My Jackfruit

I was very nervous, this was my first day in this new school. I was appointed to teach Social Science and I was the class teacher for class IX.

The class was a beautiful class of 28 students, 17 boys and 14 girls. This set of boys was led by a boy called Ravi. Oh! he would hardly listen, always argumentative, would end up telling the class this is democracy and that he has every right to express his opinion, whether right or wrong; he would trouble all the teachers with his antics. Every teacher was at the wit's end, what to do?

Ravi also had certain beautiful qualities, he is a fine leader and when given any task he would do it with full dedication. He is a very good teacher, advisory, team player, teaches all his classmates concepts, clears all their doubts. When his friends were wrong he would advise them but he would stand by them in the teacher's or principal's presence.

The time flew by and now he is in twelfth grade. When his X grade result came he thought he will top like his elder sister but he never put the hard work required for this, so he did not top. He took up commerce, but there was a tremendous change in the boy, he did not stand for election (School leaders). He had immense potential and influence on the students that he would have won hands down as school head boy. But he decided not to stand for election. He has had a complete change of heart. Now he does not argue, is more responsible and shows more respect towards the teachers. The impression that he left on my heart and soul is that he is like a jackfruit that I saw only as a rough exterior with thorns but failed to see the soft, sweet fruit that he actually is.

Without realizing that in that so-called tough facade, there lies a boy whose heart is soft, needs to be loved and nurtured better. If we had just tried a little harder maybe, he would top the school and become a school leader. Somewhere I feel we failed him and failed ourselves also in recognizing the fruit inside the hard Jackfruit peel.