Saturday, April 24, 2021

What did I want to be when I grew up?

 One of the most stressful questions you can ask a child right? Second only to “Who do you love more.. Daddy or Mummy”? Growing up as the second child implied and ensured that I was a bit of a brat and had to fight for equal rights with my brother who was older, more clever, better looking and generally.. much cooler!

Growing up as a fairly average clueless and unambitious child and teenager, what defined me (in a good way) that I LOVED reading! For my super important tenth birthday (the first of the double digits) Daddy came home staggering under the not inconsiderable weight of two cartons stuffed to bursting with abridged versions of the classics!

My love for reading was quite insane.. as in.. I was once attending (physically present mentally absent) a family wedding and Mummy spoke to me sharply after THREE attempts to get through to me because I was far far away immersed in my book at the time! She used to say very often that “I was really useless and lost to the world when buried in a book”!

Enid Blyton was my all-time favourite and I felt like I was an honorary member of the Secret Seven, the Five Find-Outers, the Famous Five and the Folk of the Faraway Tree to name a few! I loved Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn, Just William, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden and the Chalet School series with a passion!

When it came to reading school books and studying, however, that was a whole different ballgame! I just wasn’t interested in anything except English, Hindi, and Gujarati and French (yup.. studied all those AND supplementary Marathi simultaneously for a while)! My mother coaxed, bribed, encouraged, scolded and tried every tuition teacher she could to motivate me to study.. but all in vain.. I was the quintessential Peter Pan.. carefree and oblivious to the rude shock that was just around the corner!

Irresponsible, playful and easily distracted I was coasting through school until standard 8 when I confidently told Mummy “I’m studying with my friend”.. SHE studied, I fooled around and FAILED the year! Daddy was VERY angry and it was the biggest shock of my young life until then! Despite pleadings to change schools, I repeated the year at the same school and became a reformed character – to some extent..

Once, the girls in my class made a chart about everyone in class and on that, I was voted “least likely to succeed”! It HURT and HURT HARD! From that day onwards, I resolved to try my best.. and I did.. and passed out of school with a First Class which was a great achievement for me!

Not having thought about what I wanted to do or be, I opted for Arts with Psycolody and Philosophy as my subjects! The easing out from the strict school discipline brought forth a few strengths.. I was Class Representative and organized a few events and made some wonderful friends who are my backbone even today!

I STILL didn’t know what I should do after graduating so I followed the herd and signed up for LLB.. did well but it was super boring and after falling asleep in class every day, I quit at the end of one year..

I tried doing my MA via correspondence.. a course in Special Education via correspondence and just couldn’t do either because I NEEDED the discipline of attending classes! Dabbled in advertising for a while but was disillusioned about calling a crappy product good.. and was completely lost in life!

Daddy spoke to me and said “Look, this is a family of high achievers and you are going to HAVE to do something with your life! Take a year off, check out all the courses that Bombay has to offer.. decide what you WANT to do.. and DO it”! After a lot of research and hunting I decided to become a pre-school teacher.. major reasons being 

1) I find the process by which children learn fascinating..

2) Working hours were only half day..

3) Every weekend off and long vacations..

Daddy told me I HAD to be in the top 3 students of my class.. it was a gruelling course (2 year course we did in 1 year).. sat up until 2 am practically every night working on teaching aids.. designing worksheets.. making lesson plans.. thinking of creative activities.. PLUS studying hard! To cut a long story short, I almost quit halfway but thanks to my professors and friends, I persevered.. and stood 2nd in class!

I LOVED (and still do) being in the classroom.. facilitating learning.. observing individual differences and similarities in children..

It’s been a hard fought battle figuring out what I wanted to do.. and doing it.. but honestly, nothing else could have even come close! It gives me a sense of purpose.. plus I get to make a difference.. and am glad the journey was what it was because now I can say with conviction and confidence that “I do what I do (teach) because there’s absolutely nothing else I’d rather be doing”!

Find your passion.. love it and live it.. there can not be anything that will make you happier!!

(My next blog will be about experiences in teaching.. can’t wait to share it)!!

9 comments:

  1. Hey...very interesting post, Pallavi.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Quintessential Peter Pan with the occasional 'Teacher voice'!
    Though amazing how a few perhaps unintentional words uttered/heard in one's younger days manage to shape an entire lifetime...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well written and interesting journey!! The message is great!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow! This was fascinating. There is so much about you that we do not know.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's the beauty, when one know what gives them happines that's what one should do. Happy you achieved your happiness.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Another well written and absorbing piece.
    Sudhir

    ReplyDelete
  7. More one reads the more knowledge one gets but its our own interpretation on what we read and understand. all Authors have written to give positive message to society and that's what you are doing.
    Thank you for letting me know some thing which I over looked.

    ReplyDelete