Teacher's Day special

 A teacher is a person who educates us. They not only teach us a subject but also help us to inculcate high values in us. They are responsible for shaping the minds of children. 

In our childhood, we all have a teacher in our school who is respected by all the children of the school. In our school, it was S.N Rai sir. He teaches physical education in school, a teacher No No a Guru in the true sense. He is an honest person with high principles.  He never treats a student badly. He always tries to bring out the best in students. Apart from teaching his subject, he also counsels his student about life. He is a great orator and philosopher. He is also a social worker working hard to make our society a better place to live through his NGO SATYALOK.   

There is an incident that I like to share. I was not so active in games and sports.  In our school on 15th August students of different houses had to do the parade. I was forced to take part in a parade. I didn't want to go. But since I had to I went for parade practice. I was horrible at the parade. Our house captain asked sir to remove those who are not doing well. Sir told us that those who think he is insufficient may quit. Although  I was not interested in participating I didn't quit because I didn't want to accept that I am not good in front of many students. Sir again repeated his words. I didn't quit. It was obvious I was not doing good. He looked at me but still, I didn't quit. I was nervous and thought I would be embarrassed in front of everyone. I didn't want to quit. But sir didn't send me back to class and he said to the house captain it's ok we will manage. That day, he could have sent me back to class but he didn't because he saw how nervous I was. He could have scolded me badly as any teacher does. The next day, I didn't go to the parade because I didn't want to trouble our house captain. But that incident really had a great impact on me.

I wish every teacher were like him. We really need more teachers and people like him. 

insecure about my look

 My first insecurity was about my looks; most of us have this insecurity in us. We are not born with insecurity. We develop it over time. One thing is clear, we don't bother about our looks until someone tells us that something is wrong with our appearance from their perspective or we are reminded by others that we do not have the IDEAL FEATURE of good looks or beauty. My first encounter with this was when I was a child. I don't remember what my age was. I was playing with other children. When a boy got out, I shouted "you are out". In no time he replied, "shut up nakbaithi(flat nose person)".I didn't like that word. I hated it. I never wanted to hear that word. At that time, I felt that there was a defect in me. My negative takeaway from that moment was that I chose never to argue or confront anyone because the other person could mock me using that word. There were many moments when I was reminded about the shape of my nose or simply about my defect by many people in a different way. But there were two of them that affected me, like the first encounter, by adding other negative assumptions. Once, my aunt came to our house. The day she arrived, she told me that she had seen a couple on a train with a flat nose. She would find a guy with a flat nose for me. My negative takeaway from this situation is I hated meeting new people, after that thinking they might remind me of my defect or laugh at me like she was laughing. After this incident, I avoided meeting new people. Gradually, I started walking by keeping my head down. The third incident which made the case worse was when I was in 9th grade. I was in my Sanskrit class. Our teacher hadn't come. My friends were cracking jokes and I am the kind of person who when starts laughing and don't stop easily. Suddenly, our teacher came. I was laughing at the last joke my friend cracked. Our teacher saw me and thought I was laughing at him as many students used to make fun of him. Then he sat and said that if Sita were a nakpichki(flat-nosed girl) then Ram would have never gone after her. Of course, the whole class was laughing, including my friends. But I was shocked. You can understand the feeling when you don't do anything and someone still retaliates. My negative takeaway from this incident was that I started feeling worthless. The statement made by my teacher made me feel good for nothing.

 I am not blaming anyone here. I just explained the incidents as they were. Every negative takeaway with lots of negative self-talk made me a person who was not able to interact freely with people, had low self-esteem,  feared meeting new people, avoided eye contact, always felt ugly, was conscious about how I looked, avoided going to stage, was fearful of hearing chapati(flat) word, always wanted to do nose job so that no can mock me or make me feel defected. I was like this till the second year of my graduation. Many of us do go through something like this in our lives, but some of us let ourselves be affected by others' perspectives, like me, and some of us never let others' opinions define us.

 Now, I don't want to do a nose job. I don't think about appearances all the time. I accepted myself and my appearance. Let me tell you, it is not a one-day job. To get out of insecurity which has affected your personality brutally takes effort. Believe me, if I can, anyone can. In the next post, I will share how I started processing it. Before that, I want you to write about your insecurities and also why you have them when they started, which incident affected you negatively and how can you get out of them organically.