THINKING TOGETHER

Ahalya Chari

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING

Foreword
For the wholesome development of the personality of children, it is essential that they
acquire not only the requisite knowledge and skills while they are at school, but also
develop certain attitudes which will make them better human beings. If these attitudes are
not developed at a young age, while the children’s minds are still pliable, it becomes very
difficult to help them grow in a healthy direction at a later stage. All educational
committees and commissions, therefore, have stressed the need for imparting moral
education or education in values to children at the school stage. In fact the new National
Policy on Education (1986) states: “The growing concern over the erosion of essential
values and an increasing cynicism in society has brought to focus the need for re-
adjustment in the curriculum in order to make education a: forceful tool for the
cultivation of social, ethical and moral values”.
While the need for education in values has been universally accepted, discussion is
still on in many countries as to the best method of inculcating the right values in children.
This is a new ground to be explored. Our efforts in the beginning have naturally to be
tentative. With this in view, the National Council of Educational Research and Training
(NCERT) decided to embark upon a project on education in values. As a first step we
sought to develop some help materials for teachers and students that would aid in the
awakening of perceptions and the inculcation of values.
Thinking Together has been written by Professor (Km.) Ahalya Chari, former
Principal of the Regional College of Education, Mysore, and also former Com-missioner,
Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan. She is now actively engaged in guiding the educational
work of the Krisrmamurti Foundation. India. This book has been primarily written to
promote discussions in the classroom between children and their teachers. The book has a
universal appeal and deals with some essential human values in a non-denominational,
non-sectarian manner. The style of presentation will have a special appeal for young boys
and girls as it is simple, direct and friendly in its approach. i I take this opportunity to
thank Km. Ahalya Chari for the beautiful book she has written at our request inspite of
other heavy demands on her time, The book speaks eloquently about her commitment to
education and her love for children.
Dr. Anil Vidyalankar, Professor and Head of the Department of Education in Social
Sciences and Humanities in the Council, has been looking after the programme of
‘Education in Values’ of which this book is a part. I thank him for the keen interest he
has been taking in this important programme.
We are grateful to Km, Theima Rozario (retd.) Professor and Head of the Department
of English of the S.I.E.T. Women’s College, Madras, for kindly going through the
manuscript and making valuable suggestions and to Km. Sudha of The School, KFI,
Adyar, Madras, for secretarial assistance.
 We hope the issues discussed here will open new avenues for exploration and provide
new insights to young adolescents. Suggestions and comments on this book will be
highly appreciated.
New Delhi
P, L. MALHOTRA
Director
National Council of Educational Research and Training

