Book Review - Tuesdays With Morrie

Being a back bencher, we would all have been ridiculed by most of the teachers. Their eyes would never meet ours when talking about the best things of education and the pursuit of good marks but the moment they need to divert the topic or bring in some fun, Eureka !!! Last benchers ! But there are few teachers who inspire us genuinely. Who see our actual talent, who would never judge you based on your marks, who would always come into our memory when we hear the word "teacher" , the one who made us proud for who we are! One such teacher is Mr. Morrie Schwartz. 

Mr. Morrie is dying, he just enlightens us with his experience, with his wisdom, with his confidence, with his courage, his enthusiasm and what not. Now don't get sacred thinking this is a serious book about a student teacher relationship which will be filled with advises or a person's blabbering who is on his deathbed.This book is filled with humor, emotions, positivity, questions and answers.  We would never forget our favorite teacher in our life. We could relate Morrie to that special teacher. 

  "If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing your self to dive right in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment." 

This one quote it moved me beyond words and kept me thinking about love , life , pain and heart break. Great things are explained so simply in this book. A student is meeting his dying teacher every tuesday. There comes a scene where the author would be talking to his teacher on the phone and suddenly he would hand over the phone suddenly to his wife and the talk she would have with Morrie, classic. Our younger generation must read these kind of manners do exist. 

"In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive right?... But here's the secret: in between, we need others as well."

This quote made me open my eyes to life. We are busy with complaining that I don't have this, I didn't have this. We must understand that nothing in life is permanent but the moments are. 

So what is the marks ?

At times we feel that positivity preaching is a little too much  over the course of this book . Not everyone is so good as Morrie. We have seen betrayals , heart breaks, career crashes , financial crisis , so the applications of the principles in the book is quite not possible to the extent. 

But it is a perfect read. Give it a try, you will never regret. You will learn something call life. It is not a book, it is a phenomenon. 

4/5 . 

With Love, 

Arvi