Ever wondered why the Hare lost the race?

We all have read the story of "The Hare and the Tortoise"... Its one of my favorite stories till date. In fact as I am growing old, I keep analyzing it further and it gives me inner strength of continuing my journey at a steady pace.Of late a question has been bothering me, and my inquisitive mind has been asking me, 'Why do you think the Hare went off to sleep even though he was about to win the race. What were those thoughts running in his head, which made him halt? How could he have not continued running?'

I mean how can you just stop a couple of meters or minutes before the finishing line and not bother to finish the race...

I know we have been taught that slow and steady makes you win the race... Why cant it apply to fast and being steady... Tortoise was steady that is why he won, but what is it that compelled the Hare not to be steady? 
Over confidence, pride, his ability to run fast in comparison to the tortoise, but again my question to you is what stopped him from being steady too... Pride is important in life as it gives you confidence to tackle all kinds of challenges that one faces in life, so is comparison because it helps or maybe at time compels you move forward in life. Over confidence is definitely a vice but then why do we end up being so...

That's what I have been trying to figure out for quite sometime... Over confidence probably makes us take a back seat, thus letting laxity seep in our behavior towards doing our task & letting this attitude set in that 'Ah I can do it in no time, so why bother to finish it right away, I will do it when I feel like'. But again the same question  pops over "Why am I letting this happen to myself? Why cant I be steady? Continue with the process till I reach the end."
The only answer that I can figure out is, I am hell bent on looking at reaching the results. From the day a human being is born he is only being taught only to reach the end and be a winner.

As a child we are told to study to get marks in the exams rather than learn to enjoy the process of learning. 

As a parent have you ever wondered, even if your child scores 100 percent, he will still not become the master of that subject ever. Its not that he does not know what has been asked in that paper, but its possible, if the questions came from another chapter in that subject where your child did not have a mastery then, what would you have done.
Education is not about getting A+ in your exams or getting into some prestigious institutes after school. Its all about enjoying the experiences you gather during the journey.

 Remember the race of life, has no end, there are no winners, because we are not competing with anyone but just our selves, our own insecurities, our thoughts , our desires is what we are running from or competing with.

There is no end to these thoughts and desires, and if we don't learn to enjoy the journey then there is possibility that while waiting to see how I have fared  in my race, I might get tired and fall asleep just like the Hare did in the race and end up losing completely and get into depression even though we were the best among our peer group.

As we grow up, we get so influenced by the speed at which the world takes on us and the growing wants and desires that we forget to enjoy the journey we ought to take to reach to these results.

In a nut shell, we forget to soak in the experiences the journey/ race of life offers us.

We need to learn the biggest virtue of life is being steady so that you can learn to enjoy the journey of life, rather than burn yourself out just before finishing line. 

A tribute to Mrs Kapoor my Hindi teacher

The other day I was meeting a good teacher friend of mine, after almost a year to discuss a few points on our new venture eShikshaChaupal a free online community for teachers which got launched in June this year. During discussion we just digressed a bit and she started off with the same old cliched statement,"Today's students are different! They don't know how to behave in school. They are rude and disrespectful. Worst is they love to give back answers to whatever you say to them." Well that's where I interrupted her and said, "This is the story of every generation, what's new in this."


I remember, in my middle school I had these three teachers who were nearing their retirement but left a deep impact on my formative years. Well! They were different not for what they taught but what left a mark on me was how they taught in the class.Their was something different about their teaching styles... I would love to describe it like the fragrance of Musk deer, which with time going by is having more stronger impact on my thinking. Somewhere they subtly ingrained the values of how to lead a positive life with their teaching styles.

Today when I reflect on what was different about them, I realize that they just followed one principle- they did not accuse us of being impatient and aggressive or being snobbish, but they beautifully took the onus on themselves bcoz we were learning from them. They believed that they were under students constant vigil and so they had to behave themselves... They truly believed that 'values can't be taught but had to be caught'... Their objective was to create an environment where we as students could catch them...

One such incident which I remember was, getting my half yearly Hindi paper in class 8. My father had got posted to Delhi in mid session and was adamant that we two sisters went to particular convent school only. So he made us sit at home for more than a month before the Principal of that school allowed us to take admission test. Like all families there's a black sheep & in our family its me. My younger sister scores were brilliant ,so Principal was super happy to have her in, well for everyone the cause of worry was me... even the Principal was a little skeptical in taking me in, but as luck would have it, I did exceptionally well in Maths (well much beyond my own expectations, I would be honest about that, I suppose that was the last time ever I did so well in any Maths paper thereafter). Probably those numbers in Maths blinded the Principal with umpteen happiness as if she had found a Kohinoor heera and she completely ignored the super low marks in the language papers. She just said with a smile,"I suppose languages can be worked upon in the coming years thus I will admit both the girls in the school."

One month after admission, came the half yearly exams. I did well in all subjects, well thats what I thought!
Then came Hindi paper results, every one was scared bcoz we were told only few kids had passed in Hindi.  I was confident that I had failed, and went slowly over with a grim face to take my Hindi Paper from Mrs Kapoor, while handing over my paper, she slowly uttered, "Thank God, you have at least made some progress in one month, there is some hope from you that you will improve in future. Well you have got one more marks than the last month- 27/100. Next time I hope you will cross the 40 mark". That walk from her desk to my chair was one of the longest moments in my life... It was a weird feeling.. I was feeling sad, bcoz I had flunked in Hindi again within a month, but then I was feeling hopeful because she had motivated me to work towards improving the future. It was definitely an uphill task for me but with her constant guidance in the classroom she made sure I was able to imbibe the beautiful value of not getting disheartened from my failures but pick up the loose ends of life and move on to reach the goal in the mind...
Well that's the objective of the teacher, to make the students learn these values of life through academics. If a teacher is able to do that, then student will not rebel but will respect all his life.

Wishing you all a very happy teachers day! :)