Why didn’t I have a teacher like this ?

Last weekend we went for a walk in Lal Bagh organized by “Bangalore walk”. Me, wife and my 10 and 7 yr old daughters. We wanted to do this for a long time but somehow as it always happens with DI2K (Double Income 2 kids) like us time is only an illusion which we realize only once it’s gone. Oh! The weekend is gone…..Damn the vacation is over and we are sitting on our..you know what.

So we dragged ourselves out of our bed at 5 am in the morning and somehow managed to get ourselves in front of the huge rock in Lal Bagh. At 7 05, we found an elderly gentleman squeezing his car (With great difficulty) between 2 previously parked cars, pull himself out and carrying 2 quite heavy bags move towards the big rock. That was the meeting point.

He introduced himself and laid down a few rules and started talking….For next 3 hrs we learnt about the oldest rock in the world, (which was the big rock in front of us), why Muslims build gardens, preservation of seeds, tipu sultan and history of bangalore, naming of trees, perfection in natural world, pollination, types of bees, how seeds were transferred in ancient world, half the food we eat and plants we see are actually from around the world..…etc. All this as we were walking with this elderly gentleman for almost 3 hrs.

When we all reached MTR and had our grand breakfast,.he told us that he was neither a historian, nor a botanist as most of us thought…he was just an engineer running his own business.

I was fascinated, that 3 hr talk on plants, seeds, made me my wife and our kids (they were only 50% into it most of the time they were busy touching “touch me not’s” and catching butterflies) wanted me to learn more about botany than anything. We never knew botany can be so interesting. Unconsciously even now if I stand in the balcony or see a tree in full bloom I look at it with a feeling which is almost humane. I know it will be difficult to cut a tree even if somebody puts a gun in my head and orders me to.

I looked back at my school days when I used to shudder at the thought of Botany, Biology. In fact I was so petrified in memorizing so many names, diagrams that I dropped Bio in 12^th and took Sanskrit. At least the books were thinner.

I wish I had teachers like this who made u love, respect and create a craving for a subject which would last a lifetime. Irrespective of age or the age difference, the group had people ranging from 25 – 40 leaving aside my kids.

On the contrary, when we asked him how his interest got generated….he said, when he was a kid and used to stay in Delhi, he had lot of free time during summer vacation and those days there were no TV, he had a huge library, so he read all possible books including the ones on botany, birds etc. He also had a huge garden where different types of birds used to migrate and stay in particular trees year after year. In a particular case he tied a note on a bird’s leg and wrote Delhi and next year when the same bird came back…there was a chit from Mongolia

The more I think about it I feel I want my daughters to let loose their imagination and do what they want to be. Just be…they will do something and discover their own stream. That’s the idealistic me just like I was telling my engineering batch mates whom I met after 19 year that before the sun sets I just want to back pack across the world…I don’t know how but I will do it.

But then there are these never ending practical arguments of CBSE vs ICSE boards, making our kids competitive and I just go back to my corner and read a book or open NGC / Discovery to be one with the world which I can’t touch in real….but only feel in my heart.