My Thoughts on Teacher's Day

My childhood was spent more with teachers than with my parents. The first teacher of my life, after my parents was one great gentleman, Mr. Prantosh Dasgupta, who was a retired top executive of Nestle India and chose to make a kindergarten school for his love towards the children and his passion for giving something back to his society. He was a fatherly figure to my parents too. In fact, my name 'Sangram' was also given by him. In some sense, he was like my Godfather. In those very formative days, I grew up under his guidance. He taught me English, told many stories about life, freedom struggle, language movement & liberation war of Bangladesh, spoke of rise of China and many other elements which really got ingrained in my mind when my mind was just like a mold of modeling clay. I had spent countless afternoons spending in his villa 'Jonaki' eating my favorite homemade guava jam made by his loving wife and listening to many stories from him. The person and the smell of his cigar are still vivid in my memory and each time I get to see someone smoking a cigar, I immediately get his fragrance and a happy, loving, respectful memory come in my mind. That's how a teacher remains in the memory of his disciples, forever !

Back in mid 90’s during my graduation days, I used to teach physics to a few kids to earn some extra pocket money for my entertainments. I, in fact, used to enjoy those 4 hours of the week quite a lot. To be able to contribute in somebody's life and career was a great satisfaction deep down inside me from beginning. In those days for most of the small town kids, career was not really a planned one but more of a mix of luck, chance & situational order. I always dreamt to become a pilot first, then had a short-lived crush on becoming a bureaucrat, an astrophysicist and probably a few others too. Then as time passed by, somehow I came to this corporate world and started selling everything from paints, detergents, soaps, razors, chocolates to energy drinks and soft beverages and finally ended up in the business of spirits & wines. Initially I thought I have to make money, then when I earned decent money so I could afford buying a luxury watch or a premium car or couple of holiday trips abroad each year, I started thinking, while money is important, its not the reason why we work. Then I started dreaming for achieving higher positions in my professional world...thought of growing up in my career, lead businesses & then bigger businesses and bigger businesses and so on...While I am a small person, I am probably a pawn who is still pursuing that same endless journey. This, at times, make me feel whether I am lacking purpose for my existence! Then, when I look back and try to figure out what I am actually doing, I find myself doing the same thing essentially, what I used to do during my university days for pocket-money, Teaching.

Probably, I never could be a Boss or a Manager, as deep inside I was always half a student and half a teacher, whose sole purpose was the well-being of his team always. Probably, I never wanted to be a Boss too. While, personally, I could not get away from my middle class limitations or move above my material pursuits completely, but what gives me real joy and deep satisfaction is when I see that real respect and gratitude in the eyes of my juniors or my students, for what I could contribute in their life. I believe, I am first a Student, next a Teacher, then a Leader and probably still trying to become a Manager, which I don't know whether I will ever be able to become in the rest of my life. Actually, if I see what we expect from a Leader are quite intersecting with that of a Teacher. Surprisingly, we don't talk about this much in leadership programs. We train people on how to manage different people, how to get the best out of an individual but are seldom taught on taking a responsibility on teaching someone without any expectation, show love and help someone to develop and grow.

At times, I wonder, why I am mostly a happy person than many others around me irrespective of all my troubles, which are similar to theirs? What keeps me positive beyond my stresses and get me going? To find the answer, whenever I try to look back, I always find a Teacher inside me. I always had a natural inclination to train and mentor my juniors to be a better professional and more than that, a better human being. I never felt that’s not part of my job specs or what I am paid for. When I see all my leadership roles for past 2 decades, I think of many people whom I worked with and I still see most of them are still connected with me in a very personal and affectionate manner. Because, I never tried to extract the output from them, I always tried to develop them so the output gets better. I get countless messages and calls from those kids whose life I touched sometime in the timeline. Probably both of us moved on, but those fond memories of learning together remind us of each other in every such day. This is the biggest job satisfaction, the most important career appraisal of our life, the reason for our existence. I have seen top CEOs are forgotten after they have retired and also seen a Leader is connected and fondly remembered by his teammates long past their professional relationship got over. Its a no brainer to understand which one is a desired route that a professional should opt for.

Probably for that urge only, I keep going back to various B schools from time to time, whenever I get time and enjoy spending my time with the students and in that continuous process, I keep getting more learned both in terms of content and it also helps me become a better human being psychologically. As a father learns a lot from his kids, a teacher also learns many things from his students. Learning is always a two-way process and as long as we are learning, we are growing, we have hope and we are alive and its the Teacher, who is the catalyst in this process. We need a teacher in our parents, a teacher in our siblings, a teacher in our friends, a teacher in your students, colleagues and most importantly a teacher in the boss. If that gets missed, life becomes sad, monotonous and non-inspirational. Only when we stop learning, we sense of decay and start getting depressed. So, we need a teacher in every walks of life, who will take the pain to teach us, motivate us, stand beside us and help us walk through difficult terrains of life !

When I started my profession, I clearly remember that I was a ruthless task-master, who used to put result before anything. Today I cannot see that person anymore. Over past 24 years, my teammates, my students have given me so much of joy and happiness that they taught me the biggest leadership skill : People First. The moment I put the people before anything else and truly want their good and well-being, I have seen, most of the leadership challenges tend to get resolved automatically. All technical models of 'Situational Leadership' or 'Skill-Will Grids' look meaningless, when a team is not just a manager and his juniors but a teacher and his students, who are like brothers & sisters, a family. Living together, fighting together for the same goal and not fighting against each other. When a boss shouts, its rude & inappropriate but when a teacher shouts, its acceptable, not because shouting is good but because his reason of shouting is well accepted by the students. If a Leader can rise upto the level of a Teacher, who truly wants the good of his students and enhancement of their knowledge, skills and career, even corporate life becomes much more efficient and happier ! Yes, I have been lucky to see such a few Leaders who touched my life in that manner, helped me grow, challenged me to make me better. Salute to those few Leaders, who happened to be my Teachers in life.

While I thank all my teachers for shaping my life but this article is dedicated to all my students, who happened to be the best teachers in my life, as they helped me realize the true satisfaction of life. Thank you for giving me the purpose to survive in this never-so-fair & never-so-equal world and keep myself happy amidst this endless pursuit of meaningless successes in a commercial world, full with rivalry and stressful competition. Without having my teammates and my students besides me, I would have surely not been able to do what I am happily doing till today. Without you, I surely would not have been able to stay happy and dream about doing bigger better things in life.

Thanks to all of you for being my teachers in life. Happy Teacher's Day!