I decided to join Teach for India after been moved by seeing a small kid stealing in the railway station. The image of his mature yet childish face along with an attached question “Why has the society failed this kid” is still clearly etched in my memory and keeps me awake so many a times at nights in search for its solution. It has been eight months into the fellowship now and I have grown a lot, both as a person and as a teacher, but am still searching for my answer. The more I think of it, the smaller I feel capable of solving or even facing the magnitude of the solution of my problem. When I make way to my school on a rickshaw, I cross a slum area where I see so many kids that I know are not even coming to school, kids that I know I want to impact, kids who need education, kids for whom the basics of life should have been their birthrights. It kills me to go past them everyday turning my head totally ignoring them. When I enter my school, I know I am entering a school, where there are so many more problems than the ones just existing in my classroom, fundamental problems which i know i cannot address by just being a teacher there, problems which are much bigger than my circle of impact, problems which if i start focusing on wouldn’t let me sleep, eat , live or focus on my classroom. I want to change all of that; I want to ensure that all the kids (not just the ones in my class) in my school receive quality education and equal opportunities to their richer counterparts.

The only thing that keeps me going through all this negativity and cynicism is knowing somewhere deep within that I am on the right path in search of my answer, in knowing that the impact that I can make from my actions will slowly increase with time, in knowing fully that unless and until I can increase my integrity to unchallengeable I can’t expect integrity out of anyone else, in knowing that a single action will always inspire people much more than a thousand words. I know I will get to my answer someday, I know I will definitely be able to get that child in the railway station and millions others like him there due someday. I know I am on the right path to my destination and nothing except just sheer high, crazy and obsessive levels of hard work would get me there. I will definitely reach there someday.

A Heavily optimistic person,

Nakul