Story Trigger - How I did what I did!

 Here is another story that emerged from my musings on life.

Story Trigger : An incident that took me down this path

I had a very normal childhood, school, dance, music class, playing with friends, disobeying parents (sometimes!). I was not keen on writing competitive exams, so did not take the usual entrance exams that my friends were going after. As was expected I chose to do my favorite subject, Zoology from a well known college in Chennai.

Outside the class I was crazily into NCC ( ask my Father!), but insde the classroom I was known as the diligent note-taker!. Even now I have  a habit of opening a book and taking my pen out if someone starts lecturing! 

Very often classmates would ask me for my notes and I would give it to them without a question. There was this one girl sitting just behind me, not a friend, but a classmate who regularly asked me for my notes. I did give her the books but it was after a few weeks of repeated asking that I eventually turned to her and said, "Can you not take your own notes, why do you keep borrowing from me?". Her reply shook me up. 

"I studied in Tamil medium school till 12th std. Though I can read and write English, I am slow and need to check if my notes are correct. This college allows us to write our exams in Tamil or English and since lectures are in English I need to constantly check if I have it right"

To study in college were everyone fends for themselves is one thing, to do it in a language that you are not proficient in, is another. My respect for the girl deepened. 

My story doesn't end here. 

A few weeks later, there was a book with her I needed as exams were approaching, and I had not seen her for almost two days, and I was panicking. I asked around and found out where she lived. I decided to go through the winding by-lanes of crowded T-Nagar in Chennai to finally locate her PG accommodation. A small room where 5 girls from my college lived. There was barely room for their mattresses and pillows, piled up in a corner and she was sitting on the floor having late lunch or tiffin; I am not sure. 

She apologized and handed me the book, telling me she had been unwell and had not been able to come to college. I took the book and asked her a few questions hesitantly. That is when I became aware of a world so different from mine. She shared with me that she was a first generation (female) student from a village in Tamil Nadu, with a desire to be educated, she had fought with her parents to get a seat in an English medium college. She couldn't afford to fail, she had to prove her worth.

 I returned from there a very different person.

I realized my privileges and how much I took for granted and how much I owed to where I had been born . That encounter in my life shaped the way I saw myself and education and made me sensitive to the fact that a right to education and learning is everyone's nonnegotiable right. This catalyzed my journey into teaching, but not a regular course, I took up teaching children with special needs and that made me value my role as an educator regardless of gender, religion, ability or disability.