There was a time when teaching was not considered a good profession. I used to do part-time teaching and my mother would beg me not to tell anyone that I was doing so. Once a near relative (now dead) contemptuously called me "masterjee" when he heard that I was teaching in the evenings to make ends meet. This attitude was of course in Memons only, in other communities teachers always commanded a great deal of respect. But they were not paid well, and until recently this was the case.
But not any more. I was astounded to learn that tuition teachers nowadays earn more than two hundred thousand a month. Some of them even have their own automobiles.
In 1984, a Customs officer asked me to lend him my car for a day (the tenth of Muharram). I hired a car for him to bring lady guests from one end of the city to his house (he lived in Mauripur, near the sea-shore where I had my salt works). He mentioned my name to a lady who had once been a laboratory assistant in NED (where I used to teach). She told him that I had once been a teacher there. After that day, the Customs officer used to get up from his seat whenever I went to him. He said that he couldn't remain seated while a professor was standing (even though he was at least ten years older than me). A similar reaction came from the father of one of my students (who was also working in the oil company where I was employed). I had exempted the student from coming to work due to the impending exams. When the student told his father, the man actually came to my office to thank me. Needless to say, both he and the Customs officer were not Memons.
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