Award And Other Stories

Author(s): Pratap J Tolia
Publisher: Vardhaman Bharati International Foundation

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"I was looking at the Birds outside the window and listening to their songs, Bapu: they were singing so nicely, so nicely"---------- Munni went on saying, he who as a teacher have never beaten any child, found himself getting absorbed into the world of the birds and the sky, and all of a sudden like a flash, he saw there, on the screen of his imagination a similar picture, a quite similar episode;
You are not attentive what are you looking at, Rabi?
The so called discipline-minded class teacher of sophisticated Calcutta school was scolding this innocent, imaginative, inquisitive child who was "in-attentive" in the age-old terms of this school master, who hardly knew that the child's sense of wonder could not and should not be suppressed and that the faults of the child's "in-atttention (it at all it was in attention) lay in his own self.
"I am looking at these beautiful Birds--- 1 see!! Aren't they fine? I am attentive in watching(observing) them, sir !' "Jhoom----Jhoom" of the strong stick was the prize and punishment by the teacher to this six year old boy for expressing this Truth not only the Truth, but a significant indication of the process of learning, education.
And the boy, Rabi, in whom the future genious and educationist was hidden, got up, threw away his books and standing before the master declared,
'I am fed up with your lessons and attentions------- Good bye; I will never come to your school, any such school again, where looking at the birds is in-attention is a crime I shall myself found a school where no teacher will prevent the child from looking at the Birds and Nature :"
And a unique seed was sown here which flourished in the form of tree of santiniketan in course of time
This dream's reality and this reality's dream ! child Rabi and little Munni : Rabi's Calcutta School a century ago, Munni's present school today the symbol of the fate of the millions of children the masses and his own fine unique public school, imparting excellent, unparalled instructions, but only for the classes the privileged classes. All came as a series of sequence of events on the screen of his deeper world which was moving at the speed of a move. In course of this he even did not know when little munni slipped from his lap in the joy of biding farewell to her present "beating school" and joining her father's fine public school.
He further visualized how nice it would be to get his little munni admitted in his own school where so nice was the atmosphere, so appropriate was the approach and so kind-compassionate and loving were the visionary and missionary teachers including himself --------