ON BEING FORTHRIGHT

        He was one of my favorite teachers. The Head Master used to come to our class once in a week and discuss common issues. Mostly they bordered upon literature and ethics. Since they were out of the book (and box) I eagerly awaited his classes.  Many of my class mates of course felt the ordeal a bore.

        Once he was describing his own life instance where he had been caught by his father for having taken food in an outside food stall because the food stall person had accosted his father with the coin he had given, saying that the coin was defective.  He had got a banging from his father, not for the wrong currency but for having breached a family norm, for in those days, in a brahminic family, taking food from outside stalls was prohibited.  He narrated the event and stated that it was one incident in his life which he could never forget. He then asked the students in the class to come out with instances which they felt were important in their lives.

        One girl stood up and said that she had been taken to Delhi to get the President’s award for Guides.  But due to some confusion there, it was not given there but they were all asked to go back to the schools and the certificates were sent by post.  She said she felt dejected. 

        The HM tried to soothe her feelings by saying that what mattered was not a photograph with the President or any dignitary because with modern technology any photos could be created, but what was important was the certificate itself.

        I do not know whether that girl was satisfied.

        But I felt that he was unnecessarily defending his establishment and I put a question to him:

        “Sir, if only the certificate is so important, why the photo copy of the certificate could not be hung in our library instead of the photo of our previous HM getting the award from the President?”.

        There was hushed silence in the class.

        After a few seconds, the HM told me, ‘You come to me after 7 or 8 years and tell me whether you have been as much forthright in life like this always”.

        Later in life, in the 33 years that have gone by after the incident, during moments of crisis where I had to debate within myself, whether to speak out what I felt as truth, or not, due to reasons that it was not always welcome, or more so when it appeared that it may not be understood, my HM’s words and face have come back to my mind.

        And every day I remember him with pranams.