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"Turn thou me and I shall be turned."

I was sitting in the home of a kindly senior couple who had invited us for dinner when a family breezed in.The young kid had just finished his tenth with a 65% marks and was in a delimna because the school he had applied for needed him to get a higher marks for the science stream he wanted to take up.I was requested to counsel the kid as to what he should go about doing.Even as I started putting the various options before him every nerve in my body protested but I continued nevertheless saying what I thought was the safe thing .
Even as the board exam results are out and there is a lot of hue and cry as to who has passed and who has not and I see a lot of parents tensed up for their wards I watch it all in a relatively detatched manner and pity the children who seem to have no idea as to where it is all leading them.
Strangely enough the picture of a group of skulls standing in a queue....getting up in the morning,going for walk,coming back,watching TV...sleeping and again starting the next day in the same manner comes to my mind.
I actually heave a sigh of relief at some of them who have managed to flunk!Here it is another chance for them to actually get educated and really decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives if their parents,neighbours and people around let them be, to enjoy some time out,to really decide what they want to do. I hope they actually understand that it is a second oppurtunity for them to decide,to reflect and to enjoy the process of getting educated instead of beingpushed around by what people expect them to be.
I have no idea what it would be like if I had a kid of my own ,but I am not sure at this point whether I would be happy with an 'A' grader without an imagination.
The other day my friend was sharing with me about how her little daughter so wanted to join a particular school because her cousin was, in the coming year.This school is an up-market American school which no doubt has a wonderful curriculum but.....
The little girl in question is a beautiful sensitive child who has been brought up well and has always been for me a sort of example I put across for little growing up girls.I am not really sure what more the school in question can put into her apart from the american accent .I might be wrong.
I remember my time pretty well to this day.
I had a fascination for the white coat profession.My mother has still preserved those paper after paper prescriptions I have written as a child signed Dr.Tenzing.Dr.Livingstone and Albert Sweitzer fuelled my tender mind into envisioning what I wanted to do in life.
After my high school,just a few months before taking my infant steps into the world I had always dreamt of, I gave my life to Jesus.
He took over from there.
I don't remember a time when my parents were worked up over anything.To my eyes it looked like they were just watching the whole thing from the sidelines,passive.
I know better,they were on their knees for me.They never pressurised me ,never demanded..they were just there,keenly observing.
They have in the crucial time of my life said a word or two as a suggestion,sometimes entirely unexpected which have been a guiding light to the choices I have made in my life and they have been important choices...one such was the decision I made to travel south to have a look at Oddanchattram....that was from my father.
Dr KV,whom I have always considered as my mentor, left me another legacy I carry with me and deem it precious.
He put in me this concept of sabbatical.A time of rest ,a time of reflection and a time of realigning oneself every now and then ...this has lead me in good stead.It has taught me to step back,look at myself objectively,to release,to grow,to listen ,to understand and to be moved.
I am not there yet but with Christ in the vessel I will surely get there oneday.

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