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I Can...

It was my first day at school. I am to work there for the next two months and devote 3 hours every Saturday. Nothing much really. All of us volunteers did the maths and figured out that it’s practically a day. We were pretty sure that taking a day out of our lives isn’t really going to be an issue.
(For all those who are wondering what I am talking about, well it’s a low income school at Seelampur, where we have been placed by our NGO and we are to work there for the next 2 months, 8 Saturdays that is.)

At first, the thought of spending a modest amount of 24 hours sounded nothing. These 2 months will fly by, before we even realise what happened. Teaching in a low income school might be the only problem, for we are not used to being in classrooms without windows, chairs or tables. Space constraint and other physical and infrastructural factors were what we took into consideration. There might not be enough space. The classes might not be airy. The hot and humid weather might just take a toll over us. Nothing short of a challenge. However, the day I entered the classroom, things did not come across the way we had imagined.

For the next 2 hours, we forgot the space. We forgot the windows, the tables and the chairs.

All that lay before us was a huge expanse of space- raw and unexplored. It was a strange feeling, you know and a little unnerving one too. What till now seemed like a day’s work on paper, all of a sudden metamorphosed into a mammoth task.  It was a feeling of being vested with immense power- the power to control 23 lives for the days to come.

We were shot with random questions by the kids. Thousands of queries. The inquisitiveness. The curiosity. All that hit us. So did a feeling. A feeling extraordinaire that it was indeed the first time in my life when I had been trusted with someone else’s life. All that I did up till now had to do with my life. MY career. MY past. MY present. MY future. And I’m sure it will remain the same for the rest of my life too. In fact, for most of our lives.

However what definitely was some sort of an eye-opener during this entire session was my potential to influence someone’s life. The impact I as a person can make in just 2 hours. The realisation that I do not enter a single classroom but 23 different worlds.

I can make. I can break. I can unite. I can divide. I can rise and shine. I can as well sit back and yawn. From me shall rise chaos. From me, order. I am the force. I am the pull. I am the push. I am the power. 

Just a brief reflection. ‘I’ is indeed the most powerful word in the universe. Use it before a ‘can’ or a ‘will’ and you know you have got something.

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