HOPE AND FAITH - 102

There are things I never told myself to do. Maybe it is time I gave a thought about them. So is it that I have been truthful only to my notepad(my dear diary). It has been a long time since I started penning down my thoughts, my passions and even my dreams. Time and again, I have seen them all fail. Except for the first times ( the beginner's luck of Alchemist ), these things have to be tough, the roads rather lonely and disheartening. But still i place my hope in it. For I know my god would not give up. He will keep fighting for me, even when I am down. If not him, then who gave me the strength to sustain the psychologically frustrating months of first year, the confused and wandering weeks of second year. With the Third year, I found myself content, in love with my children and in a way, aimless. There is a poem in Valkyries,

"And each man kills the thing he loves the most ... "

It was in the Third year that I truly understood the meaning of this line.

And thus began my journey to distance myself from Kartavya and from the most wonderful kids I could ever meet.

I never mentioned any of my memories of my second year at Kartavya till now, right ?

I started off at center-2 as a teacher of nursery (the smallest age group) class with a batch strength approaching 40. When we read such a small number and equate with our own schooldays( 80 students ) we would easily assume that the class was a piece of cake. To explain the full magnitude of the situation, just add students of say 4-5 years ( who are terrified just at the sight of me entering the class ) to 12 year old teens who had sufficient experience in chewing tobacco as in bunking classes. My initial struggles were aggravated ten folds by the fact that I had a policy that I would not beat any student.

[ My little friends made me break that and many more in just a few days. ]

My first moments of pure pleasure were when some students of my class requested me," Sir, (Tsir as she had a bit of pronounciation dilemma ) kya aap kal bhi ayenge ... please ?"

" dil ko itna sukun milata hai ki kya batau !!"

Once I was taking an extra class of std. 1. While returning from the center, I was walking along with the children, asking them how wastheir day like . Anamika , while chatting, instinctively held my hand and accidentally called me "Bhaiyya". May be it meant to me just as casual a thought as it might mean to you - A slip of tongue. Alas ! I can't bring you in the exact position where I was, a slight drizzle, a dready day and as if a gift for enduring such a tiring day, that small palm curls around your index finger and reckons you with such an endearing call of relation - Bhaiyya !!!