His amble into the central hall of the college was watched by thousands of students who had gathered there to listen to their esteemed teacher for the last time. The function had been organized by the college administration to honor Mr. Dev Prasad Verma, who had served the college for about four decades. No one wanted him to leave because they felt as if a part of the body of their education was being taken away. He was a kind of living library, an encyclopedia, a knowledge bank in him and even our best of the data banks can not boast of the memory that he possessed.

A thundering applause welcomed Mr. Verma to the dais.

“It is an undeniable fact that the things which are there today will not be there tomorrow; they will either be replaced with some other things, or their forms will change. But in the case of humans there is a slight difference. Humans come and depart but their words remain for the posterity to explore, interpret, and to raise a new kind of world from the ashes of the past. Many of the greatest scholars had passed away before the arrival of Christ, and this world experienced many changes but their words have remained alive to guide, to inspire, and to lead us to more light. I say “more light” because I don’t believe in perfection, I believe in further improvement.

However, I feel that our definition of a civilized human being is highly questionable. A person goes to college, earns degrees, studies science and commerce, invents new things, adds to the comforts of life, amasses wealth, and bequeaths this tradition to the posterity. I find the progress of material here because all his life he adds things and things. Human has not progressed at all but he has become less animal for sure. To prevent himself from sun and cold he designs clothes, produces coolers and heaters, to save time in eating habits he has introduced fast foods, and like wise in many other fields there is only the visible addition of things. The pace of life has become too much.

How diligently our students study the lines written by Rabindra Nath Tagore and William Wordsworth but when it comes to real life you see no flowers surrounding them. Of course, plastic flowers have captured almost every market. The song of the nature that is audible when you cross a meadow or a valley on foot is subdued by the drone of the jet planes which in the name of fast travel deprive you of the greatest of the delights that Mother Nature provides. Learning anything new is definitely an enjoyable experience but in our academic institutions the same process has been made so grotesque and insipid that the learners feel burdened under the volumes of books which are prescribed by the administration. Volumes have been added but the delight has been missing.