THE WEIGHT OF TOMORROW: A Kashmiri Teacher’s Journey

Shabir Ahmad taught at the Higher Secondary School in a remote village of Bandipora. Fifteen years ago, when he had first stepped into a classroom fresh from his Master’s in History from Kashmir University, he had believed education could change everything. Today, as he prepared for another day of teaching five different classes because three teacher positions remained unfilled, that optimism felt like a luxury he could no longer afford. The notification on his phone buzzed: another circular from the education department about implementing new digital learning initiatives. He almost laughed, bitter and short. Digital learning in a school where the electricity worked three days a week, where computers donated by an NGO in 2018 still sat in boxes because there was no secure room to house them, where most of his students couldn’t afford smartphones, let alone internet packages.

His wife, Hameeda, was already awake, preparing breakfast in their small kitchen. She taught at the private primary school in the neighboring village, walking four kilometers each way on mountain roads that turned treacherous with the slightest snowfall. Together, they earned just enough to support their own two children and Shabir’s aging mother, but barely enough to dream beyond the next month’s expenses. “The water’s frozen again,” Hameeda said quietly, showing him the empty plastic pitcher. It was the third time this week. Shabir added “find plumber” to his mental list, somewhere between “prepare lessons for Classes 9-12” and “visit Abdul Rashid’s family to convince them not to pull their son out of school.” At school, the familiar sight of the cracked building greeted him. The government had promised renovations for three years running. The promise arrived reliably every budget session; the funds never did. Shabir unlocked his classroom – he kept his own key because the school chowkidar often failed to show up, having taken a second job as a security guard to make ends meet.

His first class was tenth-grade History. Thirty-seven students crammed into a room meant for twenty-five, sharing textbooks because the new curriculum books hadn’t arrived yet, though the academic session was already halfway through. As he began discussing the freedom struggle, young Arif raised his hand. “Sir, my cousin says education is useless. He dropped out in ninth class and now earns more as a delivery boy than my uncle who has a degree. Why should we study?” The question hit Shabir like a physical blow, not because it was disrespectful, but because it was painfully logical. He looked at Arif’s earnest face, then at the other students waiting for an answer that went beyond platitudes about knowledge being power. What could he tell them? That their degrees might help them stand in longer queues at employment exchanges? Those competitive exams were designed for students who could afford coaching classes that cost more than their families earned in months? “Because,” Shabir said, choosing his words carefully, “education gives you choices, even when those choices are difficult. Without it, you don’t even get to choose your difficulties.” After classes, Shabir rushed to his second job – tutoring students from affluent families in Baramulla.

The irony wasn’t lost on him: he spent his evenings giving individual attention to children whose parents could pay for it, while his own students at the government school made do with whatever energy he had left during school hours. But the tutoring money paid for his mother’s medicines and his daughter’s books. The commute back home in the shared auto-rickshaw gave him time to think, squeezed between a laborer returning from a construction site and a young woman clutching her college bag with the same desperate hope Shabir once remembered feeling. The auto broke down twice – nothing unusual – and by the time he reached home, it was nearly nine o’clock. His own children, twelve-year-old Aaliya and eight-year-old Owais, were doing homework under a single bulb. Aaliya was struggling with mathematics, and Shabir felt the familiar pang of guilt. Here he was, a teacher who spent his days trying to inspire other people’s children, yet he barely had time to sit with his own daughter and help her understand fractions.

“Baba, why do you look so tired all the time?” Owais asked innocently, looking up from his Urdu textbook. The question lingered in the air like smoke from the chinar leaves they burned for warmth. How could he explain to an eight-year-old that he was tired because the system expected him to be a teacher, counsellor, social worker, and miracle worker all at once? That he spent his days trying to convince teenagers that their futures mattered while struggling to secure his own family’s present? The next morning brought news that made everything worse. Three more ad hoc teachers from neighboring schools had resigned to take jobs as clerks in banks. The education officer called, asking if Shabir could “temporarily” handle additional sections. Temporarily had become permanently long ago. In his second-period class, he noticed Zara, usually one of his brightest students, staring blankly at her notebook. During the break, he approached her.

“Everything alright, beta?” Zara looked up with eyes that seemed older than her sixteen years. “Sir, my parents are discussing my marriage. They say what’s the point of studying further when I’ll just be a housewife anyway.” Shabir felt something break inside his chest. Zara had dreams of becoming a doctor, had consistently topped her class, had the kind of intelligence that could take her anywhere. But poverty had a way of shortening horizons, making the impossible seem impractical and the impractical seem impossible. “Would you like me to talk to them?” he offered, though he knew from experience that such conversations rarely changed minds already made up by economic desperation.

