The first season of harvesting of Nutmegs in our garden is just over. The next season would be about a month from now as there were two flowering season last year, which was rather unusual.
Anna made it an enjoyable morning walk every day to gather the fallen ones from underneath the nutmeg trees. I gathered the ones that fell on the road before the traffic started on the road.
As we went through this exercise of gathering and drying the nuts and the maze in the sun and in the fire created by burning the firewood during night, I returned to my childhood memories, when it was my habit to gather them from the garden.
A strange feeling dawned on me while I was gathering the nutmeg this time.
The first picture is that of the tree in front of our house full of nutmegs in the late stages of getting ripe as thier shell had turned yellow from being green. The subsequent photographs show how the shell would open when the maize turned brilliant red and the nut is brown in colour.
What fascinated me was the way each the nutmeg opened into two halves, initially exposing the nut with its maize. Then it gets separated from the stalk with which the nut is attached to its shell. The nut with the maize remain held by the two halves of its shell, till a wind causes the shell with its nut to drop to the ground.
When we gather the nutmeg, we discard the shell. The shell is put into the compost pit. I understand that the shell has some medical value. I am not sure if this is commercially taken advantage off. The shell provided the protection for the nut and maize, which is what is marketable. It is for the nut the shell existed.
Both my parents were teachers at two local schools. Anna and I have been teachers at four Medical schools during our forty years of academic life. Each teacher equips students to become learners and to pursue a career path.
Every teacher over a life time of thirty-five or so years of teaching would have enabled hundreds of students who moved out into the wide world from the protected environment of a school or college. Most teachers continue in schools or colleges where they started their career.
The shell of the nutmeg was vital till the nut and maize were ripe to be separated from it. Once it was done the shell became redundant. But for the nutmeg to mature and be a fruit its shell was essential.
All teachers need to comfort ourselves that our role is to help the students to be ready for life. When they leave us, our role is over and sometimes we might not be even remembered. But the joy of being a teacher is in seeing each batch of students leave with readiness to move on in life.
Look at the photo of the three brilliantly shining nutmegs.
The farmers delight is in receiving them. His labour through the year is for that. The shell is left behind and the nutmeg is ready to be sent into the market.
I believe that some teachers stay on in the memory of students and others remain forgotten. Whatever might be the way outgoing students view us, the role of the teacher is to be a midwife to students in the formation journey of their life! We are not just knowledge providers but formators of their life at an early stage of life!
Rejoice in this opportunity to be involved in the formation of students, and stay content where we are present while the students move on!
A teacher is a giver of many good gifts. That is his or her vocation.
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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