Matha Pitha Guru Deivam…
Gone are those days, where
teaching is considered as a highly responsible and divine profession, and these
are the days were teaching is considered as yet another profession to earn
money without much difficulty. It’s a common perception these days that
teachers are those who can’t get into any other good profession. Unfortunately
the perceptions are turning into reality slowly, with amateurish fresh
graduated who couldn't land up in any job, flock towards teaching, as a temporary
money making profession. They aren't aware of the fact that, in any other
profession, if the professional makes a fault, it will affect only the
concerned project or industry he’s working in, if a teacher makes an error, it
will affect the entire society and generations to come.
Under
these changing scenarios, I feel myself lucky to have studied under two
different teachers, who still resist losing their value as teachers. They aren't the usual kind of teacher’s who teach from 9 A.M to 4 P.M. The last thing they care about as a teacher
is, money. This is the first part of the
two part article, about the teacher who demystified mathematics to me and the
second part is about a farmer (also my teacher) who terrorized chess champions.
The
first man, about whom this first part is about, is a maths teacher. A short
lean man in his 60s, dressed mostly in his dhotis, with half bald head and rest
of them with completely grayed hair, but his face emanating a youthful glow. A
man who still rides his old BSA-SLR bicycle, as he’s not one of those teachers
who teaches the hazards of pollution due to refrigerants in a completely
air-conditioned room. We fondly call him as “Sukru sir”. He lives in a village
which didn't and will not find its place in Indian map.
Sukru sir is
basically a farmer whose expertise is in Fourier series and transformations. He
works in his farm during early morning hours and teaches school and college
maths during free hours. It is to be noted that this farmer is an expert in
English grammar also. I am not a formal student of him, but he accepted to
teach me higher secondary maths during my summer vacation stay at my grandma’s
home. An interesting thing to note is
that, my forefather and my father were also his former students, while he was
teaching at school.
He never believed
in conventional teaching methods. He mostly didn't teach in class rooms. He
takes his class children out to mango groove to teach probability (out of X
stones thrown, Y stones hit the mango, what is the probability of hitting the
mango? is an example of his class question). Similarly river beds, playgrounds
will also be turned into makeshift classrooms. He never worried about the
completion of syllabus, for all his concern is about understanding of his
students. He will be ready to teach the same concept any number of times, until
the student got it perfect.
By this time
there should be a question in your mind about his qualification. He’s not an
untrained mathematician. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in mathematics
during 60’s, and those days syllabus are considered much difficult compared to
present B.Sc Maths, which explains his comfort with the present day maths.
Later due to some unknown reasons to me, he didn't pursue his studies. I had
always felt if he had studied further, things would have been much different.
I have earlier
mentioned that, he stopped teaching at schools. It is due to an interesting
incident that happened during his teaching session. Once he was teaching some
long mathematical proof, which ends with an answer ‘4’. Throughout the class
one mischievous guy was making pranks and trying to attract attention of his
class mates. This got on to nerves of Sukru sir, who is basically short-tempered. And he called the boy out and asked, “What do you want?”
The guy replied, “Nothing Sir”
Sukru sir asked again calmly,
“Them why were you disturbing the class throughout”
The guy replied with an innocent
look, “I had a doubt”
Sukru sir asked in suspicion,
“What doubt?”
The guy replied, “I didn't know
how that ‘4’ came”
Sukru sir fell into his trap, and eagerly went
near the board to explain and asked, “From which step you didn't understood”
The guy now cracked his prank on
Sukru sir too, “No doubt in that problem, but how the number 4 came into
existence”
The whole class
fell into laughter, which made Sukru sir’s anger go out of control, he twisted
the guy’s ear and pulled him near the board, and drew three lines forming
number “4”, and said, “This is how this 4 came, now get lost without wasting
the class time” and thrashed him out of the class room.
This
guy turned out to be, son of some important big-shot from that village. So
there was immense pressure on him to apologize to the student and take him back
into his class. He plainly refused saying, “I will resign, instead of teaching
one disobedient student”. And he didn't go to school after that.
He then set up
his maths tuition class in his home. He usually taught for very low fee and
free for students who couldn't afford to pay. He’s such an excellent teacher
that almost all of his students topped their maths exams. I managed to score
97% in my higher secondary maths, which I owe to him. And that is the last time
I did well in maths.
We have asked
him lot of times to set up his maths institute in Chennai, so that he can earn
well, due to the maths tuition craze for higher secondary Maths. He plainly
refused each time, that his village students deserve him more, and that he’s
not really interested in making money out of teaching.
Finally I like
to quote one thing he said to me recently while talking.
“Humbleness is
the greatest fee, a student can give to his teacher”
