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A Date With Robert Frost
Based On The Theme ‘Explore! Evolve! Excel!’
A student of mine, undergoing a long distance post graduate finance course wanted me to help
her with her English paper too. Though not a teacher by choice and English not being my subject of
specialization, hesitatingly I jumped into the fray with the spirit of helping a fellow being in distress, who
had her entire education till then in the vernacular medium.
As days passed, I slowly started realizing I was learning a lot myself and also came face to face
with the fact that I was not only helping my student as I claimed to be but was also helping myself a
great deal in appreciating the finer nuances of the English language and the exposure to English
literature. That was the moment I set on the path of my self- discovery
Slowly, I came to understand that the above principle I stumbled upon when I taught my student
applied to everything in life. I could see that whatever we give, do, share or otherwise comes back to us
manifold and all these contribute in a subtle way in enriching or degrading our personality and aura. I
understood action or inaction has its consequences; positive or negative.
On one of these days I happened to read and interpret for my student the very famous poem of
Robert frost ‘THE ROAD NOT TAKEN’ whose last lines are so often quoted in advertisements,
motivational PPTs, by speakers and orators. It is as follows
‘Two roads diverged into a wood and
I took the one less travelled by
And that has made all the difference’
These last lines if read alone has a different meaning –choosing a different path or be different,
being exclusive, etc and if the entire poem is read in
totality, the impact is entirely different. I would encourage
the readers of this article to read the poem too. The
poem in essence is about the predicament of the
human nature to make choices. Having made a
different choice, the beauty of the poem lies in the
fact that the poem is silent about what the difference
is like, ‘In the end was the person happy or sad’
‘Did the choice make the person a success or failure?’
‘Was the choice the poet made really different as he
thought so in the beginning?’
I could relate the above to our day to day life
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