There are sometimes students who drop in for a chat and end up enlightening one. Kumar, our Metallurgist engineer of 2007 at Bhadravathi SAIL, with a postgraduation in Psychology and a PG Dip. in HR Management visited the department.

One fond enquiry after another continued and then it got into a ruminative, interesting discussion on 'How a person is formed". I said that a person evolves only from the person's own choices,decisions, values and attitude. Kumar was of the view that society shapes a person and is responsible for who he or she is. He illustrated his point with several examples of how one's dress code is decided by the society; how a rickshawallah's daughter may not choose to wear jeans and t shirts in Chennai, but might in a different city with diferent mores.

He further pointed out that a child who watches violence on TV becomes a violent child. ( Come to think of it, then a violent child who watches the life of Gandhi should become a Gandhi?)He said that a terrorist is formed because his perspective of the ills of the society and the solutions to them are different from the ahimsavaadhi's perspective. His thoughts and ideas have been shaped by those around him.

I said that a person may shout his ideas from the tree top for all to hear, but only the one who wants to listen will listen. For all others, I would only be the wind in the trees.

The arguments continued back and forth in a very interesting manner.

It was 4.30 p.m. and we decided to call it a day. However, I am delighted that after a long time I was having a stimulating talk on something other than academic reports, examinations, quotations and marks.

In this context, I do feel that when teachers begin to have administrative responsibilities or their book keeping becomes a vital component of their day to day work, all meaningful interaction and healthy exchanges with students die a slow and painful death.