Veeir Bhaiya had won a
state-level cricket tournament by hitting the last winning shot. Alishha and I wrote
a poem for him. Reteka Masi and Vishaal masosa got highly impressed by our
poem. Vishaal masosa even expressed his wish for us to write a poem on him. Alishha
and I were excited and pleasingly agreed to do so. Within a couple of hours of
his request, we accomplished that task. Nana immediately whatsapped him too. As
he read that poem he was overjoyed and called us. He was overwhelmed to see our
vocabulary, accuracy, and promptness. He was literally in tears of happiness. He
wanted to reward us for writing two poems in such a small span of time. He offered
to take us out for dinner. We pleasingly agreed to that. 😊At the dinner, he continued praising
us. Many times he even asked us to teach him writing poetry. which made us
laugh and giggle. We thought he was joking as how could we teach him; we were too
young.
Later, while coming back home
I recalled a chapter from Sudha Murty’s book, titled, “How I taught my grandmother to read”. Sudha was a young girl. She and her grandmother (Amma) used to love
reading a Kannada magazine series which came every fortnight. Her grandmother
did not know how to read as she had not gone to school. Therefore, Sudha would
read it and her grandmother would listen carefully. Once Sudha had to go for a
marriage party with her parents. The magazine came as usual in time. Sudha ‘s
grandmother tried to read it in the absence of Sudha but couldn’t understand a
single alphabet. When Sudha came back, she found her grandmother sobbing. Amma
desperately wanted to become literate and independent for reading. Sudha just
laughed at Amma’s thought. She said Amma was too old to be taught and she was too young to teach.
Then Amma explained to her that no teacher should be discriminated on the basis
of age and that is what their God has taught them. Eventually, Sudha taught her,
and in just ten days Amma was able to read.
This story made me ponder. I started analyzing my thoughts and Sudha’s dialogues
to her Amma. We were having similar stereotypes. Masosa might be as keen as Amma
to learn. When he asked us to teach, we giggled as we were feeling embarrassed.
Vishal masosa, one who has traveled half of the countries in the world, has met
so many knowledgeable people across the globe and who is embedded with
uncountable talents, was asking us to teach him. We are just some 11 and 8-year
old, who write poems in Heart club gleefully. We had never imagined that we
would be given this opportunity to teach such an accomplished person. But the
fact is that Masosa has taught me something today: Firstly, for a student only one
quality is essential- that is the urge to learn. Secondly, there is no age for
being a teacher; anyone with talent can be your teacher!
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