Sharing knowledge can empower many

My grand daughter, Gayathri, recently told me that she along with two other classmates had begun to take lessons for those belonging to junior classes in her school at Hong Kong. According to her, she was not only finding it an interesting task, but also a process of learning. The 'teachers' apparently found the younger 'students' much brighter than they themselves were at that stage!

That conversation really set me thinking. If, at that tender age, these girls can begin the process of sharing the fruits of their experience with younger people, how much more of that could be done, I asked myself, by people much older and with far more exposure?

"Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow" goes a Swedish proverb. There are sayings, in almost every language in the world, conveying the same spirit. Similar to joy and sorrow are experience and wisdom. They come with exposure and efflux of time. Always provided, of course, that one is not, as the saying goes, 'a rolling stone that gathers no moss'!

About ten years after relinquishing office as a Member of the National Disaster Management Authority, (a five year tenure following my superannuation from service), I began to mentor young people preparing for the civil services examinations. Soon, what began as a device for filling spare time, (which one finds in abundance after retirement), became an absorbing and demanding task.

Rather than the pastime, which it was originally meant to be, it became a passion and a source of immense satisfaction and happiness. The most interesting part was that, all the experience earlier gained, and knowledge acquired, notwithstanding, I had actually begun to learn much more, in order to be able to perform effectively.

Questions that arose during the classes proved to be triggers that set off a process of investigation which, in a most rewarding fashion, ended in the discovery of new and exciting vistas of knowledge. As a matter of fact, I think I can state, without exaggeration that I, perhaps, learnt much more, in the decade that has followed, than all that I had learnt in the four decades earlier.

Another very gratifying outcome was the manner in which the students' ability, to analyse case studies (from my own experience as an administrator, as well as those constructed theoretically), improved considerably, as a result of the process of interaction between teacher and pupil. And the icing on the cake was that, one was not doing the whole thing gratis. Not, mind you, that money mattered anymore. Still, one tended to be that much more serious, and sincere, in preparation, as well as performance, with the feeling that one was being compensated for the effort.

Clearly, people are prepared to pay for what you know. One can combine the desire to keep active, and the satisfaction, and fulfilment, that come with the work, with modest remuneration to boot. Pleasure and gratification being the primary rewards, the monetary incentive acts as an optional extra, as it were; an incentive to be thorough and diligent.

Living in the digital era, with the advantage of having easy access, not only to contemporary technology, but also devices such as mobile phones and computers, makes preparatory research much quicker and with far less drudgery. From the comfort of one's home, and without the hassles of travel, one can reach out to a larger number of people, in a greater number of places, than ever before.

Having been a student of mathematics, and an aficionado of cosmology, I feel that a teacher's wisdom is comparable to the 'negative energy reservoir' postulated by J.V. Narlikar and Fred Hoyle in the context of their famous (but discarded, later in light of subsequent developments), Steady State Theory of the Universe.

The more you took out of the original source, the more it had to give. The more I dig into my past for sharing with the students, the more the interesting and useful things I find. A 'win – win' situation, as it is called. Not a 'zero – sum' game, as the expression goes, in which someone has to lose something in order that someone else gain it.

A cascading process accompanies the act of teaching, with the teacher retaining intact the shared knowledge in spite of having passed it on in full to the pupils, some of whom may, in the future, become teachers and repeat the process. And, as noted earlier, the teacher frequently finds his original source of knowledge enriched by the act of sharing. The same is also true of the sources of wisdom and experience we had discussed in earlier pieces, such as the Holy Books of religions, the lessons from the lives and times of great people and legends and sayings in different languages.

An unfortunate aspect of this phenomenon we are discussing is that the qualities of love and hatred also appear to share the same proclivity. Both multiply upon being shared. The Holy Bible and the Holy Quran, for instance, have been cited as inspirations the most noble and humanitarian acts, as also for some of the most unfortunate examples of rivalry, hatred and atrocities in human history.

History is it replete with instances of religious bigotry leading to bloodshed and wars as between the Jews and Christians, the Christians and the Muslims and, in more recent times, the Hindus and the Muslims etc., strangely, in each instance, both sides swore by their respective Holy Books!

The lives of Mother Teresa, on the one hand, and that of Adolf Hitler, on the other, serve as striking examples of a similar paradoxical situation. Hitler relied on the so called superiority of Aryan race as the inspiration for the campaign of persecution and genocide against the Jews. And faith was the source which guided Teresa in her efforts to spread the message of peace, joy, love and compassion while providing succour and help to millions of people.

While I was serving as a Joint Secretary in (what was then known as) the Ministry of Agriculture, and at the behest of the then Secretary Agriculture Kamal Pande, I started an innovation, in the shape of an inter-division 'flyer', called 'care to share'? It lasted only for a short while. But, while it did, it proved to be an effective method, of disseminating to my colleagues, information regarding matters of interest to them, which I had picked up from various sources. And, very often, the responses received from them, in turn, enriched my knowledge of the subject.

We are all familiar with the saying which says that, if you give a fish to a hungry person, you only give him a meal; but if you teach him to fish, you give him a livelihood, or empower him with the ability to feed himself, and others, in the future. Thus, much more can be shared, than merely concrete and material things, such as food or money.

Knowledge and experience, when shared, can go that much farther, and have a more lasting and sustainable impact. A Prophet can preach, a teacher educate, a trainer impart skills and a philosopher show the path to enlightenment, to thousands of followers, students or trainees, the process enriching at once, both giver and taker.

(The writer is former Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh) 

(The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of The Hans India)