Pupils Make Pals Meet!

Have you ever thought of defining the term EXPERIENCE??

Well, I always thought EXPERIENCE is what happens to you.  Be it learning, outcome of life, challenges, practical scenarios of being, events you encounter etc.

Have you ever thought of CREATING EXPERIENCE!

Yes! I mean CREATE. i.e build, craft, foster, conceive, make it happen.

Please note, let me be clear, I don’t mean EXPERIENCE in the context of business or customers.

There are very few in life who can CREATE EXPERIENCE for NO GAIN. And there are very few blessed ones like me who receive such experiences, live those moments with those episodes befitting a cherishable memory, heralding to another exciting story of my life.

At receiving end – if one feels blessed, at other end the one who bestows it stands at an altitude – probably like angels who work behind you – just to ensure to bring an ARDENT SMILE on your face.

This is a sensational and an incredible experience and story of my life – Part 2 - “Pupils make pals meet”.

Hold your breath – and read through, what does it take to create experience:

It was in 2004 that I wrote my last letter to my pen pal. One of the most unique and remarkable experience of my life. 

(Refer: http://dwellingreflections.blogspot.in/2012/09/pen-pal.html)

Years have passed by, and I treasure his gifted books and letters and read through when I can squeeze time. Few very close friends have heard about him. An unknown face with an enlivening tale. Attempts to search have been staggering and sporadic.

It was on December 2^nd 2017 that few of my students of other program attended a module of Life Skills – on THINKING & COGNITION.

Post the session, at home – they wanted to glance at my home library. Amidst of it, came a large greeting card – another exclusive hand made one’s from my CoreEL team, which got an exclamation of WOW!

Well, I said, this is one of them, and I carry some exceptional reminiscences and showed them a five feet folded white sheet elucidating my personality which was fifteen years old.  They were stunned looking at its details and niceties.  Yet again! I had to narrate the story behind it.

It was that day again, I narrated about my unknown pen pal and my students were super curious to know more about him.  They probed me in all angles, and enquired to extract all known facts, but I had very less information which was valid for more than a decade now. The day’s excitement ended and we moved on respectively to our own dwellings and lanes.

December 11^th 2017 – Post a counselling session at 9:45pm,  I came out of the room to discover four of my students sitting and waiting for me for more than two hours which was little unexpected late in the night.  They handed over a piece of paper and said to solve a puzzle. I went literally speechless, and tried little harder to solve. The puzzle led me to my library of books, where I found another colored piece of paper with another puzzle, which then directed me to kitchen. Yes! They made me play ‘treasure hunt’ 😊. 

To add to the stratum, my search was getting video recorded ‘live’. 😊 

From kitchen came to living room, then to my musical instrument, then on to dining hall, which at last led to outside home to hunt for a POST.  

Coming out of the main door – I saw a big red colored wrapped box with a small black opening like a POST BOX.  There seemed to be surprise implanting hundreds of thoughts in my mind. A gift, a letter, something to play, or some books or a show piece…lot of speculations and assumptions.

I unsealed it carefully to find an enfolded brown mid sized envelope – with a 2017 Diary. I opened the envelope to see a folded A4 size sheet of two pages, two cadbury diary milk chocolates, a pack of sketch pens. 

I opened the sheets -------------------------------------------------------------------------.

I just read first three lines, there surged my tears of joy & ecstasy. I just could not hold myself from hugging my adorable student.  

THEY HAD CREATED AN EXPERIENCE.

THEY HAD REOPENED A SO CALLED SEALED STORY

Yes! The letter which was in my hand was dated 10^th December 2017 written by my pen pal after a span of nearly 13.5 years. His handwriting was as legible, flawless and neat even after so many years.  

How! From where! How did that happen! – Is an invigorating story they had made it happen.   

Call it a risk, an attempt, a venture or a luck – be it any, they had unearthed the presence of my pen pal nearly 350kms away from Bangalore.  Three of my students had ventured out with sheer confidence to give it a try with all the clues they had collated. Travelling through cold night of December from Bangalore, waiting early in the morning before sun rise in an unknown desolated bus stop, exploring to villages like strangers, enquiring with new set of people, travelling back again with some hint of unacquainted address to another district of Karnataka, waiting in a medical care unit for untiring three hours – at last they sat in front of Dr. BS Manjunath – my good old pen pal introducing themselves as my students.

The first paragraph of the letter read – that even to this day such students or more precisely called DISCIPLES exist. And I felt so delighted and jubilant to be calling them as MINE. I proudly say ‘They belong to me’.

Unknown pen pal has no more a mask, unidentified friend is no more in some corner of this earth.

If these three little angels of mine would not have discovered him – Probably I would not have known him at all. I would not have been in a position to recognise even if he was right in front of me.

Blessed souls on earth are few, and I am definitely one among them – to have experienced the showering of affection, warmth and care just for a SMILE on my face in return.

Those little adorable angels are Supriya, Shubhanka and Raghu.

Their current punch line is ‘Impossible is only untried’.