Passion+vs.+Routine

=What do I need to know about ... Passion vs. Routine?=

Brief Description
In Krishna’s story, The English Teacher, he seems to constantly be battling with different themes and ideas one of which is his Passion against his Routines. There are different perspectives from which to look at Passions vs. Routines and one of them is his Predictability vs. Unpredictability or even Order vs. Chaos. Krishna begins the story, strongly controlled by his routines and through a culmination of different events he is spiritually and culturally awakened and he gives way to his passions instead.

Key Quotations
- Krishna wishes (almost a passive passion) to **//‘cease to live like a cow,’//** and thus designs a better routine and left him feeling **//‘very well satisfied’//**. This shows that his passion can help to shape his routine. -“I am a poet, and I was constantly nagged by the feeling that I was doing the wrong work” shows that Krishna has a passion for writing but his routine life made it difficult for him to pursue this passion. --Additionally, he knows that he is “doing the wrong work” but he chose not to do anything about it. -Krishna does not have passion for teaching at the college, he doesn’t want to teach therefore he simply waits for the time to pass by “dawdle[ing] over the attendance for a quarter of an hour” this shows that without the passion his work could not be done properly and to the best of his abilities. -In contrast with Krishna, the headmaster on the other hand has a passion for teaching. “the sight of Leela’s boat filled him with mystic ecstasy” which implies that he was indeed very proud of his student. Unlike Krishna, the Headmaster wants to teach and enjoys doing it. Moreover he also builds relationships with his students and thinks of them as “wonderful creatures” or his “grandchildren” -“I got up at eight everyday and swallowed a meal” indicates that he lived a very robotic and unhappy life, he “swallow[ed]” his meal implies that he doesn’t even enjoy the taste or appreiciate the food he was eating, he just ate it because his body needed it to survive, which also show that he does things only by routine not because of passion.
 * // -‘There was no sign at the school to show that it was a Sunday’ //** This shows that the school was indeed always full of life and never needed to be controlled and it also shows that the children would come into school even on Sunday rather than being controlled and staying at home and resting as expected by the British.

Role in the novel
The contrast between Passion and Routine can be seen by comparing the two schools Krishna works at in different times in the book. In his first school, Albert Mission College, he teaches in a very structured and orderly manner which was very routine and that he found very boring believing that this education system, turns students into ‘morons, cultural morons but efficient clerks for all [the British] business and administrative offices’. In the kindergarten that he works in later on, he begins to work more freely because there is no specific criteria which need to be followed. It can even be said that he feels very passionately for his work there as he enjoys working with the young children and doesn’t wait for time to go by but rather enjoys each moment he spends with them.