Hail to thee, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan...

Dear students around the world,

Forgive me my being late to write this blog. I prepared the speech yesterday, hoped to publish it just after the clicking of 12 midnight, and finally, owing to soaring temperature, I slept, slept for hours, and lifted the shutters of my eyes at about 8:15 AM today. So, at the outset, I would like to append the series of mistakes to this small lecture and bow down to Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

It's my pleasure to discover me, myself and I within the territory of yours. The territory is your heart. And the world changes into the territory of unalloyed love and affection as soon as your messages overflow my mobile phone, often ears and more often than any time, my heart.

I don't know whether this small speech would glorify the depth you have and the beauty you hold and the puissance you possess. Every day when I rise in the morning, a crowd of golden daffodils flash in my inward eye. I rub my eyes, wring my skin and come to full awareness to see golden faces of my students instead of daffodils. Now begins the chirruping and twittering and I get myself busy to whittle down your buzzing around and begin my day-to-day lecture.

Simplicity is the taste of life and has always been the taste of India. Live a simple life. Think bigger. And enjoy every bit of learning. Steer away from the shackles of academics, if you think it to be burdensome, and learn the world like a book. In brief, live life like a life.

You have always given me applauds, thought of me to be a Phoenix, and given me a special tribute. I am down at this blow of respect. Let me divulge my mind. Very practically. I am not your teacher, and can't I ever be of anyone. What I am is always yours. In my everyday living, I read you like books, I see you like white scripts, and think that some divine providence has given out orders to read something immaculate, to think something justifiable and to write something miraculous. Hence, to me, the order of teaching is slightly changed at this juncture, where I see you to be my teachers, whose guidance has made me what I am today.

In my work station, I mean to say, my school, Kodalia Agapur High School, New Barrackpore, I see thousands of students roaming about with talking eyes and giggling hearts. They look at me, give an unforgettable smile and let me walk past them carefully lest my ills and woes should not touch their sacrosanct faces.

India, what history tells, was a land of affluence. Though, as you all know, she is, now, a land butchered by unstable economy – the horrible system of production, distribution and consumption. What you see, remember, you are made see. What you hear, remember, you are made hear. The resources you are made look thirstily at or forced to jump into is an unborn dream to a huge number of students. Sorry, they are not students, they are just fellows having ever dreamt of going to school. The actual scenario is that brutal. The majority of the game birds are groaning under the weight of heavy hours. But the face of economy doesn't reflect the heart of darkness. The political outpourings, the examples of London lovers, the haunt of Oxbridge education – all are merely a way to chime with the fair and flashy façade of economy. Those who are born with silver spoons, have a chance to take a flight. It should not be dealt with the cases suffering from the blunt edges of inherited steel spoons. The smell of billion or trillion doesn't pamper the sufferers, however, it affects them badly. And we don't want to reduce the distance between the impoverished and the billionaires.

Here, villagers are shot at in the name of annihilating Maoists, aborigines are wiped out to erect nuclear plants, and a state terror prevails. Here leaden-eyed despair is the basic Indian glory.

Any good student, and mind it, here I'm acting as a teacher and playing the role of an unbending instructor, should be aware of the grimmest facts of Indian society. Unless and until you are aware of the air you are surrounded by, you will never be able to distinguish between the pleasant and unpleasant smells. The most terrible of all features is that only a spoonful of students knows that they are learned unjustifiably crooked trashes.

You belong to the age of being carried away, whereas I belong to the age of reasoning. When I see you are pulled politically, you see you are motivated. I see nothing but a petty electoral cause behind this affair. Just an oral business in front of microphones to draw the popular passions of energetic youths. So, beware of those cheats, study hard and be not driven away by the illusory walkie-talkies.

The education system, by no means, is under this threat today, and a constant confrontation is being enforced. I don't want to see the Indian education system at its wrack and ruin.

So, please take an inviolable oath to think something good, act better and gain the best. And don't write your name on sand, as the waves will wash it away.

With this epilogue, I may wind up wishing you all...

HAPPY TEACHERS' DAY!