I Speak my mind

Sometimes I wonder what remains after a teacher has spent years teaching students and young minds. The lessons in a textbook may change. The syllabus is revised, the school year ends, and the students move on. But some teachers stay with us for a long time. What is the role of a teacher? Is it only to complete the syllabus, explain a subject and prepare students for an examination? That is certainly part of the job. But many of us also remember teachers who taught us something beyond the pages of a book. They gave us advice, corrected us when we were going wrong, and sometimes saw a little more in us than we could see in ourselves. We made fun of them, but we remember them When we were children, we did not always understand our teachers. Some were strict. They scolded us. A few used canes. We made fun of them among ourselves and thought we would forget all about school once we left it. But time has a way of changing how we look back. We may not remember every lesson, but we remember th...

Democracy is not tested by how a government celebrates its power, but by the way it treats its citizens who questions it. When citizens take to the streets demanding accountability and the response is intimidation from government's part, then something deeper than protest is at stake. Power is temporary, but the values we uphold while wielding it define our place in the history. It is never the power that makes a ruler great, but the courage to use it with humility and responsibility. 

Work and responsibilities take up most of my time, now. What I miss is not just the happy days but sad ones too. I miss those simple evenings and the people who made them special.

Sometimes I catch myself hurrying when there is absolutely no need to hurry. I walk fast inside the house. I eat as if someone is waiting to take the plate away. I finish one task while my mind has already started fighting with the next three. Then I stop and ask myself: What exactly am I late for? Most of the time, I have no answer. There is no train to catch, no flight waiting, and no one standing behind me with a stopwatch. Still, somewhere inside the mind, an alarm keeps ringing. It tells me to move faster, earn more, know more, finish everything and become someone important before time runs out. The funny thing is that nobody knows when this imaginary deadline was fixed. The Clock Inside Our Head Life gives us many clocks. There is a clock for education, another for a job, one for marriage, one for buying a house, and probably one for looking successful while doing all of it. If somebody younger reaches a place before us, the clock suddenly becomes louder. We look at another perso...