If you ask me what the most powerful thing in the world is, I would say it is not love alone, nor respect alone but the rare moment when both meet. When someone sees beyond your face, beyond your mistakes, and chooses to invest in who you can become, not who you appear to be.
I am talking about my supervisor at IIT Roorkee.
During my time there, I stumbled a lot. Most of those mistakes would have been quietly ignored by anyone else. But she refused to look away. She did not want to make me better. She wanted to make me the best version of myself. When I pointed to others who had walked the same path and done the same things, she would gently but firmly remind me… "You are not them. Aage badho, Vivek." Move forward.
She never served me like someone doing a favor. She served me like someone spending her own time, her own effort, to build something she believed in. That is the difference between mere guidance and genuine care.
At IIT Roorkee, she was my constant. The person I spent the most time with. The voice I heard the most. She helped me, she cared for me, and yes, when I went wrong, she scolded me too. But even after the hardest moments, she would call me back. Because her anger was never rejection. It was just another form of care.
Then came the day I went to finalize my report. She looked at me and said, almost softly, "I scold all my students. I pressurize everyone even the PhD scholars." She said it the same way she had once scolded me. But this time, it did not feel like pressure. It felt like a silent apology. Like she was letting me know that every hard word had never been personal. It was her way of caring for everyone she believed in. And in that moment, I realized I had never been just another student to her. I was someone she had chosen to shape. She made me realize I was not made to be average. I was made to rise.
| And for that, I am forever grateful. |
 ){kind=link}
0 Comments