion
times “I have never seen a person like him before”. There’s been this great man,
looking at him squint and blink his eyes I’d feel “How unlucky my friends at
St. Joseph’s are who’d never see him”. There’s been this amazing man, seeing
whose face would make my day. There’s been this marvelous man, the look in
whose eyes behind those glasses would make me nervous. There’s been this gifted
man, who’s been like a hundred schools to me when I’ve listened to his voice
for half an hour every day. There’s this man for whom my heart is loaded with respect.
There’s this man whom we call Nasir Sir.
Education’s purpose is to replace an empty
mind with an open one, I’d read somewhere. This is exactly what Nasir Sir is
doing. It is not just Mathematics; he gives not just me, but all his pupils,
the lessons for life. Within his humor, his laughter, his quick witted
sentences you get to catch something very special that you’d hardly find
anywhere else.
I’m not saying that he preaches great
philosophy to his students, no, he doesn’t. He just tells us what someone else
dares not speak out. He’s got that honesty and that courage to get us
acquainted to the apparently small but very big things in reality that exist in
the world around us.
Over this year and a half, hardly has there
been a day when I would have come out of his class without a new topic in my
head to ponder upon. When I leave his class almost every day, I have the same
feeling as I get after reading a book by Paulo Coelho. If it is one book a day,
how many Paulo Coelho’s unwritten books would be in my head by the end of this
year counting since December 2010?
But I wonder if it is just me who finds the
wisdom of an entire book in Nasir Sir’s one sentence or all of the
students who ever went to him? I hate it when some of them talk while he
teaches. I wanted to punch their faces when they laughed while he said that the
equation of ellipse is divine and justified that; or when they said it is the
sign of the end of the world while he said the woman is so powerful that she is
even the president of India today; or when they said ‘Did you mug up Math?’
while Nasir Sir said he’d done fifty something theorems in one hour with a lot
of practice as a tenth grader. There are a million examples like these. I wish they
took it all seriously. They don’t know what they’re losing.
It is not just his words but his entire
personality that reflects how a wonderful person lives. Just by casting a
glance at him, you’d figure out his simplicity, soberness, selflessness, hard
work, intellect, understanding, patience and what not. He’s the real person one
should actually look up to.
He has inspired me ever since. I remember
grinning at him sheepishly whenever he beautifully solved the questions last
year. He has that beauty even now but I’ve stopped grinning. I know it was
stupid. Still, at times, I cannot help smiling at him.
Lastly, I’d quote what Nasir Sir said today talking
about the Freedom that the people of Kashmir keep on demanding every other day.
“…What’d freedom give them if they’ve lost their culture already...” and the
best one “…when our lips have the same thing on them as that in our hearts,
that day we’d be free…” Beautiful! It reminded me of Coelho’s opening line for
The Zahir “I am a free man now…but what makes me free?”
And very importantly, I’d thank Khaloojan,
for he gave me an inspiration and a direction to my life when he sent me to
study at Nasir Sir’s. Thank you!
1 comments:
I have studied in one school for the last ten years, and even though it is not a very good school, I still owe all of my grooming to it. I love it.
But I have come to realize something: in the end it is not the school that matters, but the student. There are students in my school who are good for nothing, and idiots to boot. Everyone gets the same treatment, but not everyone reacts the same way to it.
Thanks for liking the layout.
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