The Dream of Becoming One Teacher (introspection)

Khan Naseer

Professor G. M sulked and shied away in the corner trying to hide behind the rows of the junior faculty members, who occupied the front row. The eminent bureaucrat was scheduled to arrive around 10:00 am for the inaugural function. He was a staunch man and most of the time he spoke like an angry adult flirting with time, he was a late bird and truly in line with the ugly habit of a bureaucrat or VIP in this part of the world, made the people’s terry longer than expected before turned up on the stage. He arrived around 2:00 pm. Both the general public and the faculty of the college had to eat the humble pie while waiting upon his pleasure. Some of them won’t mind the long wait because they were either sycophants who would kneel, crouch and sing unwanted eulogy and praise just to tune the secretary of the state to a desirable mood to win his favour. The younger faculty reacted impatiently, the way they were made to abandon the luxurious beds and late sweet dreams in order to be on time just to keep the secretary in good humour. The order was issued by the principal asking them to report around 8:00 am in the morning. Between mixed moods; there was only one man who bore this frustrating waste of time and boredom like a stoic. He was the senior most faculty member on the roll.

With six years and three decades of service, Professor GM had served the department in different capacities. As he got back to his memory lawn, the remembrance of his past when like a new entrant, he entered the prestigious circle as a young chap knocking at twenties. Behind him the romantic image of a teacher he carved out from the books and portraits. The teacher is a real intellectual, the manufacturer of fate and architect of the future, the founder of the nation, the pride of the society and a figure to whom people look forward as a guide, mentor and torch bearer of light upon darkness.

The romanticism and halo behind the word fizzled out as does the gas from coca-cola bottles, as the days unfolded. He was through it, carrying with him the image and prestige of the post of a teacher. He started his journey with a belief that there is one universal teacher who is respected and regarded for his Promethean act of teaching. His profession is noble, his character a standout, his tongue speaks up for courage and truth, his etiquettes set a precedent, his dress is apparel of a lovely form, his words are the gumdrops of wisdom, a sweat to the tongue and honey to ears. He is loved and inspires love. He rules by it, not by coercion, but, by humility and grace of his character. He is in action an institution of unity and elegance. His pride is his contribution in making his student .Not only does he pass on to him knowledge, facts and intelligence but modus operandi for the successful productive and purposeful life.

At the tail end of his career, the professor wrestled to fight out the falsification of his dream he had cherished so long and nourished with his life. He discovered the hollowness of his belief. His theory is a hoax, a colossus with clay feet. The dream of one universal teacher united by the nobility and uniqueness of the profession is a far cry. The feeling of being highly honored by virtue of being in a noble profession looking like a proverbial empty vessel making much noise.

He was trounced and let down not by any other departments but by his own people who built-up barricades around him. He had joined as teacher on deputation to Nobra valley in the biting cold. He embraced the challenge like a brave heart defeating the unbearable chill by the heat of his passion as a teacher. However, he could never overcome the harshness of the words of his headmaster who flounced him. He wasn’t a real teacher but on deputation as unpronounced punishment. The harshness of words and weather forced him to flee. He applied for a contractual position in the university. Ḥe got it not because of his extraordinary research but because someone born with a silver spoon recommended him.

When he joined the highest seat of learning he witnessed an unhealthy and unprofessional competition and war of supercility. He saw another teacher struggling for space. He being a zilch and of no significance had the first hand experience of lobbyism and nepotism. He looked into his eyes deep and dark brown with huge eyelashes. He felt his want for blue eyes. In one of the corners he saw one of the professors fighting out his seclusion. His sphere of influence squeezed. He came to know his fault. That unlucky fellow was born in a remote district in the open air. Politics of region, an irrational yard stick to forge unity of interest and groupism. Despite his eminence, the professor teaching fiction had accepted his lot as an absurdist proclaiming no meaning in anything and impermanence in everything. Again his concept and dream about one teacher bonded together by the brotherhood of the profession looked like chalk and a cheese.

Next year, he didn’t get the opportunity to be a part of the teaching fraternity because his competition was with a niece of someone who held a very important portfolio in the top brass. However, he had applied for a college contractual. He joined the college and on the very first day was teased for a flawed joining report. Obviously there was nothing wrong in it as for language, syntax, semantics and grammar was concerned. He had to bite the bullet. In the college, he was astonished at the way things were discussed: backbiting and backstabbing enjoyed like a coffee table gossip and gupshup instead of some academic discussion or student centricism. He was abashed the way his fellow colleagues were treated: an insurmountable barrier, separating the world of contractual from the permanent. Despite all his best efforts, he never won the trust of his principal or senior faculty as if he was a stranger like all those who carried the tag of a contractual. He had done a PG,NET, JRF, an MPhil, a PhD.,Served the university but everything with him was contractual, his knowledge and experience a waste of time.. He heard the bitter words, and a contractual is a minus faculty, a trust deficit, a melting icicle who has a lease of days, a disposable item entitled even not to enter the chamber of principal or self styled HoD’s or the big guns. Then came the day when he was shell shocked to a lasting dumbfoundedness. After having came from the class where his deliverance had been a fabulous one with his students applauding the effort and his pedagogy of teaching leaving him to leave the class with pride and inward merriment, the bliss of highly successful teaching which makes a teacher proud and feel on cloud nine, he plunged into one the sofas drowning himself in the fanciful jocund visage of his students enlarging his bosom: an involuntary act without any premeditation, a trifle of a sort as light as a broken feather, he never would have took it as offence for who would care such an idiocy where a man is supposed or forbidden not to occupy a place in the staff room? He might never have thought it would set someone burning as does the sulphur. He was shaken up by the terrible rant and yell of a senior faculty in grey robe who at the top of his pitch sued him and demanded an explanation for the breach of honour and sanctity of the seat reserved for him /her as Shakespeare would describe colopetras and seat, barge she sat in, like a burnished throne; That person wore anger as offshoot of a miserable look of timidity and lack of grace with beauty granted to the person as miserly as a miser would give a tip to a beggar. However, over conscious of this want he/she made it up in other ways. As such was known as ‘the professor of titles’ and was careful not to drop any of the titles and had written all the appellation in the silver coating like a kid who wants all of his/her toys and dolls around. On the board hanging on the door was written before the proper name acronyms and short forms like Prof (Dr/ Pg diploma /Coordinator/Convener/Member of board of studies. Mr/Mrs! The person was fond of saying, “who has drunk the milk of his mother to confront me or look straight to me?” And here the naiveté had done the mischief and the axe fell on him. How dare you sit there on the grey cover-up sofa an aristocratic colour?  You must know your place and know it is an offence to sit where an associate professor sits! It was a sacrilege of a sort, fault of his schooling, uncouthness and roughness of his character. He felt the pain in his life fluid. But the law was an advantage to a man with the stamp of permanence, so he had to bite the dust. Could a senior professor sink to such an abyss?

