When i saw a volcano..

I am going to tell you a story when I saw a volcano but before I start my story; I would like to share a bit brief of my life at school. This little brief would help you to understand how my story of volcano and my school days are connected.  

So as a kid I never liked school, I hated school. I used to make lots of excuses to avoid going to school. I never liked the idea of home work and believe me I never bothered to complete them. I will sit on the back benches to hide from teachers so they couldn't ask me anything about my study or questions from any subject. This is how I survived many years at school. 

Me, my cousin Pooja, my brother Rajiv and my brother Ravi(From Left to right)

There was one more thing which was very irritating for me and it was the comparison of my cousin's school performance with mine. I have a cousin Pooja. We were in the same class and  she was an extraordinary student. And when I say extraordinary I mean really genius and calling her prodigy won’t be wrong especially in her studies. I think she scored full marks in almost every subject.  I remember when she used to get 20 out 20 in almost every subject and I would have like 2 out of 20 especially in mathematics. But this big difference our school grades never came between us, we were very good friends. We used to discuss and share our thoughts. Sometime we used to have quite deep intellectual conversations. The comparison of our grades by my family members  and society; made me dislike the school system more and more. 

A popular picture from internet tells the candid picture of our education system.

Few years passed. End of our primary classes; she got admission in a very reputed school where government was providing free boarding education to those who passed their test. She was one of the smart kids who made it to that school. She went to her new school which was far away from our home town. I continued in my school and for me life was as usual, I was still not serious about school and I was also not very good in sports. So to kill time, I developed a habit of reading stories. Be it comic book, be it a literary story or the stories with adult age content(which I should not be reading them at that age and those books were very difficult to understand for my age at that time). 

Reading stories was my favourite routine and my hobby, Lots of time I used to read the same story again and again and reason for that was I had very limited resource of story books. I remember one incident when one of my uncles was reading a story book and it was a children's story book. I asked if I can I read that book. I desperately wanted to read. I am sure I was annoying him by asking him again and again. he wasn't even reading the book. He was holding the book in his hand and was talking to someone.  I think he got annoyed and he slapped me. I was shocked by his behaviour but I never told anyone about that incident. I was afraid to tell anyone. I could never forgive him for so many years. That slap on my cheek haunted me for many years. He is a bad person not just because of that incident. My uncle has a history of doing bad things to many people. Our family, neighbours  or those who know him, have the same opinion about him. I have forgiven him and I wish him well. 

        

Anyway coming back to the story books. One winter, my cousin came home. She brought her books with her. I think one day she was studying. I myself was free nothing to do as usual, which was pretty common for me those days. I sat next to her. I started browsing her school books. Actually I was trying to find any story book. Her books were very colourful, I started opening the pages from one book and I was astonished by colours used in pictures. If I compare to my books with her books so my school books were mostly black and white.  

While browsing one of her books, I saw one picture which stopped me from turning the page. And this picture was a very colourful image of a volcano. I just started reading about it. It remember it was very nicely explained. I felt that I am actually looking a real live volcano. In my mind's eye, I could see the eruption, the lava and the formation of volcanic rock. It was beautiful and so interesting to read about it. 

Next morning I went to my school. As usual, I had no idea about what’s happening in the class. So there was a test in science class. I wasn't aware about the test and It didn't matter to me. I was very casual with failing the test. There wasn't anything new in failing the test. Anyway I sat in the test, I am not able to recall the questions but all the questions were from a topic called "volcano" :) Believe me I have no idea what I wrote in the answer sheet. But when our teacher announced the marks. I scored 11 out 15 marks and it was the highest in my class, even smart ones couldn't score more than 2-3 marks.  

Entire class was surprisingly looking at me and asking me how did I cheat? Well I did not cheat. I had read about volcanoes and was daydreaming about the volcano eruption just a day before. I wrote it what I remembered. I was smiling and feeling proud about distinct recognition. I know such things could be very small thing for many but this was the very first time when I received any recognition even if it was not huge.

My teacher noticed me and later he would ask me to sit in the front row of the class. Things started changing from here. My attitude towards school changed. I became regular, I got involved in classes.  Once I used to hate arithmetic later I started loving to solve algebraic equations. I was not able to spell "Chemistry" but in the next few weeks I started balancing chemical equations. 

