Forgive me, my Son

Forgive me, my Son

Forgive me my Son
For I cannot send you to a School
Where I went as a child.
A school, which was nothing but a school of Life.
I don’t know of any school
Where on the first day you go, shivering in your bones
Yet come out after years feeling like a King
And live like one, for ever.
Such a great school I cannot ever find for you
Where knowledge is not imparted, but live it
I cannot give you a school, a place where
You hurt your knees too bad, in the harsh deep red gravel
Yet laugh even after bleeding profusely.
Umpteen times you fall, you rise up untiringly, like phoenix
For this is the first place where you become a man
Before anyone knew.

Forgive me my Son,
For I cannot find you a school
Where the food for you is not the meal but the
Spirit of living a life so full,
Where every living thing has a name, even do teachers.
Where the galloping gait of the physical trainer
Is an embodiment of life so full
That you would never mind his scolding
For he would pat your back at the end of the day, lovingly.
So would you never mind, a mid night roll-call
Nor would you bother a back breaking pack parade
Or the peculiarities of the maverick men
Who were entrusted with the task of making you a man.
A place where you can go on numerous adventures,
Right from stealing unripe guavas and chikoos
To swinging the tarzan’s rope or climbing or learning to do so
The solitary big wall of the obstacle course
Where you learn the lives’ lessons
By making a short cut run through the athletic field
Or from the spirited barbs of the Doc in the infirmary,
To the ignominy of the ‘sick line’,
Where you can seek comfort of refuge.
Yet all would clamour up to the call of serious duty
When the time came,
Be it was to provide succour to flood or cyclone relief,
Or even to managing traffic in the city,
You kept the name of the school flying high.
Forgive me my son,
I cannot find such a school for you
Where we lived not because we had to
But we willed ourselves to the causes of
Service, Duty, Knowledge and Bravery
The four mottos of the school
And we knew it was for the Nation we were groomed so.

Forgive me my Son,
I cannot find a school for you
Whose teachers not only taught
But reached out to you, with open arms
Ate with you, played and paraded with you
People who were embodiments of virtue,
Subdued love and great conviction,
Never in greed but always there for your need,
This is the only place where
Your great teacher knowing fully well
That it was his last class of his life
Would create a laughter for you
In the midst of the most difficult lesson of physical sciences
And we all laughed along with him, with tears in our eyes
Never forgetting his lessons
For in his death he taught us the best lesson of life
The motto of our school – embedded in his eternal soul
No son I cannot ever find such a school for you,
Which is the abode of saints and martyrs.
All teachers in their whites were no less than saints, and
The kids who strode on the dusty gravels of this school,
Were the men who gave their sweat, blood and lives for the Nation,
Unflinching, without even a thought.

Forgive me my Son,
For I cannot find you a school
Like Sainik School Bhubaneswar,
A school that was, for me and for all of us
And has remained with us in our collective memories,
Ever since.
I cannot find you such a school, in your time
Forgive me my Son.
*******
© Bigyan Mihir Patnaik, 01.12.2009, Nagpur

3 Comments

  1. Debashis Das

    Very Nice

  2. Chittaranjan Dhal

    Beautiful memories of the institution which made our foundation like a rock.
    Thanks BM for wording feelings with life👍

  3. BM PATNAIK

    Thanks 🙏🏻
    Regards
    BMPatnaik, 1279

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