This story begins before any of us were born.
In fact, this happened even before India, as we know it, came into being.
The hero of this story is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
(Whether you consider him a hero otherwise is a different topic altogether)
So Gandhi was travelling on a ship. He had already started his anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and built a reputation for himself.
Angry with his ideology and work, a white man travelling on the same ship wrote him a long letter. Pages after pages of hate-filled words, criticising and cussing Gandhi for everything he was.
He had someone send this letter to Gandhi on the ship’s deck. Eager to see Gandhi’s anger and fear, he hid himself and observed as the letter was delivered and opened.
Gandhi skimmed through the letter. All 5-7 pages with no reaction.
Having gone through the last page, he put the letter aside and continued his work.
As time passed, the white man started getting frustrated. He wanted to see Gandhi cower and suffer – which wasn’t happening at all.
Hence he walked up to Gandhi himself and mocked, “I’ve written this letter that you put away. Did you not understand what it said?”
Gandhi replied, “Yes, I did understand the content, but didn’t find it useful. However, I found one thing of immense use: the pin holding the pages together. Thank you for gifting that. I’ll be using it to organise my current work.”
The white man was left confused.
Isn’t this a great thing to learn?
Irrespective of the abuses and hate, Gandhi took something useful from the situation.
Similarly, irrespective of what you think about Gandhi, why not learn this from him?
My college professor had once said, “College is like a buffet. You have everything in front of you. Choose what you like.”
Life is a similar buffet. Gandhi saw a hundred bad things on the spread, but took one he liked.
You and I can do the same.
Irrespective of how bad the situation is, let’s take home whatever’s good in it.
We’ll need to filter out things. Varna dimaag load sambhaal hi nahi payega.
Keep filtering, keep smiling.
