Birthday Post - I'm feeling Lucky

Some 21 years back, a really beautiful lady was 9 months pregnant, and was out with the love of her life, to watch the colourful and musical festival of Navratri on the streets of Ghatkopar, when she started craving for an ice cream. So the obedient husband, his best friend and the lady went to a nearby restaurant to have some ice cream, apparently the ice cream was called 'gadbad ghotala', and suddenly she realised that the baby inside her tummy wanted to desperately come out and dance to the tunes of the garba music! That was 27th September 1992, and the baby was successful in coming in this world on the 28th of September 1992.

 Till date, Navratri has been her favourite festival, and garba her favourite dance form. Unlike most of the families in India, this particular family was looking forward to a girl child, and their happiness knew no bounds today, 21 years back. It is 21 years since that day, and till today they have been proud to have, not one, but 3 beautiful girls in their family.

 Today on my 21st b'day, I feel lucky to be able to pick up my phone, understand, and be able to write about my feelings. I feel lucky to know my Birth Date. I feel lucky that all my 21 birthdays I had a cake to cut, I had an opportunity to celebrate it. In spite of being a girl child, In spite of being a women, In spite of coming from a not-so-modern family. I Feel lucky to have a FAMILY.

Teaching- reduced to a mere profession

Teaching:the noblest profession on this earth, very true. Most of my family is into teaching. From my Grandfather to my Mother, most of them have been teaching all their life. My Grandfather is 75 years old now, and he is still teaching. I have heard a lot of people saying, ‘so nice Mrs. Thakkar you get all the Bank holidays, summer vacations, and you don’t have to work 9-5’, well that is true,but people don’t realize teaching involves a lot of hard work, patience and is one of the most difficult tasks.

When I hear my grandfather talk about his younger days as a teacher, I hear so many interesting stories; some make me laugh, and some make me wonder. And when I hear my mother talk about her experience I notice that there is sharp decline in the respect,the gratitude children have for their teachers. My mother has been working as a teacher since she was 20, it has been 25 years today, and today she isn't happy with her profession.

We often blame the education system for everything. We talk about how boring our teacher was, but there is a lot to it. I have just started my career, and I'm paid what my half of what my mom is paid, in spite of having a 25 years experience. Yes, the professions differ, but do you realize that teaching in a school is the base of what a person becomes in the future.

Youth today don’t want to teach, why, because there is no future, where is the growth.  There is an acute scarcity of teachers today, and the entire load is on the teachers who already exist in the schools. There are certain rules for every school, limited subjects; limited periods are allotted to teachers. My mom is in her 40s, and she takes 2 subjects, Science and Maths. Recently she was trained to take Information Technology. My mom has no idea about computers, she does not even know how type a message, imagine she learning computers, about the softwares I haven’t heard in my life in just a month (twice a week) and teach her students. Of course students will find her stupid, she will be laughed upon.

Lack of teachers, declining quality of education, declining respect for teachers,the level of gratitude for teachers going down, and a lot of other problems,affects the future. Teachers' Day has been reduced to a mere ritual. It is high time that the policy makers of the country paid attention to this vital and neglected sphere.

These are only some things I know, I'm sure there are a lot of other issues which need to be addressed urgently!