A Word to the Teacher

This little book entitled Thinking Together goes out to children in the NCERT’s
series on Value Education.
Having been a teacher for many years, I should like to share with teachers, freely and
frankly, as from one teacher to another the thoughts and concerns that have gone into this
book.
Although we teach different subjects throughout the day, we know deep within us that
we are doing much more than that. We are touching children’s minds and hearts in far
deeper ways than is evident. In the classroom it is one human being speaking to several
young ones and the best comes forth. We may be worried about a hundred things; we
may be battling inside us about life’s curious ways, but in the classroom with those
young, bright eyes and beautiful faces looking up at us, there is only the art of
communication holding the mind for the moment. You must have felt, as I have done,
some great moments come intensely alive in class. Those were, perhaps, moments when
the gleam in a child’s eye pointed to the fact that he had perceived the truth of what you
are attempting to say. The art of teaching is the art of helping children perceive truths.
Words, gestures, are merely tools.
In like manner Value Education is not a matter of teaching some concepts, however
noble, for children to hold in the brain theoretically. It is not a matter of giving them a set
of dogmas, doctrines or beliefs. It is not a matter of moralising, preaching. Never attempt
that, for today’s children are very different. When we are not in actual life what we say
they ought to be, it does not carry conviction. They do not respect us and without respect
there can be no give and take. So let us look at the communication of values as the very
gentle art of helping children look at themselves and the people around them.
It is in the matrix of relationship that one can watch life’s play. It is there that one
perceives great things and small.
It is for this reason that although the book deals with values such as responsibility and
sharing, cooperation and integrity, questioning and self-reliance, etc., it tries not to talk
down to children. These thirty-five pieces are descriptions of little episodes in the life of
children of the age group 12 to 15, incidents of everyday occurrence with which they can
identify themselves and in so doing, open up their own beings to themselves. The
material is simple and straightforward.
 There is, therefore, a different approach that one should take in inculcating values
through the use of this book. In the first place let us be clear that we are not
communicating a set of theories in the abstract to a ‘class’ which is another abstraction.
On the contrary, we are helping Vinay see what happens when one does not keep a
promise; we are pointing out to Meera all that she suffers when she gets hurt about small
things that seem big to her; we are asking Aslam and Shefali to look into what
relationship is, what sharing and cooperation are. To another child who is highly
competitive, a new trend of thought may occur in the understanding of little Hameeda’s
plight in the episode On Competition. Most pieces deal with the different states of their
own mind, their little dilemmas, the struggles they go through and so on. My point is that
it is in understanding one’s own thought processes and feelings that a perception of what
is false and what is true occurs.
There are also passages that endeavour to help children become aware of their
environment, of society and its problems, of the country and the world. There are other
passages that ask them to care for the earth for it is theirs, their heritage. Throughout, the
