In Pursuit of Honesty
A very dark picture of the society we have painted for the children. A community, where cheating is normal, communities
which are blindly materialistic and seek to be economically well off by hook or
by crook, an organisation where you would rather lose your moral values than lose
your valuables. It is such a society, I talk of today when I relate my account.
A few educated men in my home town
had opened a school. They wanted to give quality education to the children
of the not so well off people. Else, they thought, those children would have no
options but to go to government schools, and have their education neglected. But we sneered at them, as the
founders of the school. And even at the children.
Quality education, we thought,
was only for the children of the educated middle class. If the family was not
in a position to afford a posh fashionable private school, why must we, as
educators, bother about the children?
It is no wonder that when I started
teaching in this school, I looked down upon the students and often made fun of
their English accent, which had a strong flavour of the local language. That was
me 15 years back. Ah...I realized how wrong I was back then. I regret having
such a snobbish attitude.
Coming back to my story, it happened
once that a particular colleague of mine, a very fashionable lady, ost
a gold ring in the school premises. She was anxious. And...Why not? The
more you have, the more you yearn for materialistic things. The staff was
informed to do a thorough search for the lost item.
However, deep inside my heart, I knew
that the ring was gone for good. I had noticed the greed in the eyes of the
students of the school. Many I know, couldn't even afford a decent
breakfast. What if one of them had found the ring? Wouldn't they pocket it?
Remember, there were no CCTVs installed in schools in the nineties. Investigations
were done based on trust and evidence.
The next morning as we walked to
school, my colleagues and me, all we talked about were how we should be careful
about our belongings while at school. A great surprise awaited us in the
morning assembly. The Principal announced the name of an honest girl, Dibya.
Dibya was asked to come forward and tell everyone what she had found under the
teacher's table. And it was nothing but the lost ring.
The story remains incomplete if you
don't know the background of Dibya. The second daughter of a family of five
girls, Dibya was a fragile student who couldn't follow most of the
instructions in English. Dibya's father was a drunkard whose death
brought not sorrow but a relief to the grieving mother, who was a victim of his
physical assaults. Dibya's youngest sister was just a few weeks old and had
never seen the father. Her mother was on unpaid maternity leave. The family
depended on an uncle for financial aid and support until Dibya's mother would
be able to join her work. Wouldn't it be considered more natural if Dibya had
been slightly dishonest and not returned the ring? Did she know its value, you
may ask. Oh, yes, she did. The poor child, not knowing what to do with it, had
sought the advice of her mother. The poor woman would rather starve than
have a dishonest daughter.
Dibya works in a reputed firm today.
All the girls are settled, I hear. Whenever I meet Dibya's mother, I salute her
in silence.
Respond Respectfully
After
a brief memory jostling of the previous day's lesson, I started asking
questions to the class in general and some students in particular. After
several minutes, I directed a question to Aman. I presumed he had not heard it
because he did not show any signs of response. I repeated the problem after
taking his name loudly. He still did not move. After being elbowed by his partner,
he reluctantly stood. "Yes, Aman," I said. "Can we some answer please?" Aman –
"What
Answer?"
Me
– "to the question, I just asked."
Aman
– "What question?"
(Class
rings out in peals of smothered giggles)
I
repeated the question…….
Aman
– "That's a stupid question anyway."
(
there is pin-drop silence in class)
Something
was squirming within me but I somehow managed to gather my wits and calmly
asked Aman to sit down. The rest of the classroom are past mechanically.
The
lunch break followed. I
purposefully walked to Aman and asked him with a silent smile "Are you OK
Child?" His
eyes moistened, he lowered his gaze and replied -"Yes Ma'm"
That the moment remains with me as a forerunner for all other such situations that might
crop up in the future. A
respectful response or no response, to that person who has shown disrespect, at
that poignant moment, is the turning point of any story in a person's life. We
must respect our own selves so much that we do not get swayed by brazen behaviour.
The reprimand should come at a later time.
- David Biswas <davidbiswas1971@gmail.com> for Sensing Sacred Heart School Siliguri
