In conjunction with Teacher’s Day, I dedicate this post to
Mr. Narasimhan a.k.a Narasimha ”Vaadhiyar” of our primary School in Chennai.
“Vaadhiyar” in Tamil is synonym for teacher.
Rewind 1966/67, I don’t precisely remember the year. I was in the Fourth standard. The morning school assembly was on. Narasimha "Vaadhiyar" (NV), the powerful “Sir”, more a terror, always conducted the assembly. Students and teachers were terrified of him, as
he used to mercilessly cane and won't spare even the tender children. I don't remember even parents making any fuss about
it. Of course, there was a Headmistress, a holy
cow. NV was making various announcements about exams and holidays.
Finally, as is the daily ritual, the students and teachers
sang the National Anthem. In the
process, I was "humming" the musical version of the Anthem, without lyrics. Our class teacher curiously observed it and dutifully
reported to NV after the assembly, which I was not aware of. (By the way, “Teacher” then
was a reference to feminine gender and “Sir” to the masculine
counterpart). After the National Anthem was over, we moved in line towards our
respective classrooms.
The next day: the assembly, as usual started. Announcements were made. Before the National Anthem was sung, to my
utter disbelief (and to the joy of many other students and teachers), NV throated a
sarcastic reference about me, in his customary high-decibel pitch. I thought for a moment that he was showering good words about me, which added
to my confusion. Finally, slowly but
surely, he exploded that I made “fun” of
the National Anthem the previous day by singing the “musical version” sans
lyrics. True, I hummed but never in the
least meant to make “fun”, as screamed
by the NV. And I was lifted aloft by him as if he held the “World Cup” in his
hands, taken around the assembly arena twice to make sure that everybody gave a
scornful look at me, and ensured I was sufficiently embarrassed.
Aged nine then, even had I explained my position, I would
have only been thrashed, probably for back-answering. And I was never
naughty, least of all at School (I know some of you finding it hard to digest
it). When I give a nostalgic rewind,
apart from discarding the NV’s understanding of the whole issue as ignorance, I
wish to know: Is it wrong to play the
National Anthem in musical version? It
is pleasant to hear the Anthem even on Guitar.
Is vocal rendition mandatory?
Playing of the National Anthem by way of musical instrument is not an
offence. The Indian Armed Forces Band
have performed the Anthem in official musical version.
All said and done, you are my teacher, nay, Sir. Teachers are role-models. I believe so. To be so, it is a huge responsibility There are no doctors, engineers, architects ...... without teachers. There is more to teaching than just impart the lessons of the curriculum, and the gap between a teacher and an educator is really, really massive. We can't do away without teachers. The best way to test is abolish education and see what happens in the next 10 years.
"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires". - William Arthur Ward, Author
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh26zOjIh9I
With all due respects to the Guru, NV Sir, I feel he grossly misunderstood the blogger's noble, patriotic act of humming the National Anthem instead of mispronouncing the lyrics. In fact, the authorities have taken the cue from CSK and National Anthem is "played" not "sung" in most Government functions. And, these days, opposition would raise the banner of revolt if the schools were to conduct classes for proper pronunciation of the National Anthem by their pupils. As for CSK's self certification that he was NOT naughty, well it's a matter of opinion, his versus the readers if hus bligs.
ReplyDeleteWhile enjoying the nostalgia of your ‘wonderful’ school days, students of those days had a real and a ‘god fearing’ respect to the teachers of theirs while the parents were even more respectful to them. My papa would come on a weekly basis to my school and ‘advise’ my teacher that neither I nor the cane on the teacher’s hand should be spared and that both ( I and the cane) should be torn unlike today’s parents who gatecrash the gates of the court to seek ‘justice’ for their offsprings under the slightest pretext or the other wasting the time of a Hon’ble Court.
DeleteA “Mangalayan”, would not have succeeded so far had it not been for the effort of that TEACHER who was the Teacher of the Leader of ISRO Shri. Mayilsamy Annadurai (the Mission Director of INSAT) who headed the team which threw the sattellite onto to the orbit and incidentally this capsule is scheduled to reach the orbit of Mars during September 2014. A fitting tribute to the Teachers’ Day and the Teachers’ Month indeed. And Shri Mayilsamy Annadurai presently is the leading technologist in the field of satellite system.
Likewise if we are a respectable person in the society with a status today, the thanks goes to the first and foremost teacher , the teacher who introduced us to the alphabetical world without which we could not even spell our own name . That 1st teacher should be there in our memory for ever whereas we tend to forget them, cannot even recollect their name leave alone their wonderful face but we do remember our last professor at the college who resembled the latest cine hero/heroine.
Concluding all I say is there is no Teacher, ‘mediocre’, ‘good’ or ‘superior’ in kind…all are Teachers and all are equal to the upliftment of the society. All of them are really ‘GREAT’!
Thanks to all my Teachers.
Sorry, typo error. The last three words to read "of his blogs".
ReplyDelete