movement is towards the development of a concern for the country and its people,
particularly the poor and the weak, and for mankind. It attempts to bring to the fore that
which is human in humanity.
How would one go about teaching the book? Don’t teach it. Let it speak to you and to
the children if there be anything of worth in it. By that I mean do not turn it into yet
another textbook to be studied assiduously. On the contrary use the passages for dialogue
and discussion. You could take the liberty to build around a piece other instances relevant
to your group of children, keeping to the trend of the piece. The temptation to be didactic
or to moralise should be avoided at all costs. It is in the dialogue with your class that
much of what is of significance to children in their own lives will get revealed, thus
helping the teacher to understand the child better.
Then again, as is hinted in the book itself, in various parts perception leads to feeling
and action. Aditi sees for herself the injustice in ill treating girls and women feels
concerned and acts. The children grasp deep within themselves the ugliness of throwing
garbage around and act. And so on. Likewise, apart from dialogues and discussions one
could take up projects and activities, if your school is flexible enough to allow that. At
any rate, do not be in a hurry to finish the book. Dip into it leisurely and build upon the
values being communicated, gently, patiently, taking one passage and its ramifications
over two or three lessons or even more. The intention is that such an approach could be
tried as resource material in classes VII, VIII and IX. Hence there are included some easy
episodes and ideas and some more complex issues. You can choose what is most suited
for each age and not feel tied down to the order in the book. One can envisage that
teachers may be faced with one or two problems. First of all, when does one use this
book? It could be used to say, a culture class to be set apart once a week or even once a
fortnight for this purpose. In some schools that is being tried. Otherwise, one has to find
opportunities to divert the class from the learning of a subject to a discussion of this kind
once in a while. Or, perhaps, some other teacher is absent and you are deputising for her
and that happens so often. Take a small piece and generate a discussion, the most
satisfactory arrangement is, of course, to schedule one period per week in classes VII to
IX for purposes of general discussion on such themes.
 The second problem one might face is the difficult level of the language in the book.
No attempt has been made to confine it to graded structures and vocabulary, for that
would have hampered the free flow of thought. So, teachers have to communicate the
ideas in simple words of their own or in the vernacular. What is important is to move
with the child, exploring new avenues of perceptions and discoveries. The intention is to
make its progress a very joyous experience for teacher and child, full of the delight that
comes with self-understanding and sharing.
Finally, the state of one’s own mind is equally important. Has one gone into these
truths for oneself at some point or another? Does one have a global, universal mind, or is
one attached to a particular region, language, sect? If we are narrow in our outlook,
however well we may teach, these ideas will not ring true. For Value Education is,
ultimately, being honest with oneself and with the children. Therefore, this is a task to be
taken up with a profound sense of responsibility, care and concern, with the spirit of a
scientist tempered by all that is human in man.
64-65, Greenways Road Madras 600 028
AHALYA CHARI
Krishnamurti Foundation India

