The Times They Are A-Changing

We have all done our bit of monkeying around in school and though I was the kinds that other kids made fun of because I didn't monkey around much, I still did get my bit of scolding and even a slap from a teacher (I know!) for fooling around. I remember once we irritated our teacher so much that she said she wont take a class for us again. It took a lot of persuading and cajoling to get her in our class again.

In my second year at IIT, we had a rather young and cute looking English teacher who was very aware of the fact that she was young and cute looking :). So one evening when she was taking a class she suddenly looks up and says "Who was it?", we are all stunned, we all look at each other clueless as to what it was that had made her rosy cheeks redder with embarrassment or anger. There was silence for a while, pin-drop and awkward silence, suddenly we knew who did what and we broke into a peel of laughter. It happened again, "it" was a tweet (of a bird. Boy! These days you got to clarify) which the teacher mistook for a boy whistling at her. For a couple of classes we could all notice her a little embarrassed and red cheeked at the incident.

Time passes, we grow with the bittersweet memories of the past, laughing at our mistakes. Sometimes we learn from them and many a times we can't fix what we broke. And sometimes, tables turn, the pestering kid of yesterday will be pestered by his own kids tomorrow. As for me, I get to teach a bunch of imps.

I am a part of an NGO which aims to bring awareness to the society by teaching the younger generation about their rights and responsibilities. The course is wonderfully designed for 8th class students as a no credit course with a year end project. The project itself involves creating real solutions to real life problems like Garbage disposals, mismanaged road network etc. Now it all sounds fun, at least to me it does but only till I enter the class, for once I do, the ruckus that those small devils create bring back those fleeting memories of the teachers we so cruelly tormented and Bob Dylan's old song...

The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.