||Om tat sat||

A pale blue dot !

Teacher's Day, 2022.

Normally my thoughts on this teacher's day should be on teachers like Ramanayya mastaru of our childhood days who taught us 'O na mah', the alphabet as it used to be called, or It should be on Sugandhavalli Madam of our middle school days, who told us about our freedom movement in an unforgettable way, or our mathematics teachers Phakir Raju garu and Vaddiparti Subbarao garu of our high school days, or our Sanskrit teachers Annaarama Sharma garu and Bhashyam Appalaacaaryulu garu whose period of influence far exceeded the period of school and college education put together, or many of my colleagues in public sector, who in many ways, unknowingly, taught me and let me contiue my learning, or even Mahatma Gandhi who despite efforts of many to dig into the mother earth of history to find some dirt, continues to be that voice of reason which cried of nonviolent ways of resolving our differences and will continue as a distant universal teacher.

No, my thoughts are on the picture of a pale blue dot seen from a distance of a few billion miles form earth. That pale blue dot is the earth we live on.

It took the first astronauts on the Moon seeing the earthrise on the desolate Moon horizon to send us that picture back to earth. That picture of earthrise made amply clear that the humanity is one. Now fifty years on, from the perspective of the Voyager 1 & 2 of those times a billion miles away, we are surely a pale dot in the sky.

I wish that today's teachers could help the children see the earth from the perspective that comes from a billion miles distance. In that perspective, we are but a small speck in the whole universe. This is the only planet we can live on, and even this planet may not last forever and we may have to find a new home in the habitable zones of hospitable planets among thousands of exoplanets. A new home to emigrate to much before this planet starts it's descent into a veritable black hole of disintegration. Even before such physical disintegration can happen, many are trying to accelerate moral disntegration with destructive processes of distorting truth and a descent into another black hole much earlier.

Teachers must teach us that truth is the ultimate god. That is also the creed of our very ancient civilization. The distortions that lead us towards hatred and division are not the truth.

Teachers must tell us that search for truth in arts, sciences,and life etc is the only way forward.

The Teachers Day was a remembrance of the first vice-president of independent India , Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the philosopher king. His reputation is still unsullied. But we never know, with the internet warriors holding the sway in repainting the world in their colors, we may soon forget him too.

Hopefully our teachers and centers of learning lead the way.
Hopefully they will hold us to the truth.
"Satyam Param Dhimahi"( contemplate on Supreme Truth)

||om tat sat||
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