Why do I teach?

Why are you teaching? I get this question a lot. Actually, almost everyone asks me this after they get to know that I am juggling between my working for a firm on the weekdays and the teaching on the weekends.

I answer by saying that I like teaching. Pat comes the suggestion, try for a college in Delhi and take up a permanent faculty position. 

I nod, in my mind thinking but why? 

The people who suggest this are my well meaning friends and relatives. Their concerns are based on my whining complaints about how very tired i get with all the traveling and about how I hardly get time for my own self in the process.

Also, how all the kids, well, no they really are not kids anymore, but yea, since they are all about 7-8 years younger and with my position as the faculty, they are kids to me. 

Yea yea, I digress.

Coming to the point, how these kids are all from very modest backgrounds and how it takes a lot of effort for me to teach them(will do a detailed post about how modest and how much of an effort).

This all changes the moment I step foot there.

Despite all my whining, the sense of accomplishment that I experience, when they do the one exercise I gave them, correctly and superbly, is what I go there for.

The way they greet me when I reach the class in the morning, is what I go there for.

The shine on their face when I praise them, the determination to do better when I admonish, is what I go there for.

More than anything else, for me, it's the joy of giving back what I got from my education and the unexplainable joy at being able to make a difference in their lives. 

That is what I go there for.