'Seek and You Shall Find'

 Often, Time is called the best teacher but I believe during the course of our life every individual has an influence that he/she carries all through their life, it may be one or many. which reminds me of God Shri Dattatreya.

                          भगवान दत्तात्रेय:-

Shri Dattatreya Bhagwan

The young Dattatreya, who reached self-awareness by observing nature during his Sannyasi wanderings, and treating these natural observations as his twenty-four teachers.

" I have taken shelter of twenty-four gurus, who are the following: the earth, air, sky, water, fire, moon, sun, pigeon and python; the sea, moth, honeybee, elephant and honey thief; the deer, the fish, the dancing girl Pingala, the kurari bird and the child; the young girl, arrow maker, serpent, spider and wasp…”. 
(Srimad Bhagavatam: Canto 11: Chapter 7: Slokas 33~35)

24 GURUS of bhagwan dattatreya

Where do we mortals find such great learning, I believe in the Tutelage of multiple school teacher during the school days. My Boarding school days remind me of some of the best teachers I was fortunate to have since it was a military school some of them were ex-military. 

I remember one incident during those days,

Language as a subject is taken seriously and I went for Marathi instead of French as elective, but it was different in expression as well as written. Overconfident with my Sanskrit skills I appeared for my first Marathi class test, I used all the arsenal and wrote the test paper with a medley of Marathi-Hindi-Sanskrit.

Anticipating being embarrassed in front of the whole class on the blunder called Marathi class test, and the moment arrived when my name was called to be on the anvil. There I was standing and awaiting the flack on my goof-up, that moment was like an eternity and it felt like I should have left the paper blank could have given me the excuse, but as they say "fools rush in where Angels fear" there I was breathing proof.
Mr.Sarode my Marathi teacher looked at me and then my paper and said something never left my thought to date " Good attempt, Are you new to Marathi?"  (Hey Changla Lihla Ahe, Pan Tula Marathi yet nahi ka?)All I could manage was I will try harder the next time. 
That day onwards he started explaining most of the Marathi lessons in Hindi and made me comfortable in adapting to this new language and which I did and scored better marks.

Encouragement and support during those days gave me the humility to accept and learn be it a new language, sport, or skill. Many have contributed to my learning all these years and I heard it somewhere that" I was a fool then but I am less foolish now" 

Excerpt from the poem that was to be explained in the Marathi test that day:Part of folklore created by Mr. Anant Fandi.

बिकट वाट वहिवाट नसावी, धोपट मार्गा सोडु नको

संसारामधी ऐस आपला, उगाच भटकत फिरु नको

चल सालसपण धरुनि निखालस, खोट्या बोला बोलु नको

अंगि नम्रता सदा असावी, राग कुणावर धरुं नको

नास्तिकपणि तुं शिरुनि जनाचा बोल आपणा घेउ नको

आल्या अतिथा मुठभर द्याया मागेपुढती पाहु नको

मायबापांवर रुसूं नको

दुर्मुखलेला असूं नको

व्यवहारमधि फसूं नको

कधी रिकामा बसू नको

परी उलाढाली भलभलत्या, पोटासाठी करु नको ॥ १ ॥

More than two decades and it still feels like yesterday, Only If I could go back in time and thank him. 

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" :)