A tribute to Ms Doshi

1991. Second standard. Seven years old.

Our class teacher Ms Doshi set us an individual craft project to observe Independence day at school. Craft, the best period of the entire week.

Our task was to make the Indian National flag.

Ms Doshi had taught us: the Indian flag has three colours, orange, white and green. There is a blue wheel in the centre of the white strip that must be split into not more than 24 parts. After all, hadn’t we been taught to count?

One rule: no seeking help from parents.

Armed with my limited knowledge, I prepared myself for the task. The end result must have been quite pathetic because my otherwise do-you-homework-yourself mother offered help.

Ready with my flag in hand, I reached class. I looked around. Some of my classmates had made beautiful flags using pre-coloured enamel paper for the stripes instead of colouring them by hand. These had been stuck on beautiful sticks covered with colourful ribbon. Others however, had managed less spectacular specimens. Their flags were made of paper (obviously!) but so were the sticks that were supposed to hold them in place. So every time the flags were held up for others to see, it resulted in a comical flop of the flag and subject for much laughter.

I remember feeling relieved. My flag was simple yet held its own.

Ms. Doshi started by calling out each student, looking carefully at the flag and asking certain precise questions. When my name was called out, I went up trembling a bit. Showing your homework to your teacher and being marked for it is serious business indeed!

She scorched her gaze, right through her rimmed glassed, deep into my eyes, and asked me the fatal question – “Did you make your flag yourself?” Now that I think of it, it was much like Dumbledore asking a question to a Hogwarts student. 
Yes, I froze. So she repeated her question.
“Did you make this yourself?”
What can you do when your teacher's all-knowing, omnipresent eyes look through your soul searching for answers?
You answer the question.
And so it was that I replied, “I… I… coloured the flag and stuck it to the stick”.

“Who helped you?” she inquired.

“My mother” tumbled out the answer.

“And who divided the flag into three rows?”

“My mother, and she drew the wheel too”.

“Students – ” Ms Doshi silenced the class. 
“I have something to tell you”.

I admit, by now, I was shaking quite a bit. 

“Look at this flag. The stripes are well measured, the wheel has 24 spokes, it has been perfectly stuck to the stick. But this flag hasn’t been made alone. This student's mother helped her make it.” Convinced of public humiliation, my eyes made for the floor. By now, every one of my classmates had decided that I was the sole intriguing object in class.

She continued, “Some of you have made better flags, bigger flags but when I asked you, you all claimed to have made the flag alone. This student is the only one till now to have told me the truth. She has done wrong by disobeying me, but I'm very proud of her because she spoke the truth.”

I gaped at her, unarmed, grateful, relieved. Seeing that speaking the truth would not do them harm, a lot of other students after me, confessed to help being given to them.

When I think of that incident today, I’m filled with deep gratitude. I had disobeyed my teacher, opposed her authority. In India, such behaviour is not taken lightly. Had Ms Doshi scolded me that day or had I felt humiliated, I would’ve sought the easy way out the next time and lied. However, Ms Doshi had chosen to focus on my difficulty in overcoming temptation to lie and chose consciously to encourage that.

I do not remember the marks I got for that flag, but I do remember the flag. I do remember that incident, carved deep into my memory. I do remember Ms. Doshi’s kind words and I do remember the lesson I learned that day. Thank you Ms. Doshi for being the wonderful teacher you were to me. 

What every child needs to learn today

IF - Rudyard Kipling
IF you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Education at home

Two children, old enough to walk, in a pram

A third child playing along the pram

Two adult women, chatting furiously, holding the pram

All returning home from a shop

Waiting at the tram stop.

One mother hands out some mini-sized packs of biscuits to the children.

Children laugh, children open the packs, children eat

The eldest child throws her empty wrapper on the tram track.

Children laugh.

Mothers look. Mothers shake their heads. Mothers continue their chat.

Not to be outdone, the second oldest child throws his second empty wrapper too on the tram track.

It’s all a game. It’s all fun.

Mothers look. Mothers shake their heads. Mothers continue their chat.

Standing a little way is someone else

A stranger to them, waiting too for the tram

Stranger looks at the children. The children laugh back.

Stranger looks at the mothers. The mothers glare back.

Stranger looks at the orphaned wrappers. The wrappers stare back.

So Stranger walks down to the wrappers,

Stranger scoops them up in her arms,

Stranger walks over to a hungry trashcan

And gently lowers the wrappers in its mouth.

Stunned by the incident, the mothers shake their heads.

They’re children after all. They’re going to throw things.

Here and there, everywhere! What’s her problem?

That’s the problem, isn’t it?

Not knowing how to raise one’s kids.

Should his life be filled with fun,

With games and play and no work done?

Is he meant to slap, to pinch, to cry,

Not learn to love, no what nor why?

Should he not meet Discipline

Or is it way too soon to begin?

When o when then do pray tell,

Will you break the magic spell,

Show him Mercy, teach him Truth,

That water’s unclear in the fountain of youth,

When will you teach him ol’ life’s song,

To be humble yet be strong?

Fight like a warrior, give like a King,

Offer support for doing the hard thing?

Will he always be too young,

And you too wise,

To teach him right from wrong,

From wrong to right?

Hindi, a new language?

Teach Hindi to the French,
Really?
Shrill voices. Deafening roar. 
Gibe.
Followed by thought

Why do you want to teach it, they enquired
To survive perhaps?
Me, tongue-tied,
Sure, it's a new language, I tried,
For you?
No, for them
Sure. 
I'll teach them basics,
to read it, to write it, to speak it

I know the language, 

It's mine too.
Of course,
but can you teach it, the concerned voices again.

And then laughter. 
Hearty and jovial.
Don't we like a good joke, they quipped.
And wiped their eyes
And laughed some more.
A Parsi teaching Hindi to the French
That one we've got to see.

It must have seemed funny to them, I'm sure.

Why didn't it seem funny to me?