Same year I got involved with science festival at my school. Science festival was my new teacher's idea. We all were asked to make to create something. I choose to make a motor. Yes a battery operated motor from scratch. I got lots of help from my cousin to make this direct current(DC) motor. My mind, my breath and my life mission was to build this motor. Believe me it wasn't easy. I had no money to buy materials to make this motor. I remember borrowed some money from my friend Ashish and i think it was 30 Rupees I needed to buy insulated copper wire. Thank you to my friend Ashish. I couldn't return his money back. It was not like that I never wanted to give his money back. It just I never had that much amount in pocket so I could return him back. However I did helped him and his brother a lot in school in high school. Now when I think I should have asked some money from father but I don't know why I never did. 

Anyway coming back to Motor project, I needed Metal nails to make the structure of the motor, and those nails were generously offered by my relative uncle(Mr Suresh Agrahari) and the last thing I needed was a piece of wooden board to hold the structure, which I found somewhere. Anyway, after a lot of experiments, trials and failures, We succeeded and our motor worked. Our motor won first prize and later it was sent to other schools for demonstration. 

It was a great time and great feeling. I did a few more science experiments and damaged many house hold things in this process. I remember one fine day my father asked me that how come his scissors doesn't work anymore. Well I was the culprit who trying to cut a glass with his scissors. You would laugh but if you try cutting a glass sheet underwater, means fill a bucket with water, place the glass sheet and scissors underwater. Now when you start cutting the glass, you would feel like as if scissors is cutting the glass like a paper though it doesn't make clean cut. What is actually happening here is that your scissors is cracking the glass sheet very smoothly. Please don't try this without safety precautions. Here is a more detailed explanation from Scientific American. "water causes glass to crack more easily because when a water molecule enters the crack, a reaction occurs in which a silicon-oxygen bond at the crack and an oxygen-hydrogen bond in the water are cleaved, creating two hydroxyl groups attached to silicon. As a result, the length of the crack grows by the size of one bond rupture. The water reaction reduces the energy necessary to break the silicon-oxygen bonds, thus the crack grows faster."

One of my favourite creations was a small cardboard boat with steam engine. Shell of whole egg was used to make the container which would generate the steam. I built a few more things I gave them to my friends to present as their creation since they hadn't built anything for the festival and they desperately wanted to participate. 

Now you are wondering where is the volcano. Well I didn't see live volcano with my eyes. By my mind had seen the volcano from cousin's book, it was big with so bright lava explosion and volcano is still imprinted in my mind. All I have to do is to close my eyes and it’s there. This volcano experience was the start of a new beginning. However now I have seen thermal activities in the mountains of New Zealand. I have seen few non active volcanoes but one-day I would love to see a big live volcano.   

This was a quick and very big shift in my life. The new change in me, which definitely provided some relief to my father who was worried sometimes about my academic performance at school.  But at the same time he was also confused and a bit shocked that what just happened to his son. I remember one time he mentioned to someone in humour that lately my son has gone crazy but crazy for good. I am so thankful of my father that he never punished me for my poor performance at school unlike few other parents whom I knew. 

For me the heroes of this new and sudden change in my life, were my teacher Mr. Om Prakash Singh, My cousin Pooja, My second cousin Gautam(Lala Bhaiya), friends from my school and my family who gave so much freedom to me. They helped me to bring the change in me and it eventually turned out to be a new beginning which gave me a purpose. While recalling the time, Now I can say very confidently that we all are born with capabilities to do anything. All it requires passion, commitment and hard work. 

I tried to find my teacher Mr. Om Prakash Singh whose nickname was Bablu Singh but no one knows where is he now. I wish one day I meet him and tell him how grateful I am for his guidance. You would be surprised that this man didn't have any training to be a teacher. He was fresh Mathematic graduate.  Being a teacher was his first job. I remember he never followed the conventional way.  His approach was to learn with fun using practical and real life scenarios and it worked with me and with so many other kids.  I think I forgot to mention that he was the same teacher who took the test on volcano, organised the science festival and took our motor to other schools for demonstrations to motivate other kids.

I send my love and wishes to all my teachers and my friends.

I hated school but I am surprised how one recognition and encouragement changed my perception about school. For me before school was a prison but later it was a place to learn, create something and have a purpose in life. I became very passionate about education. Later in my life I would rebel against my family that I want to go to the city to pursue higher education. Being from a country side village and lower middle class family, financially it was not feasible for me to go to city to chase my dream. What happened next?? I am sure you are curious..  it is very interesting journey.. Please wait for next.. 

Thank you so much reading.    

लोकः समस्त सुखिनो भवन्तु. lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu

ॐ शांति: शांति: शांति: Om Shanti, Shanti Shantihi

May all beings be happy. 

May all my thoughts, words and actions contribute in some way to the happiness of all beings. 

 Om Peace Peace Peace.