After 10 years as a teacher, a young Okija man decided to go and express his gratitude to the most important person who taught him in school. He travelled 47 kilometers to see his old teacher in Nnobi, where the 80-year-old man had retired. 

When he got there that hot afternoon, he saw the man resting under a mango tree with a small local breed dog often called Bingo, keeping him company. Around him was a modest bungalow with rows and rows of hibiscus and white gardenia planted around it. Some of the glass window louvres were broken and replaced with pieces of wood. The scent of blooming Cashew Tree filled the air.

“Sir, you taught me in class four, do you remember me?” the young man said after introducing himself. He wore khaki trousers with a white shirt, an old school uniform his old teacher could quickly identify.

With his failing eyesight, the old man did not recall the young man’s face or name. After 30 years of teaching over 4,000 students across the old Eastern Nigeria, most men at his age would not remember unless for exceptional cases.

The young man was not surprised, considering it was over 20 years ago since he was in the old man’s class. He, however, thought his case was exceptional.

“What do you do now?” the old man asked him, shifting the wrapper around his waist to fully cover his arthritis-riddled knees.

“I am a teacher,” the young man answered, his eyes beamed as he said so.

“That’s nice,” the old man said. “Teaching is a very noble profession. Even if everyone forgets about you when you are old and retired, you forever retain some of the beautiful memories of your time as a teacher. Even if your material reward were meagre, you would cherish the knowledge that some of those you taught are the ones running the affairs of your country. In the rare case when your former student travelled far to come and see you, that is the ultimate. It is always delightful to encounter one of your former students and they remember you. Nothing beats that. Especially when they have a good memory of you, it beats being a police officer or a soldier, which were the other career options available to us then.”

The young man smiled. “You inspired me to be a teacher,” he said.

“How?” the old man asked, brushing off a mosquito that handed on his wrinkled arm. He could have crushed the mosquito without looking based on his sharp reflex, but he did not.

Then, the young man told him the story of the day he changed his life.

“I was in class four,” the young man started. “On that day, a friend of mine came to class with a beautiful watch his father bought for him in Onitsha. All of us in class admired it. Being that my father was poor and could never afford to buy me a watch like that when I had an opportunity, I stole the watch.” 

He paused and glanced at the old man’s face. It was expressionless. No judgment had formed, not on his eyelids and not on his bushy brows. 

“My friend whose watch I stole tried to get the person who stole his watch to return it but failed,” the young man continued. “So he reported to you. You came into class and asked the person who stole the watch to bring it forward, but nobody moved. There was silence. I was afraid, not just afraid to return the watch, I did not dare to return the watch. At that point, I knew that I needed more courage to return the watch than the courage that I used to steal it.”

The small dog barked, wangled its tail and shifted away from the young man. Looking up, the young man saw the old man’s jaw moving as if he was chewing bitter Kola nut. 

“Then you closed our classroom door and asked all of us to close our eyes,” the young man continued. “You went around searching each person’s pocket. I had never been terrified as I was at that moment. I thought of bringing the watch out and dropping it on the floor, far away from me. But I dismissed it because though you asked us to close our eyes, I imagined everyone in the class was looking at me. I froze in grave horror. When you came to my pocket, you found the watch. You took it. But you did not stop your search. You continued to search until you got to the last boy in class. You then went to the front of the class and asked us to open our eyes. When we did, you announced that you had found the watch.”

At this juncture, the old man gestured to the young man to sit on a green plastic chair beside him. The young man thanked him. When he had sat down, he continued with his story.

“You did not say whose pocket you found the watch. You did not say anything to me in public or in private. You gave the watch back to my friend, the owner. That day, you changed my life forever. I went from facing the most shameful situation ever to having my dignity restored in 60 seconds. From that day on, I resolved to be a good person for life. You did not scold me. You did not quote the Bible or the Quran. You did not take me to a shrine. You did not read out passages from the Bhagavad Gita. You did not spell out any moral lessons from Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nelson Mandela, or Benjamin Franklin. You did not advise me to change my ways. Still, I got the message.”

After telling this story, the young man asked the old teacher, “Sir, do you remember this incident?”

The only man smiled and said yes. “I remember the incident, but I do not remember you.”

“Why?” the young man asked, surprised.

“Because, I, too, closed my eyes while searching the pockets of all of you,” the old man said. “I did not open it even when I took the watch from your pocket. I continued.”

The old man dipped his hands into the pocket of a worn-out isi agu top he had on, brought out a pod of alligator pepper, two bitter Kola nuts and an edible nzu clay and offered them to the young man. 

“Welcome to my modest home,” the old man said.

The young man cheerfully accepted them with a gleeful reminder of Brene Brown’s assertion that while the vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, it is also the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging and love.

A great teacher knows that he doesn’t have to humiliate in order to correct. A great athlete knows that he doesn’t have to receive a medal in other to be a winner. A great believer knows that he doesn’t have to fight for his God to demonstrate the affirmation of the creed.

If you must humiliate anyone for you to correct, then you do not know how to teach. If you must get a medal to feel like a winner, you don’t know that participation is everything. If you must kill anyone for you to save your God from humiliation, then you don’t know the God you worship. 

This is a new version of an old Indian epic story.

Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches Post-Colonial African History at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr. Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef”, “Children of a Retired God,” among others.