When I entered the class a week later, they sat in silence. Over the sessions, they had gained perspective on what I was willing to teach them. They welcod into their classroom and actively participated in conversations I initiated. I never uttered a word. They spoke in length about planning escapes before starting a mission. They were supposed to learn from their mistakes, but I didn't want them to cost them their lives.
That day, I had a different plan.
They waited patiently for to scribble sothing, but that was not part of the plan.
"Today, I will be giving you situations, and you will be telling how you will escape from it." Gasps filled the room.
"You speak?" I heard soone say. I pressed my lips together in irritation and gave them a fierce look. They quieted down and then waited for to proceed.
"Adam," I called the boy in the front row. He was good with knives but was even better with computers. He couldn't shoot a target to save his life.
His head jerked up and he stood up, nervous.
"Sit down," I ordered, kindly. I didn't feel like punishing them that day. "You are asked to carry out a robbery in a high-security building. The diamonds are in your hands, and you find yourself on the rooftop, surrounded by guards. What do you do?" He stares at for a mont and then starts panicking. "Sit down and think about it," I tell him. He is probably the smartest in the class, which is why I let him go first. I was hoping that he would co up with an interesting answer for .
There was nothing like a little challenge in the classroom.
"John... You have been asked to infiltrate a terrorist group who is planning to bomb the major tropolitan cities in India at one go. Let us imagine for a mont that you were successful and you got the job of planting the bomb inside the Victoria morial in Kolkata. You know that you will be safe if you leave the location within 3 minutes of planting the bomb. You have two options. Plant the bomb and sohow run out of the premises, or not plant the bomb at all and die at the hands of the terrorists." His eyes told that he already had an answer for . I knew what his choice would be.
"I would plant the bomb and run, of course." He said it so simply.
"How fast do you run?" I asked him critically.
"Fast enough," he said smugly.
"Well, John. The premise of the Victoria morial is well over 60 acres of land."
"I would just have to run as far away as I can to avoid the blast."
"Lets just imagine for a mont that you do run away from the spot, the police would mark you as a suspicious candidate imdiately. Damn, I'll let that go, as well. You sohow manage to go unnoticed... Did you know that there are over thousands of people trying to get inside the morial every day? It is a chore even trying to walk fast because of all the people, and running? Think twice." He eyed suspiciously.
"So, what do you propose? I die in there?" I shake my head. "You want to not plant the bomb, then? I die anyways." I shrug. "You are painting an impossible image here. Tell ... what would you have done? Would you have been a moral citizen and died before planting the bomb?" he retorted, thinking that he had trapped .
"I would find an alternate option. If I refuse to do it myself, they would kill and ask soone else do it. So, everyone dies. I can't run... so I don't run."
"What do you do then?" Adam asked, baffled.
"I take the bomb to the safest spot possible and then try to deactivate it. The gardens itself is sixty acres. The number of people in the garden is lower than those surrounding the building. Even if the bomb goes off, fewer people die."
"And you don't think about yourself?"
"I think about myself and try to defuse the bomb." It is as simple as that. It is just that selfish.
"Then what happens to morality? You die anyway!" John argues.
"And you have no other option than to take it on. When you are there, sorting through the options... sothing will pop out at you. If it doesn't, you die. You can't possibly figure out the circumstances when you are not in them. If you try, you give yourself away and die anyway. Your hard work serves no purpose. So you wait, gauge the atmosphere and form your plans according to what happens around you."
I was surprised that they argued further.
"Adam, have you thought through your situation?" He shook his head with a small smile on his lips. "If it were up to , I would just crash their security system before trying to steal anything." I smiled, feeling a bit smug that my faith in him was not misplaced. The others retorted, saying that it wasn't related to the options given.
Adam held his ground.
"That is exactly the point!" he exclaid, passion pouring out of him. "It is not about the choices you have, but how you mould them and dodge them to get what you want!" The others still refused to believe him.
"So, is this lesson about how we should expect the unexpected?" I heard an enraged girl, who I called Molly because that is what the others called her.
"I'm saying that you shouldn't expect anything. When you have a job, you plan on how to do it, and you use whatever they throw at you to make you stronger and reach your goals."
"This is bullshit," said another sixteen-year-old. Their disrespect was welcoming, though. It made want to think that they could stand their ground and fight for what they thought was best. Decision making was sothing that ca with practice, and they seed to be having a good ti learning how to debate it out and make their decisions.
"Why would we trust soone, who hides herself behind long sleeved clothes and chopped off hair? You're creating this look, which is supposed to make you seem hard and shit, but if you know so much then why aren't you on the field practicing what you preach, huh?"
"John..." I heard soone whisper, their voice strained. Silence prevailed inside the classroom.
"Stand up," I ordered. He stood up.
"Open your shirt." He hesitated. "Open it!" His hands trembled as he unbuttoned the shirt. He hung his head as he waited for to tell him what to do next.
The others looked on in horror as I called him to stand beside .
"I was asked to show you what it ans to be a true agent."
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