The audience in a concert hall comprises of connoisseurs of good music, average rasikas who are at a much lower lever technically and the layman, who just likes a less technical but more ranjaka rendering.
Someone like S Balachander, Dr.Balamuralikrishna, Dr.S Ramanathan, M D Ramanathan, Mani Krishnaswamy do not make compromises. They sing targeted at the connoisseur. Musicians like Kunnakkudi, Mandolin Srinivas, Kadri Gopalnath targets the average singer and in Kunnakkudis case, even the layman. Majority strikes a balance between the two like T N Seshagopalan, Maharajapuram Santhanam, Gayathri, Sowmya, Sudha Raghunath. But at heart I have understood at the despair in compromising on their music. But they either sing for themselves or are happy if the connoisseur (at most 5 in a hall of 500) goes home satisfied.
I have been frustrated at the lack of response of my MBA students in the Class. 99.99% walk into the class without reading a word on the subject, the business GK is next to zero and all my efforts to make them understand the importance of Business knowledge falls on deaf years. It can be so frustrating, for one of the reason why one teaches is for his intelligence to be stimulated. This happens only when the student asks searching questions of the faculty. It has never happened in my a decade of teaching.
I was so frustrated (still am) that I just wanted to stop teaching. It was turning out to be a futile excercise. All the effort for nothing.
However, during the past one month, I have been getting some mails from an old student and couple of current ones, the contents of which made me realize that at least these students have been benefitted to some extend by my teaching. The clarifications raised by them were very valid and make me think.
Then I had to go to a B Com class yesterday. This was an emergency situation where I had to stand in for another faculty. Young students, barely 18-20. The two hours I spent with them changed my outlook. They were superb. Their thought process and knowledge of the fundamentals were way over what was expected of them. Before I even finished my questions, the answers were coming back at me, and more importantly the answers were bang on target. I was amazed. I cannot get my MBA students to open their mouth in the class. But these kids were gems. They were able to follow even complex macro economic concepts.
I regretted that I wont be able to continue taking classes for them. But it acted as a much needed tonic to make me rethink my decision to stop teaching.
These young kids and the other 3 students are like the connoisseurs. As a teacher maybe I should be satisfied if I can make a difference to a couple of people in life. It is all a question of managing the expectations
