Tuesday, June 17, 2014

The place and the teacher

The place
And that the beauty of life lies in its symmetry. That everyday grind, the day and the night, the seasons, the low tide and the high tide, the beating of heart....
The beauty of this place was that of a rare kind. The beauty was derived out of symmetry: symmetry of night rain and the day sun.
It rained every night in that place. The music of the rain falling on the tin roof acted like lullabies and people slept peacefully or even dreamt to that tune. And in the morning, they woke up to the bright sun falling on a snow clad mountain which had as many names as the houses in that place.
Another symmetry of that place was that each house had windows facing in the direction of the snow clad peak. The peak was visible only for a few hours in the morning as the clouds (formed from the melting snow) enveloped the peak for rest of the entire day. And probably it were the same enveloping clouds that caused the everyday (everynight) rain. The place was a self-sufficient microcosm of its own sort.

The teacher
The teacher was like that Byronic hero who is incapable of love, or capable only of an impossible love*. He suffered endlessly as he was solitary, languid and seeking to fill his void with his students. His course was divided into three parts: first was called Larva to pupa, second was pupa to caterpillar and the final course was caterpillar to butterfly and after that each of his students flew.
He was sensitive to the fact that teaching was a very sad profession, as a good teacher always assured that his students flew (like butterflies) at the end of the course and then the teacher is left back lonely.

The place and the teacher
The teacher sat by the lake after one of his lectures on how to become caterpillar from a pupa. He stared at the water ripples and he realised the irony that the one who taught actually learnt the biggest lessons*** and the ones he taught, he was not sure whether they learnt anything. The ripples, the rocks (arranged one above another) and the flags on the lake made him feel that it was he who was metamorphosed into a butterfly while the students always remained the same.

Later the sun started to sink and the everyday clouds came floating in his life, no longer to carry that daily symmetric rain, but to add colors to his (butterfly's) sunset sky**.....
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Credits: * Camus, **Tagore and ***Coetzee.

*Picture from the lake of Yuksom (West Sikkim)

2 comments :

mikimbizii said...

Gosh! You are awesome and growing better with each post. Much Love!

GKK said...

with my limited command on English language. You are going to be next big writer