Your Grandchild Has Tougher Lessons To Teach Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

When your child was born
You might have learned certain lessons
As he or she was growing
The child would have been
Teaching lessons
Which you were not learning
From anywhere else
You would have found the lessons
Tough and difficult to absorb
As basics and fundamentals
Language used by the faculty
Methodology of teaching
Were quite different
Most of the time unstructured
Unmindful of your moods
The teacher would have kept you
Loaded with lessons difficult to decipher
The classes were far unique and
Very specially different
From any of the formal institution
Which were preparing you
For making a life
The lessons here aimed at
Making you live fully alive and aware of
Absolute realities
You would agree
Learning these never made you tired
And you were enthusiastically looking for
New lessons to come up
By the time
Your child has grown up
And stopped teaching you any further
Your grand child arrives
Now the lessons turn tougher still
Despite all the experiences in life and living
Your learning is quite difficult now
The teacher is in a great hurry
And often keeps changing
The course of lessons
You find new reasons
For things happening around
And you see yourself
In new enthusiasm
Which you feel will help you live
Longer still
With enough energy, strength and skill
In spite of the fact that
Your grandchild has tougher lessons to teach