“Those who can…. DO…… Those who cannot…. TEACH”

“Those who can…. DO…… Those who cannot…. TEACH”

Yesterday was teacher’s day. I was with a friend and that’s when in pure jest and in order to heighten his attempt at pulling my leg my friend exclaimed the above words.

I am a teacher and a passionate one at that. Yesterday when I got a couple of text messages from of my students wishing me on Teacher’s Day, my friend laughed aloud. He thought this was the heights of being uncool. I was getting Happy Teacher’s Day messages from young ladies……. That too… addressing me as “SIR”….. man …this was enough laugh dope quota to keep him high atleast for quarter of an hour and then at regular intervals of every half an hour!!!

I was the ultimate object of stupification when I met my other friends later in the evening…. And they too greeted me saying… “How are you Professor Kapadia?” and then burst out laughing!!!!

Though I know all of this was purely in good humour and all my friends really respect me for the person I am and for the things I do, somewhere deep down inside, these incidents raised a flurry of questions.

Do we respect teachers for who they are?
Do we really think that they are individuals of high caliber or it’s just that they are who they are, because they can’t be what you think is a much cooler thing to be…?
Is teaching really a respectable profession in this age?
Can teachers ever be role models for us?
Is the profession financially viable to be pursued in today’s times?
Have we started equating the respectability of each profession with the amount of money we make practicing it?”

Aaah…. Too many questions asked. I told myself. I should stop. But then those golden words kept resonating in my mind. “Those who can…. DO…… Those who cannot…. TEACH”. With me it’s often the case that something has to either sweep me off my feet or displease me to death for it to have top of mind recall for a prolonged period. In this case I couldn’t decide whether the line was a mere wisecrack or a deep rooted insult… This resulted in many more questions….

Those who teach….. can’t they really DO?

Why do those who can DO….. Never TEACH?

And then finally, after prodding myself all night, I think I came up with the key to the Holy Grail of teaching and doing….. The answer lies in the nature of these 2 actions…. Doing and Teaching……

I feel one always looks to “DO” for oneself….. but teaching is something one always does for others without expecting astronomical tangible returns from the action.

You DO…. Because it will give you something in return that will make you happy….. You teach because that itself will make you happy!!!!

Now, I can relate better to what’s going on at the IIM & IIT campuses. The fact that IIT & IIM professors were carrying out a hunger strikes on teacher’s day, in my opinion is as big a catastrophe in the history of our country as the partition or the call for emergency by Indira Gandhi.

In fact it’s a bigger blasphemy because the first two already have affected us adversely, this one, if not set right soon by Babus, will devastate the country unfathomably in times to come. Finally after all these years, someone is trying to assert that they can teach as well as DO… Teaching a choice they have made keeping their passion at the peak of cosiderations. Forget being rewarded for exemplary service to the nation. Just give them their due!!!