Contents
1. Naveen in a New School
2. Home and Its Influence
3. Keeping a Promise
4. Temperament and Orderliness
5. Would You Like to Be Self-Reliant?
6. Making Decisions
7. The Art of Conversation
8. The Joy of Sharing
9. On Competition
10- On Relationship
11- Leisure
12. On People and Their Ways
13- School Day
14. On Getting Hurt
15. Meeting a Challenge
16. Questions That Troubled Aditi
17. On Money
18. Excitement with the New
19. Parents’ Anxieties
 20. On Beauty
21. When Trees Hold a Conference What Do They Do?
22. Who Cares for Public Property?
23. Caring for the Environment
24. On Being Afraid
25. Feelings
26. The Art of Questioning
27. Heroes in Our Lives
28. Battling with Books
29. The Human Spirit
30. Getting to Know Our Villages
31. On Pressure
32. The Sorrow of Division
33. A Dialogue
34. Ravi’s Quest for the Meaning of Religion
35. What Does Progress Mean?

1. Naveen in a New School

It was Naveen’s first day at the new school and the day of the admission tests. It was a
reputed school with more than eight hundred students. However, Naveen liked his old
school; a small, unknown but homely school. Most of the teachers were kind and the
boys were friendly. He would have preferred to continue there but he had been promoted
to the eighth class and his parents felt that he ought to pass the tenth out of a well-known
school, for this would enable him to get admission into a good college. His parents had
discussed this quite often at dinner and finally decided to take him out of his old school.
Naveen never understood their logic but, then, he told himself, there were many things
about grown-ups that he could not understand and so he gave up churning his mind about
things beyond him.
His parents wanted him to go to this big school where students wore sparkling white
uniforms, with a red tie and black shining shoes and everything seemed to have a
polished look. On one occasion his father had said that he would speak to a person of
influence who would in turn speak to someone so that he could get admitted to this
school of distinction. Naveen was offended; he did not like this, for had they not told him
earlier that bright students who passed their entrance tests would be admitted? He had
always stood first in his school and was more than confident he would fare well in the
tests but his parents were nervous for some reason he could not understand.
On the day of the admission tests he saw more than a hundred students and about four
times the number of parents! It was quite bewildering and he was quickly whisked away
into a small room in a far off corner with about twenty others. He was first given the
maths test which he cleared without any difficulty, for maths was his favourite subject. At
one point, Naveen felt choked, for he remembered his maths teacher, the very lovable
man he had left behind, and he blinked away the tears which had welled up. He wondered
what the new man would be like. The next test was Hindi which he could not do so well.
They asked him several questions in grammar and although he knew the language well
enough to compose poems in it, he could not make anything of what the grammarians
said about the language. “These grown-ups have a way of complicating simple things,”
he thought. Then followed an English test about which he was extremely diffident, for he
had been told he would have to compete with boys who were very good in the subject as
they came from important towns. In fact, after great effort he had learnt by heart a long
poem by a man called Longfellow, but when he was asked to recite it, the words would
not flow. The English teacher seemed to have a certain steely look about him that took all
the courage out of him. After this experience he muddled up even his essay on, ‘How I
spent my summer holidays’. He could not remember having had a holiday, leave alone
spending it, for he had spent the time preparing for these tests! His parents and relatives
had been after him to make the grade — all of them — father, mother, uncle and cousin.
When the results were announced Naveen did not go to school. Father did not either,
nor mother. His cousin went and carne back triumphantly waving his hands. Naveen had
been admitted although his name was last on the list. “So Mr. X has managed the
admission. Good”, said father. Naveen was again offended, for he was sure that he had
secured his admission only because he had done well in the tests.
That night, Naveen went to bed rather dejected. He had loved his old school. It was in
a ramshackle building with very little drinking water and the classrooms were dingy, but
his headmaster loved him and his maths teacher was kind. They used to play a lot of
improvised games morning and evening, as there were no hockey sticks or proper
playgrounds. The new school was different. It had an imposing building and it was neat
and clean and boys from “good’ homes attended it. But Naveen wondered what the
people inside were like. That night he dreamed of a large bird carrying away a frightened
boy, read to drop him into a strange land. It is so true, isn’t it, that it is the warmth of the
people that makes you feel at home in a place? Buildings are important and good
furniture, of course. If, in addition, there are large grounds and a sense of space and if
there are beautiful trees and flowers, a school would be a most welcome place to go to.
But most important of all are the feelings of the people inside and this Naveen found out
quite soon.
Have you faced any difficulties in new situations? What is your idea of a good school?
What are some things that grownups around you say or do that you do not understand?
Think upon these things and discuss them in class.

