This year a young gentleman faculty who held charge
of Principal commenced his new year speech by praising his
stars for the rare opportunity he received in wishing the students of the
college on the very first day of the year! But as it is customary in a Teacher
Training college to remind trainees of their special role, the in-charge
gentleman referred in his speech to many epoch-making and earth-shattering
events…from Ebola to Malala, from 3G to Global warming, from Chandrayaan to
discoveries in mutation and from the Air Asia crash to the Peshawar massacre!
Another gentleman, who was invited to speak,
in his speech elaborated on
the significance of 2015 which is intended to be celebrated as
International Year of Soils!
Both speakers had
consumed over a quarter of an hour and
by the time, I was invited to
speak, the aroma of plum cake being served to the audience
hit the dias and the first thoughts that assailed my mind when I got up
to speak had the flavour of plum cake, which made me say:
To speak …one needs energy…
For energy… one needs food…
One has to take food to live….
So to feed many mouths…countries have to give priority to
agriculture…
Thoughts of both the Sherwama
disaster and the recent bird flu crossed my mind…and I continued…:
But these are days when some…Live to Eat!
Eat to Live…. &… Live to Eat are two different philosophies…
By now I could see a
hundred eyebrows raised… each with the potential query….What’s that got to do with a New year message?... So I immediately shifted
gear…and said:
All of you will soon be addressing students in schools as
teacher trainees and of course you will try to drive home the message:
Live to Learn
Then applying the same linguistic strategy I had applied earlier, I re-phrased and said:
I think the time has come for
you to
Learn to Live...
Yes you should Learn to
Live
That’s what the previous speakers referred to …
Everything that they said involves an individual’s effort to
learn to adjust with his/her constantly changing world …be it ICT-related or
environment-related….
That is my message… LEARN TO LIVE …
That is my message… LEARN TO LIVE …
I don’t know
how that idea flashed my mind… but it definitely appeared a master
stroke…. With that message I wished all present a prosperous new year and the
courtesy applause followed…
Late that night I tried to reflect on the day’s speeches…
The young-in-charge
had obviously brushed up his General Knowledge
before coming to college. The second speaker must have read the day’s
newspaper which made him refer to the significance of the year 2015.
BUT… where did I get
my idea from?.. It obviously was not prompted by a stroke of genius…I
ruminated… I skimmed through my Scrap Pad where I note down ideas which I come
across…and I found the following:
There are three constants in life…change, choice and principles -
Stephen Covey
Do not follow where the path may lead…
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail -Ralph Waldo Emerson
I had jotted down the
‘wise thoughts’ only the previous week from a string of stickers with
quotations pasted on the walls of the
compartment of the Super Fast day train -
Janashadabdhi shuttling between Trivandrum and Kannur.
The ‘punctuality quotient’ of this train in
recent weeks hit rock bottom owing to delays caused by track maintenance.
I then realized that the genesis of my New year
message came from the thoughtful gesture
of an official of the South Indian Railways who took the wise decision to paste stickers with
quotations on train compartments….
This makes our life’s journey less tiring…
Thanks to the Indian
Railways…
Thanks to those wise thoughts….
C.P.