His heart was crying yet composed. Egocentric enough not to make himself a public spectacle. He prostrated, bowed and made an earnest plea to his lord. He must break his heart for a broken heart is priceless. He had his eyes melting like big candle burning unevenly and the drops falling like blood samples on the slide. His cries were heard? He was shortlisted for +2, a decent job. Would he get it and realize his dream as a teacher not getting astray. Yes, he made it and joy knew no bonds. Feeling contend with a feeling of security, social as well as financial around him he expected cohesion and unity in the institution he was about to join. At least he would concentrate on the noble job of a teacher, the unaclaimed architect of the society. Again he was mistaken? The concept of a teacher doing the fundamental act of teaching without any distractions still an idea not operative on ground. He saw another cleavage of a different nature. A yawn between generations, direct PSC Recruits and promoted ones, from master grade to lecturers as if they were two unidentical bisection of the same apple, conflict between RET and SSRB teachers, RAMSA’s and SSE as if it was an ideological rift or east west twain that was destined never to met. Could anyone give up these pretty qurallels for the sake of brotherhood of a sort that exists between a clerk and a clerk, a doctor and his Co -professional etcetera etcetera. He waited for a suitable answer.

And the answer remained a riddle of his life, a crossword puzzle! He saw another division, even more unnatural and unwanted this time within the same group. He had never heard about two types of lecturers, the promoted ones and the direct ones, an eerie uneven feeling the way he was received by a group who wore a forcible smile, an adjustment of the sort in the mood. Despite his best efforts, he could not become one with his colleagues who brought before him different forms of associations and labels he wanted to avoid. He was asked to join a group and sign a memorandum that had nothing to do with the teaching. He was again away and far off from teaching. He wanted to get rid of it! And got rid of it. Back to the square one, in the college as assistant professor, as if he had completed a cycle. He was half way through his career, swinging like a fulcrum trying to get into a stable position. It all looked like a mock drill of roles. This time round when he joined the college everything looked different. The same faculty member greeted him and offered him the grey colored sofa. He was thought to have grown majestic in his chocolate suit and black glossy shoes. “Wow, Such a transformation is a great overhaul . Welcome, to the genteel circle”. He was getting this kind of feeling after having undergone the trauma of an untouchable.

He could not understand this new music. It looked Greek. How had he changed? He could not figure it out. Obviously the shine of his face had soiled a bit because of battering times and siege of hours. Miffed up, he went to spend time with his colleagues, a group of contractuals to share his experience and tell them not to let themselves down. By this time they too had divided into seven past and less years, on status quo and on requisition, PhDs and MPhil’s. He heard their arguments in the lawn. Tied, he left back to his seat. Had he cheated the institution of teaching learning? He heard the harangue, a stream of words. He ought not to be friendly and intimate with contractuals, not to brush shoulders with the local fund, not to break bread with non teaching. He knew it was crap, inhuman approach and understanding but could not openly confront it because it was part of the protocol.

It looked odd and obnoxious but it had grown like weeds everywhere and all over the places. What a terrible perversion in the institution where knowledge should have ruled, gentleness flowed as fresh stream, life and culture got explained, values transferred and ideas flourished! His image of a teacher was falling apart. Despite his level best he could not pull down the great wall of segregation and improve things around him.

Exasperated and defeated he had started a countdown of his days. Like Orwellian Benjamin he had, despite, all his eloquence and sea of experience locked his tongue to a standstill. Never would he mind anything, not even if he would be ridiculed. . His dream of one teacher collapsed. At all other places he could see the brotherhood. No Co-professional would be little and degrade his fellow colleague as did the teacher who was not only divided but diverted from the teaching. He knew there were some outstanding teachers but they were either silent or pushed to the wall by a group who acted like courters. He could not become one among them and wished never to be.

And when the bureaucrat took a dig on teachers, they were obviously offended. It would draw flak. Only he won’t mind it. He knew a teacher was insulted more by his fellow colleagues and his own unprofessionalism and selling himself to the devil’s workshop. Why should he mind, when the dignified secretary said as a prologue to his speech, and I had headed the department of higher education and now I am heading the department of Animal and Sheep husbandry. I felt no difference in either cases”. Did he mean animals, cattle and professors or teachers have the same identity and traits?. While others took it as a deliberate insult and raised questions, he knew the answer but preferred not to comment or spill any beans or break the ice.

Naseer khan is assistant professor at Department of Higher Education.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are writers own.