The Noblest of All Professions
On this Teacher's day, I remember with gratitude all my teachers and my own parents who were teachers themselves.
First, about my mother.
My mother worked in a school and touched the lives of many girl students in a positive way. She taught higher secondary level Maths.
It was a humbling experience for me to meet one of her students in a new city where I was living with my family at that time.
Like me, that former student was a wife and mother then and she recognised my mother. We were on a sight seeing trip in the Hyderabad of that time and it was a wonder that a person who was her student decades ago recognised her.
My mother couldn't recognise her, as the young girl she once knew was all grown up now.
The woman touched my mother's feet first, introduced herself and proudly introduced her old teacher to her surprised husband.
We don't meet people by chance, we meet them by design.
That meeting truly proved to me that teaching is the best of all noble professions.
My father, on the other hand, was not paid by an institution for his teaching work.
He ran a tuition center in Karaikudi, TN in the sixties and he inspired many lives as he taught Maths and English.
Even when he was working full time elsewhere when we were kids, he did take up a tuition or two to help someone in need.
We weren't well off ourselves but that didn't stop him from waiving tuition fee for students who couldn't afford it.
As a teenager, I thought it wasn't a great idea but now I understand what protects me and my sibling from the many trials of life. Its the dharmam he and my mother performed. It isn't measurable in terms of money but it counts as sramadhanam. Its the mental and physical effort one puts in to help others in need.
I have seen grateful parents touching his feet after the much dreaded tenth results were out year after year.
They were simple people to whom a son passing tenth was the only way forward in life. Any failure in tenth class or twelfth class would be another year's delay for the family to reach an income level that could afford three square meals for all...
I am humbled to think about the lamps my parents and many selfless teachers like them have lit in many lives.
So, technically, I have many brothers and sisters all over the world, some of whom may be affectionately thinking about my parents right now.
Their good deeds came back to me as well.
"You can do better" were the simple words a professor once told me which goaded me in to action when I needed the inspiration.
Just wanted to say you don't have to be associated with a school or college to be a teacher or a life counselor.
This is also to all the selfless teachers who take tuitions and who "sit" for exams year after year and feel proud with every great performance by their children.!
Acharya Devo Bhava! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
First, about my mother.
My mother worked in a school and touched the lives of many girl students in a positive way. She taught higher secondary level Maths.
It was a humbling experience for me to meet one of her students in a new city where I was living with my family at that time.
Like me, that former student was a wife and mother then and she recognised my mother. We were on a sight seeing trip in the Hyderabad of that time and it was a wonder that a person who was her student decades ago recognised her.
My mother couldn't recognise her, as the young girl she once knew was all grown up now.
The woman touched my mother's feet first, introduced herself and proudly introduced her old teacher to her surprised husband.
We don't meet people by chance, we meet them by design.
That meeting truly proved to me that teaching is the best of all noble professions.
My father, on the other hand, was not paid by an institution for his teaching work.
He ran a tuition center in Karaikudi, TN in the sixties and he inspired many lives as he taught Maths and English.
Even when he was working full time elsewhere when we were kids, he did take up a tuition or two to help someone in need.
We weren't well off ourselves but that didn't stop him from waiving tuition fee for students who couldn't afford it.
As a teenager, I thought it wasn't a great idea but now I understand what protects me and my sibling from the many trials of life. Its the dharmam he and my mother performed. It isn't measurable in terms of money but it counts as sramadhanam. Its the mental and physical effort one puts in to help others in need.
I have seen grateful parents touching his feet after the much dreaded tenth results were out year after year.
They were simple people to whom a son passing tenth was the only way forward in life. Any failure in tenth class or twelfth class would be another year's delay for the family to reach an income level that could afford three square meals for all...
I am humbled to think about the lamps my parents and many selfless teachers like them have lit in many lives.
So, technically, I have many brothers and sisters all over the world, some of whom may be affectionately thinking about my parents right now.
Their good deeds came back to me as well.
"You can do better" were the simple words a professor once told me which goaded me in to action when I needed the inspiration.
Just wanted to say you don't have to be associated with a school or college to be a teacher or a life counselor.
This is also to all the selfless teachers who take tuitions and who "sit" for exams year after year and feel proud with every great performance by their children.!
Acharya Devo Bhava! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
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