“I would prostrate myself on the ground and kiss my teacher’s footprints.  The path means more to me than all the roads in the world.” 

Who was your first teacher?  Some of us may vaguely remember a face from our kindergarten rhymes, but how many of us acknowledge them as the torchbearers of our life?  It is probably difficult for modern children to understand how their grandparents or even parents in some cases overcame difficulties in order to go to school.  But their perception of life would definitely change when they realize the first stage of their parents’ education wasn’t an everyday routine like theirs.  I too have heard from my parents that they had to walk many miles to reach their school; moreover, it lacked basic amenities.  School was a way to escape from the world of ignorance, hunger, hopelessness, and unreasonable daily violence for some.  Duishen reminds me of Veluthambi from ‘Vaagai Sooda Vaa’ a 2011 Tamil movie; now whether the movie was inspired by this book that you have to find out. 

“The First Teacher” by Chingiz Aitmatov, a well-known Kyrgyz author is a tale of hope and reformation.  It is also about rebellion against the norm and ignorance.  In a remote village of Kurkureu, a secondary school building is being inaugurated and people are awaiting the arrival of the dignitary who is a native of the village.  She is now an academician in Moscow.  Altynai Sulaimanovna, a middle-aged woman arrives when the ceremony is about to begin.  They give her the place of honour; they lavish attention on her to show how much they respected and admired her.  With everyone talking animatedly and proposing toasts, a young village lad comes in and hands over a batch of telegrams.  They are from the village school’s old pupils congratulating the collective farmers on the new building.  The telegrams are passed around. 

The headmaster asks the lad, “Was it old Duishen?” and Altynai is nervous.  She asks the artist who sat beside her “which Duishen are they talking about?”  “He’s the postman.  Do you know old Duishen?”  She nods vaguely, gets up to leave and at that very moment someone rides past the window with a clatter of hoofs.  The young lad returns to announce Duishen rode away saying that he is yet to deliver many letters and has no time to stop by. 

While everyone remembers with laughter how an uneducated person, who read by syllables, taught children the basics of reading and writing, Altynai alone appears disturbed.  The artist notices that she is intently gazing at the yellowed poplars on the hill swaying in the breeze.  Her face looks pensive and sad.  She seems no more an academician to him, but just an ordinary Kirghiz woman.  She hastily leaves Kurkureu in pretence of urgent work in Moscow promising to return again.  The artist tries to know if someone upset her.  She denies and replies if she has any grievances, it is only against herself. 

She later writes a long letter to the artist, in which she confesses and tells him her story, about her first teacher.  The letter unfolds that it was 1924, when a man from nowhere comes to Kurkureu in a black army overcoat.  A man in uniform in that little remote village was quite strange, but what was stranger was his proposal to set up a school in an abandoned stable on a hillock.  “In those days such words as ‘school’ and ‘teaching’ were novel and no one really knew what they meant,” writes Altynai.  The locals believed “reading’s for the well-to-do.”  They were wary of the aspirations of the newly arrived young man.  “We’re plain folk.  Don’t try to change us,” was their opinion in unison.  Duishen being a member of Komsomol (ex-revolutionary and communist) was not afraid of tradition and decided to challenge it openly. 

“So you’re against this paper which says that children must go to school, which has the seal of the Soviet Government on it?  Who gave you land and water?  Who gave you freedom? Speak up.  Answer!”  he retorted. 

Altynai was just 14 years old then.  An orphan in that steppe village and like the classic Cinderella, she worked hard and suffered humiliation and sometimes beatings from her aunt.  You begin to feel the atmosphere of oppressive hopelessness of children’s life in the village in Aitmatov’s narration.  When Altynai learns that the young man has come to teach them how to read and write, her eyes lit up, a torch seems to flare up in her soul, illuminating her entire inner world, giving her hope.  This particular episode where Altynai empties her bag beside the school door is quite interesting to read where Aitmatov uses vivid imagery through poetic phrases. 

Duishen, a devotee of the Russian leader Lenin, overcomes not only vicissitudes of the locals, but also nature.  Battling the weather, he carries small children across the river during huge snowfall.  He did not have enough education, but this was compensated by the warmth and conviction of his righteousness.  The poplar trees they both plant form a link between the past and the present.  The tall poplar trees stand as witness to the love of a student for her teacher and the conviction the teacher had in his student.  How he rescues Altynai from her evil aunt, the sacrifices he makes, and how he raises her status to a Soviet scientist forms the crux of the story.  And how a little encouragement in a tender age helps to go a long way cannot be emphasized better than this! 

This novella is a monument to the perseverance of human spirit and it evokes sympathy even now at a time when only a memory remains of the Soviet Union and its ideology.  Soviet writers are usually strong, but Chingiz Aitmatov stands out creating deep human-relationships; that have no particular name but felt with heart; nurtured with selflessness and compassion.  He belonged to the post war generation of writers and wrote in both Kyrgyz and Russian.  He wrote about the lives of people during the transformation of Russian empire to the republic of the USSR.  I cannot find words to express how much I was moved by his soulful writing especially the farewell episode.  There’s regret and things left unsaid – One is not always courageous enough to speak one’s heart out. 

“If I could, I’d never let you go, Altynai, but I have no right to stand in your way.  You’ve got to study.  And I’m not very literate, you know.  You must go; it’s for the best…” 

“Good-bye teacher, good-bye, my first school, my childhood, good-bye, my first love…” 

“The First Teacher” allures any reader irrespective of race or creed as its theme – the emotional bond of a hardworking teacher and a talented student is universal.  Altynai’s wish to build a Dushein’s school in Kurkureu to commemorate her first teacher in the letter is the ultimate honour a student can pay to a teacher.  The tale begins during the period of Lenin and it is his picture that the teacher puts up first in his makeshift school; however, in the end it’s Duishen’s face that remains in both Altynai’s and the reader’s mind.  Aitmatov himself became one of the great teachers of the Kirghiz Nation forever. 

This is the first time I am reading a Kirghiz writer.  If you are open to world literature, I would strongly recommend this book which is nostalgic and celebrates the efforts of ordinary people. 

“Why can’t we leave our footprints forever in places with precious memories for us?”  While no one remembers or cares about the person who was the pioneer of education in the village, he lends his name to the hill.  In your life, the first teacher may have been your mother, your elder brother, the sister next door or even a stranger, the first imprints they left on you is what you are now.  All I wanted to say is, “Teacher, thank you for being what you are.” 

Author: Chingiz Aitmatov

Publisher: BookBaby

Language: English