Outrunning the Unknown Runner

During the early days of teaching in a boarding school one gets to come across diversity of odd moments. The time is full of tests and cross-examinations. People around you — founders, administrators, colleagues, staffs, students, and students’ parents — try to know your knack in their own ways. Or, at least, you appear after a time to consider the need of ensuring such multifaceted satisfaction as the only secret of becoming a teacher. This is my understanding, which,  I admit, need not resemble anyone’s. Experiences vary.

My actual, substantial teaching career began in Pashupati English Boarding School, Urlabari. I recall this beginning for two reasons. First, it was a turning point in my life for my first entry in an established institution. It was a beginning of vigorous learning — to teach standard English, work long hours, take studies and work along together, support parents, grow and sustain aspirations, manage interpersonal vicissitudes, fall in love and realize the practical side of falling and failing, and many. Second, it started in Bhadra; Bhadra counts in my life. I started university teaching in Bhadra 2057, had the first son in Bhadra 2058.  Bhadra of 2065 was marked by at least three things: my younger son, Hridaya, was born, I finished M. Phil.,  I received National Education Award.

Well, the entry to Pashupati was exciting. I went to ask if there was a vacancy (In fact, I had had a hint that there was or would be one). The principal, Jit Bahadur Rai as I recall now, told me to drop an application. When I did, they asked me to prepare for a short demonstration class. I did it, and taught in class three for about ten minutes. This was the first time I had spoken English to students to my satisfaction.  Then they took a sort of interview –  if I could join instantly. I said yes. They said I had to come the following day to meet the founder who was going to fix my facilities. Everything was so fast and less than expected. As it was so, people naturally began to eye on me, which I knew only later when Mr. Prem Subedi, my mentor and former guru, counseled me about the school ‘environment’.

When people eye on you in a workplace, you must check everything, especially how they try to crisscross the lines of responsibilities.  You must first be clear about your line(s), and see where they go closer to and farther from others’. One morning I was teaching English in the same class three, which was next to the staff room in the old tin-roofed block. I was only half-way with the new teacher’s vigour when a man (a colleague, of course) who had happened (or pretended/wanted) to hear the fun we were making, came to the door, excused himself and began to scold the students for making noise. Then he again excused himself, called me out and began to counsel me. Some other colleagues were watching this from the adjacent staff room. I was a bit puzzled because I had never seen him. Had I known that he was junior to me in qualification and equal in post, I would have spoken more fluent and better English to the hearing of everyone around. I just listened and thanked him ‘for his valuable words’. But this little thing spread like a wild-fire, reached to Prem Sir, the Vice Principal. The colleagues who had heard the lecture later said to me, in his absence, of course,  “I would thrash that snob. But you are new and humble. Check from next time.” So were Prem sir’s words when I explained what had happened. He said, “He knows you were my student. Some other teachers know it, too. You can expect a few more such tests. And next time, with him or anyone else, argue strongly and with the best English you have. Make sure you know more and speak better than your juniors and equals here.”

My confidence level had never been low wherever I worked then, neither has it been now. Working in Pashupati gave me the best opportunity to test confidence practically. It was a big place for my age and qualification but had swift chance of promotion. And promotion was ensured in working hard and emulating others. It was a time when a locally educated lad like me was brought face to face with Darjiling-born ‘experts’ highly sought-after in English boarding schools. I was an alternative to the experts to start with, and proved unbeatable in the course of one year. People tested me time and again. The Hostel warden, whose assistant I was, tested me half a dozen times, the hostellers tested me, the cooks and peons did that. But the then Kafle sir was not an inch dwindled. I remember one English teacher coming to the hostel tutorial time in the evening just to test how well I wrote and spoke English. He gave a question to answer as if I were a student. I wrote and explained. He confessed he wanted to see how Prem sir’s disciple would actually fare in his proficiency parameters. later, he became a very good partner in speech; he was a crazy learner of English himself.

I had started as an assistant hostel warden, which demanded a lot of going around and quarreling with kids. I hated this after a time because it overtook my study.  At the end of the session, which was the end of Mangsir at that time, I requested the founder, “Sir, the hostel work is taking my study time. Though I entered as a warden, I want to continue as only a full timer. Now I must also keep my brothers with me and  go out of the hostel. But I promise to work harder and even help in tutoring the hostel kids in the evening. Will you release me?” He agreed to let me stay out, but said I had to continue as a primary level teacher with the earlier salary. This meant I was not going to get a promotion to the lower secondary though there was a vacancy and I was eligible. For me leaving the quarrelsome kids was a better reward than a promotion for that time.

A year passed. I ‘topped’ my batch in the Bachelor first year exams. My young colleagues advised me to reveal this fact in the upcoming start-of-the-session staff meeting. We bought some kilos of orange and distributed at the end of the meeting. The friends disclosed the reason for this humble treat.  I did not really bother how it worked. But friends said my success was a lesson to my competitors. Prem sir later reminded me the optimism of the myth of  “a needle-like entry for a ploughshare’s exit.” This success added to my image. But I had to prove that I could top the second year also, which I did. There was no celebration for this since I left the school along with the results.

The founder rarely called anyone to his office if he had to talk with them. One day, right before the new academic year started (in my second year in the school), he beckoned me to the basketball court construction site, where he was admonishing his workers for meticulousness. I was a bit nervous. I thought something might have gone wrong. But he said, in his usual scanty words, “Now I know why you wanted to leave the hostel. You’ve been working very well. So, I’ve decided to promote you to the lower secondary post. Prem sir will give you a couple of new classes in grade 7 and 8 also. Get ready for them, OK?”. Not only the promotion, I had got the chance to teach higher classes, which other English teachers had aspired for. What’s more, in the year’s school day the founder announced the reward of two grades for me. There was now no point in looking back and down. I had grown.

During a short farewell gathering on my last day in the school, the Principal and Mr. L.P. Regmi, both respectable old teachers, enumerated the phases of my growth in those two years and four months. For the first time I realized the accuracy and weight of the judgment of experienced people. They said they were happy for my beginning ahead though the school would welcome my longer stay. They only expected me to acknowledge how Pashupati had prepared me to explore new opportunities in Kathmandu. It is during this farewell moment that I first heard the principle of “forgiving and forgetting” unpleasant encounters of the past at the start of a new journey ahead.

Thus, with B.A. and confidence, I left Pashupati in the winter of 2053.  I have always made it a rule to visit the school whenever I go home. When I  reach there, I get a feeling of being around all these fourteen years though a lot of things have changed. I will cherish those 28 months for the rest of my life.

And, I continue to value the early tests and cross-examinations. If similar cases occur today also, I just take them as the new editions/reprints of those valuable old books.  Working in Pashupati,  I learned this simple maxim for life: Professional life is a race. Whether you like or not, there always is a pressure to run faster. You may not know others’ speed, but must constantly try to outrun them without tresspassing their trails. When you win, the person who deserves both thanks and congratulations is you yourself.

[Originally included in http://neltachoutari.wordpress.com , April 2011]

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