teen-teen

in uniform

 Adolescent students are a problem if viewed from moralistic perspective, but lively and lovely if we become friends.

In standard seven(age 13+), there are two-three girls who are at the starting point of adolescence phase. They find the school uniform boring, walk in a line degrading and child like interaction insulting. They like to dress up with hair style and accessories. They find it difficult to mingle with rest of the class.

hair style-Geeta 

The class teacher tries to find an in between path. With negotiation, we agree at do's and don'ts. They wear school uniform but can come with hairstyle. We have a dress code for hair style also, that is red ribbon with two palates. Usually adolescent girls like to make single open palate with rubber band. They can also wear fashion accessories like long earnings, nail polish and such. The teacher even appreciates their dressing and fashion sense. If the teacher misses to do so, the girls come up with      The girls in our school have limited economic resources and so we do not need to worry about expensive fashion jewellary.

One other thing is, adolescents like to have long nails. Health and Hygiene education suggests short nails. Here also we came at in-between understanding. They keep long nails but keep them clean.

Hiral

This year, Hiral and Geeta are passing through this beautiful period of their life. They sit together and talk with eyes. Hiral is very good at rangoli decoration and it is her responsibility to check and maintain the decoration of the classroom. They don't like to sit in the assembly-prayer so they skip it smartly on the name of classroom cleaning.

Daxa and Rupa look like adolescents by their physical appearance, but emotionally they are not. The teacher can get deceived by the physical appearance but through interaction the teacher can know this.

Nachiketa and Asho Jarathrust

 On my journey to life, I realized that one can not have answers of all the questions. There are many such unanswered questions from my childhood, student life and so on. Now, I learnt to wait with the question and let it get churned. The question remains there, the desire for answer is also there, and I can see myself trying to 'search out' the answers. And at a point of time 'the eureka' happens. It is like, we get different meaning of the same poetic line as we grow.

I cannot trace out my childhood memory about 'Nachiketa'. (There are many unanswered questions from my childhood and student life are in queue.) But, as a teacher, when I have to 'teach' a unit on 'Nachiketa' in History; few questions raised in my mind : Why in this story a very young boy is shown to face the Death God? Why Nachiketa wants to know about the secret of fire?  The knowledge about fire must be of good importance, otherwise why this simile? 

Well, I used to see religious stories as a record of evolution process. It clearly shows life at that time. (Like, cow was scared and considered as a good property because at that time, life was agricultural oriented.) So, in this regard, I did not have any explanations about my questions about Nachiketa.

Last month, I read a very small book by Navjivan Trust, 'Asho Zarathrust ' and come to know why fire is god-like ans scared for Parsees (Zoroastrians). Before Zoro (not that fiction one.), people of Iran followed many gods. Zoro asked people to consider 'Fire' as a scared tool to reach the almighty. Well, why the fire?  Because, someone has 'invented' it. Before that, fire was a scary thing, uncontrolled. But this 'invented' fire is very useful,controlled,and one can carry it with oneself (two stones at that time.). What a logical vision transformed as religious one !

 Well, you got it ! Why Nachiketa wanted to know about fire. But, of course, as this story belong to the Hindu culture, there are many deep philosophical aspects which I do not intend to write here.

So is about the facing the death god. Hear is a child, who 'sees' the death. He is brilliant and aware and so fearless. He goes through the physical process of death at very young age and discovers what happens physically and psychologically when a human faces death. This is the answer I have on my own understanding, and with time it may change. I have not read 'Kathopnishd' where the dialog between Nachiketa and Yamraj(Death God) is given. But, I enjoy these answers.