2. Home and Its Influence

Some children are naturally very helpful. They do not at all have to be told to help.
That was so with Ayesha. The moment she saw any teacher, her own, or anyone else
walking down the corridor with a pile of books, she would run up and offer to carry them.
She would notice the state of the black-board before a teacher came in and she would
wipe it clean and keep a chalk-piece and duster ready. If the mali was seen carrying two
pots of water she would offer to take one and start watering the plants. It all came very
naturally to her — picking up a stone on the road, putting away waste paper in the
dustbin, lifting a child that had fallen, helping back-stage at any school function, cleaning
up the art room after the class was over, putting the tanpura back in its case, carrying
hockey sticks to the fields and bringing them back after the game, distributing sweets on
an occasion, and she did it all with quiet dignity and a smile. She never felt that she was
doing something unusual. It seemed the most natural thing for her and she delighted in
helping others.
When the school announced the forming of a Social Service Squad she was the first to
opt for it although it was really meant for the senior students. She begged her teacher to
let her join and be an assistant to the school volunteers of the ninth and tenth classes.
They all liked her so much that they welcomed her. The first expedition was to the
Children’s Orthopaedic Centre of the local hospital. There, for the first time, Ayesha
encountered human suffering of a kind she had never seen before and she was moved.
She was only twelve years of age then and to see a boy in a plaster cast whose knee had
fractured, a girl limping with one crutch, a small child in a perambulator who she
discovered had contracted polio, another boy with his shoulder in plaster and several such
cases must have been a difficult experience; and, on the first day, she was very quiet,
content to move along with her seniors. Sarla held her hand warmly and that made her
feel brave and after a couple of visits she became one of the regular visitors to the centre.
She would read stories to the young ones or tell them jokes or help generally. They all
said she would grow to be a good nurse or doctor, for she was so warm-hearted. Helping
these children, Ayesha became more aware of various kinds of disabled people around
her home and neighbourhood; the beggar with a crutch, the blind girl who sang
beautifully, the basket weaver squatting on the wayside who had no legs and so on. She
was indeed a sensitive child.
Perhaps Ayesha’s home was, in some measure, responsible for cultivating this deep
sensitivity in her. Her mother was a primary school teacher and her father worked in a
bank. They were both very hard-working people but Ayesha grew up watching how
father helped her mother in the household work. He would do all the shopping, cut
vegetables, cook, wash dishes. He had taken on himself the task of putting Ayesha to bed
till she was five. Her mother too was very efficient in household work and, in addition,
would help her father in drafting letters for she had an M.A. degree in English. It was a
delight to see how husband and wife managed everything together, sharing and helping to
produce together the right climate in the home. Ayesha grew up in such an atmosphere of
security and contentment and learnt to lend a hand naturally without any fuss.
But a day came, when Ayesha realised that not all fathers were like hers, naturally
inclined to help in the kitchen or the household. She had gone to her neighbour’s house.
Her friend Shankar lived there. He was also of her age although he went to another
school, a boy’s school in town. Shankar’s mother was doing all the cooking herself and
Ayesha discovered that everyday she spent most of her time in the kitchen making puris,
potatoes, gulab jamuns and all kinds of delicious things for the father and son. Shankar’s
father had a small business of his own and was out most of the day. When he returned in
the evening he expected to be waited upon by his wife. He also seemed quite distant and
harsh with her and it seemed he felt that wives should not be encouraged to talk too
much. As a result, there wasn’t much conversation and the father, it was apparent, was
the lord of the house. Shankar’s mother accepted this as her lot. In fact she would tell
Ayesha in her son’s presence that after all she was a woman and women were meant to
manage homes and look after the men in the household Shankar accepted all this
unquestioningly and grew up to have similar notions. One day, when Ayesha asked
Shankar why he couldn’t help his mummy in the kitchen he said to her haughtily, “Oh!
that’s girl’s work. I don’t go to the kitchen. I am going to be a pilot and fly in the air.
Look at my mini-aeroplane”.
This troubled Ayesha and she wondered whether boys were meant to have all the
adventure and fun that an outdoor life offered them and girls had only to stay home and
cook. She asked her mother why Shankar’s parents were different and whether girls were
meant to restrict themselves to the home. Her mother pointed out that, on the contrary,
there were so many new professions that were now open to girls. They were becoming
architects, engineers, air hostesses, nurses, tourist-guides, researchers, receptionists,
telephone-operators and so on, apart from being doctors and teachers. Girls were also
taking part in international sports, and in mountaineering and hiking. Likewise, she said,
many men now help in the home because servants are not available or are too expensive
to hire. “Times are changing”, she pointed out, “and no longer is home-making the only
thing a woman need do, although it is very important and a mother must not neglect her
home.’’ She said her father was a wonderful man and she wished there were more like
him.
Now what are your own views? Do you think girls must be confined to the kitchen and
boys should keep out of it, like Shankar had grown to believe, because his parents set that
example? Perhaps you could have a discussion on this.
Also consider what made Ayesha such a helpful girl. Was it her home or was she born
with that trait? What part does the atmosphere in a home play in developing your inner
nature? What part do the beliefs of teachers play in helping you form opinions? Are you
influenced by them?
Have you been influenced by your friends outside school?
Think upon these things.