That evening, instead of going to his tutoring job, Shabir made the twenty-minute walk to Zara’s village. Her father, a carpenter whose work had dried up since the latest shutdown, listened politely but his decision was final. “Shabir sahib, I respect your concern, but I have three daughters. Who will pay for their education? Who will pay for their weddings? At least if Zara marries now, it’s one burden less.” Shabir walked back home under a canopy of stars that seemed to mock his helplessness with their distant brightness.

He thought about the dozens of Zaras he had taught over the years – brilliant minds extinguished by circumstances beyond their control or his ability to change. At home, he found a letter waiting: his own daughter Aaliya had won a scholarship to a private school in Srinagar. The scholarship covered tuition, but not transportation, uniforms, or living expenses. It was an opportunity wrapped in impossibility, a door opened just wide enough to see through but not wide enough to walk through. Hameeda found him sitting in their small courtyard, the letter in his hands. “We’ll find a way,” she said simply. “We always do.” The next day at school, he made an announcement to his students.

“I want to tell you something,” he began, his voice carrying a weight that made even the most restless students pay attention. “Every day, I come here tired. I come here worried about money, about my family, about whether what we’re doing here matters. And every day, I see the same worry in your eyes.”

The classroom was silent except for the sound of wind rattling the loose window frames.

“But I want you to know that being tired doesn’t mean giving up. Being worried doesn’t mean stopping. Yes, our circumstances are difficult. Yes, the world outside sometimes seems designed to break our spirits. But you know what I’ve learned in fifteen years of teaching?” He looked at each face, seeing himself at their age, full of dreams and uncertainty. “I’ve learned that education isn’t just about getting jobs or escaping poverty – though those things matter. Education is about dignity. It’s about having words for your thoughts, tools for your dreams, and strength for your struggles. When everything else fails, when opportunities disappear, when the world tells you that you don’t matter – your knowledge, your ability to think and question and hope – that stays with you.” Arif, the boy who had questioned the value of education, raised his hand tentatively.

“But sir, what if we study and still nothing changes?” Shabir smiled, and for the first time in months, it reached his eyes. “Then you’ll be educated people who faced difficulties, instead of uneducated people who faced difficulties. And sometimes, that makes all the difference.” After class, three students approached him. They wanted to start a study group, meeting after school to help each other with difficult subjects. Zara was among them. “Sir, I convinced my parents to wait one more year. I want to try for the medical entrance exam. If I don’t make it, then I’ll accept their decision. But I want to try.” That evening, Shabir called his brother in Delhi, swallowed his pride, and borrowed money for Aaliya’s school expenses. It would mean tighter months ahead, perhaps skipping some medicines for his wife, definitely no new clothes this year. But some investments were worth making, even when – especially when – you could barely afford them.

As winter gave way to spring and the chinars began to bloom again, something shifted in Shabir’s classroom. The study group had grown to fifteen students. Zara was accepted into a coaching program for medical entrance exams, with fees sponsored by an alumni who remembered the teacher who had refused to let him give up. Shabir was still tired. The salary delays continued, the school infrastructure remained crumbling, and the education department kept sending circulars about initiatives they had no resources to implement. But something had changed in the way he carried his burdens. He realized that his students weren’t learning just Mathematics and History and Science. They were learning how to persist when everything seems stacked against you. They were learning that dignity wasn’t dependent on circumstances, that hope was a choice you made every morning when you got up and decided to try again.

On the last day of the school year, as he packed up his books and prepared for the brief respite that summer vacation provided, he found a note tucked into his copy of the tenth-grade History textbook: “Shabir sir, thank you for teaching us that being burdened doesn’t mean being broken. We promise to carry what you’ve given us forward. - Your students, Class of 2024” Standing in his empty classroom, surrounded by the familiar smell of chalk dust and old wood, Shabir felt something he hadn’t experienced in months: lightness. Not because his burdens had disappeared – they remained as heavy as ever. But because he had finally understood that the weight he carried wasn’t just his own troubles. He was carrying tomorrow. For Zara, for Arif, for all the students who would sit in these broken chairs and look up at him with hope they didn’t even know they possessed. And tomorrow, despite everything, felt worth carrying. Outside, the call to evening prayer echoed across the valley, the same call that had awakened him every morning for thirty-eight years. But tonight, for the first time in months, Shabir Ahmad was not afraid of tomorrow’s weight. He was honored to carry it.

 Note: All names in the article may not be real.

Dr Showkat Rashid Wani, Senior Coordinator, Directorate of Distance education, University of Kashmir