Let There Be Love

Let There Be Love

A couple of months back, I read a devastating story about a high school girl committing suicide by jumping from the rooftop. She had been admonished the previous day by the school authorities for moving around with a boy. The boy and girl had been found to be spending time together in the school campus. They were ‘caught’, their parents summoned and advised. The girl could not bear the humiliation and a precious life was lost.

In the year 1989 when I was in class nine, I was in the belief that I was in love with a girl of the same school. Never mind that she was hardly aware of my existence. One weekend, I was traveling home from school with my friends and a teacher. We missed a connecting bus and had to walk six kilometres. We did it joyously along the tar road with dense forests on both sides. After sometime into the walk, my friends began pulling my leg over my love interest. The teacher overheard our conversation and asked one of my friends, ‘who is the girl’? After much prodding, my classmates let the secret out. The teacher laughed loudly, perhaps at the incredulity of the combination and then we trudged on. After that, the teacher would tease me occasionally but there was no reprimand or sermons or ‘I will tell your parents’ threat.

How come this simple act of liking another person - I don’t use the word love here because in case of youngsters it is mostly liking one another - generates such harsh reaction from the teachers these days?  Most kids pass through the stage of ‘teenage turmoil’ (remember this charming serial which used to be aired on DD in late eighties?) in which every second person of the opposite sex looks attractive and seems like a perfect future life partner. My 11 year old son is in ‘I-just-don’t-like-girls-at-all’ stage now and it is quite interesting and fascinating to see them under the thrall of each hormonal phase. When he tells about a friend of his (in the next hormonal level) liking a girl in his class, I make it a point to treat it casually and never laugh at it. Perhaps the teachers need better training and guidance on how to handle the teenagers with care, respect and more understanding.

To sum up on a positive note, my faith in humanity and love was restored recently. I had gone to my kids’ school and as I was waiting to meet the Principal, I saw a bunch of high school students - boys and girls - talking to each other. There were shy smiles on their lips and stars in their eyes. May the One bless them.

The World At Their Feet, Literally

The UPSC results are out and there is a great, deserved jubilation in more than a thousand houses. 1078 young, bright candidates have been selected by the UPSC to head various wings of the government. The son of a security guard, a rickshaw driver’s son, a Muslim boy who had to change his name to get a house on rent, a young topper in her first attempt - there are positive stories galore. We all rightly believe that in UPSC the selection process is fair and transparent and that only the deserving candidates get selected. Let us not once forget that all these hardworking candidates will be soon holding responsible positions affecting the way our country is governed. Let us hope and pray that they stay firmly grounded as they go high up the bureaucratic ladder and remain empathetic to the problems of the common man.

Another result and the same feeling of positivity! When I was at the HOPCOMS yesterday evening buying fruits and vegetables I happened to overhear a conversation. There were three people standing by the roadside-an old woman, a middle-aged man and a teenaged boy, all in soiled cloths and they looked like construction workers. The boy’s cloths were torn in places and from their attire, it was clear that they were migrant labourers from Northern parts of Karnataka.

The woman says to the man, ‘You look very happy! What happened? Where had you been?’

‘Just now returning after seeing the SSLC results. This boy has really done well. Got 62-63 percent’!

‘Ho, that’s great. He has passed the exam then, hasn’t he!?’

She pats the boy on his back and he gives away a toothy grin.

‘The marks are quite good, aren't they?’, the old woman asks again.

‘It is good. But the boy could have done better. 70-80 % is considered very good’.

‘What is the difference then?’

‘He should have scored 6-7 marks more’.

Then there is some casual chat and they disperse smiling. That definitely was one heart-warming story which made my day.