3. Keeping a Promise
Sruti was studying for her B.A. exam which she was going to answer privately after
having absented herself from the last one on account of illness. She was a diligent student
and had planned her studies very methodically. She awaited her brother Vinay’s arrival
from school that evening, because he had promised to bring her on the way home an
important book, History of India by Ishwari Prasad. Her cousin was also studying for the
same exam and they often shared books. Vinay, as he entered the house, looked shabby
and full of dust after the games at school, and her first question was, “Have you brought
the book?” Vinay faltered, remembered, felt ashamed, mumbled something and moved
away quickly, feeling very guilty. He had not kept his promise. He was feeling very bad
because he was fond of his sister and especially after her recent illness, he had tried to be
kind and considerate to her. Sruti noted that he had not kept his word and as she had been
looking forward to the book all day long she lost her temper. She also recalled that
earlier, one day, he had forgotten to bring her some medicine that she had needed
urgently. A scene followed between brother and sister and their mother had to intervene
to bring peace to the household. Mother was worried about Vinay. He was becoming
thoughtless and conceited and she wondered why, at fifteen, he was so careless and even
self-cantered.
If you observe your friends and look around a bit, you will come across many people,
young and old who do not keep the promises they make and if you go into it further, you
will discover that a number of difficulties are caused because of this. That girl Lakshmi
for instance, had recently promised her mother that she would enquire at the school office
for an application form for her brother’s admission to school, but she forgot to do so for a
whole week. Her mother was furious. Lakshmi tried to justify herself needlessly and told
several lies in the bargain. Her mother was put to a lot of trouble and anxiety. She found
out that the last date for submission of forms was over and the boy had to wait for another
six months to get a place and that too in another school! Sometimes it happens that a
whole group of children in a class make a promise to their teacher which they do not
keep. Miss Susan Fernandes was an extremely hard-working teacher and expected the
highest standards of conduct from her students. She was the teacher for the seventh class.
That day she had to attend a teachers’ meeting in the last period. She asked her class of
thirty, whether they would tidy up the classroom, put books and note-books away neatly,
change the display on the notice boards, tidy up the room and arrange the furniture for the
exhibition to be held the next day. She had made groups and told them what to do. With
one voice they had all promised that she need not worry, as it would all be done. When
the bell rang they did start to work together, but soon, it was evident that only one or two
in each group were serious. The others began to play or tease each other and made such a
nuisance of themselves that Ajit who was usually their natural leader, ordered them out.
He was a very responsible boy and the class respected him. Apparently, most of the
students were not serious when they promised their teacher that they would clean up the
room. They had spoken mechanically, thoughtlessly. If you watch yourself and those
around you, you will notice that we do that too, many times.
Of course many grown up people are equally careless about the promises they make.
Take the mechanic, for instance, who promises to come in the morning to repair the
water-tap that is leaking and keeps you waiting the whole day; the young man who
promises to meet his friend at the market place at a certain time and forgets about it; or
the woman who promises to help and doesn’t turn up. The classical example, of course, is
that of some politicians who promise a hundred things like drinking water, better roads,
schools, etc., to the poor, during election time and then do not keep any of them.
On the contrary, take the case of mother, who almost always keeps her promises.
Perhaps it is a small thing like making you some halwa or buying a shirt or a frock or
helping you with your home-work. If she is unable to do so she will say, “Sorry”, and not
say one thing and do another. Why is that so? Why are mothers generally careful about
keeping their promises? What is there so special about them? Could it be that they care
for you so much, they naturally do whatever they have said they would? And does this
mean that people forget to keep their promises because they don’t care deeply enough?
Or can it be that we often make promises to put an end to a problem? And also, perhaps,
we don’t really mean what we say, so we do not feel compelled to keep our word. There
could be many reasons why we do not keep promises. Find out what they could be.
 Would you put down, sometime when you are free, all the promises you have made to
others and have kept, as also those you did not keep? Also note down promises others
made to you and kept or did not keep.
Look into the reasons and discuss with friends the nature of the mind that keeps
promises and the mind that does not generally do so.
You can talk about an experience and try to convey your feelings.

