Last weekend of November approaching. As in every year for almost a quarter century, I am closing off the outgoing batches of students. Today was the last time I took two successive classes: for the next four months I shall no longer have to do an afternoon class, so I can sleep or sometimes watch movies every day, and go travelling much oftener, because from next week, I shall have two successive days off every week: something deliciously anticipated for a very, very long time, because I have never had a single day off every week for as long as I can remember! This was the last time I did four simultaneous class 10 batches. The number of batches has been halved. I shall now well and truly be at least half-retired. Oh my goodness; now that I am finally high and dry, I cannot imagine how I stuck to this work routine for so long. And I am infinitely thankful to a very high power that gave me the health, the energy, the determination and the opportunity to do it. It has been hard, but I shall be most dishonest if I did not admit that there have been many compensations - being my own master, teaching my own style, fixing my own holidays, working from home since long before WFH became a thing.
Tanmoy in faraway New Zealand, ICSE 1994 batch, one of the very few old boys who have kept continuously in touch, will be happy to know that I have been playing his 'Suvro-da' podcast on YouTube to all the outgoing batches, just to tell them, 'This is how some students still remember me', and wondering aloud how many of them will do the same, if any. Of course, by the time they are Tanmoy's age, I shall have been long gone. I am already telling my currently-juniormost (class 8) batch that theirs might just be the very last batch that I teach. Let us see.
No man can see very far into the future, not his own, not his family's, not his country's, not the world's. At 16, I had wondered in writing what things might look like at the turn of the century, when I would be 37 (year 2000 CE); twenty five years have passed after that landmark, and I am still carrying on. My oldest student is 63; the first one who came to study with me here in Durgapur will be 54 this year. One of the greatest sources of pride for me is that I can vibe so easily and well with teenagers still: one student, now 52, whose daughter never wants to miss one of my classes, recently asked me 'How do you do it?' But yes, for numerous reasons, many of which I have written about before, I am getting a trifle tired and bored and less hopeful for them, so it is indeed high time that I slowed down and reduced the workload with the aim of going entirely post-economic within a few more years, God willing. Then I can sit back and watch the fun of a new generation being 'educated' by AI! And maybe turning most of my attention to raising my own grandchildren in the time that is left to me.
It goes without saying that any ex student, however young or old, who happens to read this post and feels nostalgic, is most welcome to write down his or her own thoughts as a comment on this.
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