Who is Your Beacon Light?
The Ideal Human Being
The very first poem in the Senior Higher Secondary English textbook is titled 'The Person I am Looking For' and the writer is Hazara Singh. The poem lists the kind of qualities one would look for, in an ideal human being.
I was conducting a lecture in an Arts class, and after telling the students how lucky they were to be studying the Humanities, I set them a task to do.
The Task
The last stanza of the poem contains a line which says that if you have all the ideal qualities the poet was looking for, you will be a 'beacon-light for people far and wide.'
I asked the kids to write an essay on whoever they thought was the beacon-light in their lives. Time-30 minutes.
As I brought the essays home and read them, and I went down on my knees in gratitude that I was an English teacher. I had the privilege to read the kind of things these teenagers, supposedly blasé, and cynical, felt, and expressed in such lucid prose and with such felicity, that I was left reeling in joyful amazement.
They write about fathers who had to shoulder responsibility at the age of 15, because of a change in family fortunes, "my father used to wear a borrowed suit and go to work, to appear older than he was, when his father died, leaving him to take care of all responsibilities when he was 15." He is the beacon light of my life, she says.
My grandfather died last month, another wrote, He was 78. For the last couple of months before he died, he was in extreme physical pain, but I never saw him frown. He used to tell me, she concludes, that the only one who can keep you down is yourself. When you fall, get up and walk again. I love him, the child concludes. He made me what I am.
My father was so poor, said another one, he delivered newspapers to pay for his school fees. He taught me to dream big and go after the dream with confidence.
My friend was my beacon light, said another, but she had an accident owing to a short circuit in her house. She died in hospital eight months ago, but she taught me that life is precious.
My beacon-light is my friend, says another and we are so close that I am terrified of what will happen if she is no longer part of my life.
There are also a couple of kids grateful to doctors, teachers, psychotherapists, family members dealing with autistic kids, and single mothers, and what they wrote about these people brought me to tears, realising again how many problems the smiling face of a teenager hides, and what a wealth of understanding they possess. It is a privilege, and an honour to help a teenager learn.
To all the writers here, who are teachers: Anastasia Soul Gypsy Lilit A. Sargsyan Ruby Lee Luccia Gray Ritu S Kapadia Luisinha Miracorrea, Ayse Birsel, EP McKnight, MEd , Connie Song, TAKING OFF THE ARMOR, Marcella Carey we have all seen this spark in class, haven’t we?
Stay blessed.
