Saying Farewell…

Here is the month of March again, a sad month for me always as it is time for me to say Bye to most of my students (hopefully now friends) graduating soon. And I always feel that it was not enough, since it was just the other day that I had met them for the first time. In fact, the sad part of it all is that we had just begun to know one another well, and time was now ripe to interact fully with fun, but alas time was up and they would go soon to newer horizons, newer environments.
Perhaps, divine grace has made me a teacher only to learn this experience of bidding “byes” year after years. Maybe, I was ill-equipped in doing this in past lives and thus nature in all its benevolence has put me in an environment where I teach the whole year round and then learn my own bitter lesson at the end of every year. This month also triggers memories of so many past students who had become such good friends at the end of their class that they cried on the last day and promised to never say bye by remaining in touch. And today, I don’t even know where they are and what they do. Many had their ‘downs’ in life in varied forms, and came back temporarily to share their heartburns and personal agonies. But once, that phase got over (as everything does in the cycle of life), they left leaving behind their sweet memories. The fault of feeling sad then was truly mine, since I forgot the initial lesson of life which says “This too shall pass away.” The police department has a 'Lost and Found’ file. Perhaps, I have a ‘Found and Lost’ file. Maybe, reasonless care, and purposeless affection, and agendaless love have become outdated in this world of Google and Whatsapp. All this is not about living in the past as you may conclude. It is more about caring of the past. So wish me luck as I prepare to say Bye to a lot of people whom I may never see again in life once they leave in March.

- Anjan Dangarwala