The Diary of a Teacher
The Diary of a Teacher
It was a Friday. Usually, Friday noon-intervals are lengthy as Muslim students have to go to the mosque for their weekly prayer. We were in the staff room enjoying the leisure time after the lunch. It was then that a man who was working in the nearby field came to the staff room. We got surprised to see him there and asked him the reason behind his arrival. He told with a gloomy face that the money he had kept in his bicycle was stolen by one of our students. He claimed that he would be able to recognize the student also. So we decided to find the villain very soon.
In order to catch the culprit red-handed, we extended our search to all the class rooms. At the end of the whole thing, one boy from the 6th std. revealed that one of his class mates had gone to the field and it might be he who had stolen the money. But that time the boy was not there. We waited there till the bell had rung. Then Raj, the suspected one came to the class room. We took him to the staff room and asked him patiently what actually happened. At first Raj had denied all the matters. But at last, the ten year old lost his capacity to hide things. He admitted that he had stolen the money. We did not beat him.Instead, we asked him to return the money after seeking pardon from the worker. It was then that Raj burst into tears. We all got surprised to hear him saying aloud that he had spent it for buying new pencils and notebooks. We had checked his bag and realized that it was true! Then he told us his story - about his mentally unfit mom and drunkard pappa! Our eyes were full of tears and we tried to make him understand the wrong side of what he had done. We gave money to the man who came with the complaint. But the happiest thing is that the incident became a turning point in Raj’s life. He gave up all those habits and improved himself in his academic activities. Now the school provides financial assistance for his studies and food. It was an eye-opener for us too. Those tearful eyes that depicted the pathetic story of a broken family still remain in my heart as a painful memory.
