Tags:
Journalism of Courage
What has a 79-year-old Swede got to do with Socrates? And what has Socrates to do with my late beloved grandmother? First things first. Who is the Swede whose links with Socrates excite me? I don8217;t know him personally. But I have read of his feat through a newspaper report and have held him in great esteem for his unique achievement. He is a 79-year-old man who believes that it is never too late to learn. He has been accepted at a medical school at Aarhus University in a quota for elderly students.
What has that got to do with Socrates, one of the greatest men of all times, the man who was so far ahead of his time that his peers sentenced him to death by hemlock? Few people know that on the day before his death, he was sitting with his disciples, including Plato, in the cell when the musical notes of a lyre, played by a passerby outside the prison, reached his ear. He took in the notes.
8220;You think so?8221; Socrates grinned, thanked the man for finding time to teach him the tune and added that he had nothing to offer but his blessings. The man said he considered himself fortunate to have taught the teacher of all men, bowed and retreated. The disciples asked why Socrates took the trouble to learn a tune, when he was to die next day: 8220;I had been a student all my life. I shall be learning till my last breath.8221;
My grandmother breathed her last, while she was learning the English alphabets. She was old and wrinkled, her hair as white as snow. Yet her zest for life and learning never dimmed. She spent time with anyone who had something new to teach her. That was what made her my student. One day, she asked me to teach her the English alphabets. I was then in class V. I readily agreed. In about a week8217;s time, she knew how to write all the alphabets. I said she was making good progress. I told her, 8220;This Sunday, I will give you a test, Grandma. And if you fail?8221; I assumed a grave tone. 8220;You will make me stand in a corner?8221; she joked.
On Sunday, I sat with her. I asked her to write 8216;Q8217;. She got it right. Then I took her through a few other letters. Finally I said, 8220;Write G.8221; She picked up the pencil, started shaping the letter when she collapsed. I was in a state of shock. I called out for father. He rushed in and found grandmother slumped, the pencil still in her hand. She was dead.
She had remained a student all her life.
