A giver, a story-teller, someone with bags full of wisdom to pass along batches of generations, someone with a soft pleasing dialect, and a firm and steady hand, to guide , to deliver, to bring all that is good and worth within the pupils. Having completed my schooling in a Catholic instituion, where any language other than english was forbidden, where menhdi and jewelery were prohibited as were tattoos,long nails,and muddy shoes; uptil seventeen years of age, the image of a Teacher in my mind was the description mentioned above.
It was this teacher who led us through the scolding, thumping system of Indian education.
Up until seventeen years of my existence I was merely acquainted with the Indian concept of a teacher, but time never took me further. This concept, on further bonding, changed the whole ideology, which I had rubbed and ironed regularly in my mind. The Indian concept of Guru.
The concept which sows the seeds of teaching, first in your heart and lets it branch itself further in your mind. Which embraces, the nuances of the human thoughts, emotions, the whole cycle of functioning in a manner, unique with its results.
The Indian concept allows, not only a Guru to choose his Shishya, but also provides the pupil himself to look after his Guru, with his own pace. A guru is allowed to follow his own way through the herd, to lead each one of them upto their rightful destinations. A Guru is a preacher, a mother,a father,is everyone who brightens the light within each person that shall in any way connect with him . He is not a friend, but a companion. He is the hand that approaches, every time you fall. He is the heart that you trust, he is the sight that you adore.
The fact that intrests me most in this philosophy was the expansive nature of ways in which this ideology is approached. A Guru, was seen in a preacher, a scholar, a parent, a philosopher, a guide, an artist , a translator, or sometimes merely an idol. The Indian approach, to the overall values of teaching, absorbed all the strata of evolution of mind, heart, body and soul, in a very rational sense.
One was asked to leave his forebonding of family, for a major part of childhood and reside in the Guru's ashram, to learn the art of living. While doing so, not only religious, but social , political , economical, and patriarchal values were induced in the child.
A Guru was placed, above the placid levels of social bonding, because a Guru was the one who showed the way through the material lodgings, till the horizon of conscience. The western term-teacher, though used exclusively in India in every household, should be bound to our very own stem of the Guru-Shishya parampara.
For those who look down on such a lineage, as a mere tradition, succumb to the ignorant bliss of enveloping once own rich culture, in the brackets of religion.The Guru-Shishya PArampara, was an answer to all the anxieties , troubles, questions that life presented . The lineage was not for a span of those few countable years, it was but, a relation treasured for a lifetime. A person was judged, accredited by the name of his Guru, and not merely by the aspects of name, cast, social status or wealth.
The philosophers who, desiged this system have imbibed all the characters of, a godfather, a leader, a soulmate, all in this one stature of Guru.
But the question arises , as to what effect would such an ideology prescribe in today’s changed pace of living, and the answer still lies in the same frame work. Unless an individual has a real quest for learning , unless he selflessly trusts that one master, unless the social upbringing he has been born into, provides him to the freedom required to give away their blood and heart to an outsider, the results of this ideology will fail . Although the present India, seems to build a reluctant stance to this philosophy, I have come across many like me, who still are drawn to this structure of learning. Especially , wherein knowledge about the Indian Classical artforms ,or primarily any form of knowledge, rooted in Indian is taken into consideration.
Having know my Guru, for the past few years, I have come closer to finding answers that arise within me , that press upon me from time to time. This parampara, stands by me, and I stand by it whenever, wherever and however required, albe
it for a lifetime, or even more.