4. Temperament and Orderliness

Anita was a very neat girl by temperament. She was always tidy in her dress and her
habits; her hair was always combed, made into two plaits and tied with ribbons of a
colour matching her dress. She wore simple clothes, always washed and ironed. The
slippers or shoes she wore were polished brown or white as the case may be. She was
only twelve years old and people wondered how she could be so meticulous. It was a
pleasure to see the satchel she carried to school. Her books were arranged in perfect
order; her note-books in a neat pile, all carefully covered with brown paper. Her hand-
writing was very good and she took care to draw the margin, with the date written on the
left hand top corner, a line drawn after each exercise, as indicated by her teacher as
necessary. At home she was the one who tidied things sip and her mother was proud of
her.
Anita was fond of Bijoy, her classmate, because he was very intelligent, and together,
they would share books and stories and incidents. Bijoy was a different type of person
and his untidy ways and careless temperament often worried Anita. He did not care about
his clothes. The buttons were often missing, the shorts never ironed; or he would wear a
not-so-clean pair of shoes. His hair was unkempt and falling over his forehead. He was
capable of looking neat, capable of arranging things tidily and this was truly so, for,
whenever the teacher spoke to him firmly he would mend his ways. However, very soon
he would lapse into his usual self and become careless again. It was difficult for him to
share with Anita the thought that when everything around you was in the right order, it
gives you a good feeling.
The teacher then tried another approach to make him feel the need for orderliness. She
put him in charge of maintaining class order. He protested that he was hardly the person
for such a responsibility, but the teacher insisted and with some persuasion from Anita he
agreed. This meant that he had to be very watchful about everything in class. He had to
come ten minutes earlier, see whether all the desks and chairs were arranged properly and
put them in order it they were not. He had to see that the windows were bolted and were
not half-open. He had to observe if the class time-table was hung straight and so, too, the
picture on the wall. Have you noticed that many schools have pictures on the wall but
some of them are usually tilted at an angle of 45° and hundreds of people pass by and
hardly anyone takes pity on the fate of these pictures? Bijoy also had to inspect the dress
and shoes of his classmates as they came into the class. Of course he bossed over some of
them who were milder than him and kept his distance from the bullies of the class who
teased him, but on the whole, they were cooperative and the whole class looked neater.
What is more, he had to set an example himself and see that his shoe-lace was tied and
his hair combed back neatly. Anita enjoyed seeing the transformed Bijoy and chuckled to
herself silently.
Do you notice that when you accept responsibility you become much more observant
than you normally are? This brings about greater clarity to the mind. Your own
confusions are cleared. Your mind is in order. And, therefore, it places everything outside
in order. It is with inner order that there comes outer order. And inner order is not so
much a matter of temperament as of observation and watchfulness. All of us can be that
way, if we want to. Habits are mechanical; a result of training, but the urge for
orderliness is a beautiful thing which comes from within.
Of what temperament are you? Do you dress neatly and keep your books and
notebooks and other belongings carefully, or are you a person who has to be reminded
again and again? Have you observed how orderly you are in daily life? Would you like to
find out for yourself what you normally do about each item in the list given below? Try it
for fun.
Dress neatly, comb my hair and look tidy.
Tie shoe lace, polish shoes or chappals regularly.
Make my bed neatly every morning.
Wash my hands every time before a meal.
Tend to eat too fast.
Usually talk too loudly.
Tend to interrupt others when they are speaking.
Be punctual always.
Do yoga or exercise daily.
Break a queue when I want something quickly.
Pluck leaves from plants when walking by.
Use the dustbin for throwing paper, etc.
Cross a road only when the traffic signal indicates that I may.
Clear up things after a get-together (e.g., a picnic).
Thank somebody when required to do so.
Dust a table or chair when I see dust on it.
Use public property carefully.
Speak gently to servants.

You may be able to put down a few more of your tendencies and actually observe
them in daily life.

5. Would You Like to Be Self-Reliant?

 Then listen to what they do in this school.
There were two visitors to their school that week, two very bright and interesting
teachers from Japan. As this was a small town the visitors were all the more welcome for
you do not normally see people from other lands in less known places. The visitors spent
five days in the school observing classes and activities, talking to teachers and students>
and to them, it was obvious that this was a school with a difference. It was a small school
with only four hundred students, boys and girls from well educated homes. It was
considered the best school in town.
One striking feature the visitors observed in this school was that for an hour every
morning some twelve children drawn from all the classes did all kinds of chores for the
school, looking after it as it were. Their work included seeing to the general cleanliness
of the school and its surroundings, clearing weeds in the little school garden, watering
plants, helping in the canteen, ringing the bell, taking visitors around, attending to sick
students - learning to cope with electricity problems and leaking taps. In fact, they were
all over the place, running the school as it were. Every child had his turn and all the work
was done quietly, efficiently and happily. A different teacher supervised them each day.
The visitors were so impressed with this New India before them that they requested
that a discussion should be arranged with the students. About a hundred from class eight
upwards were present. The visitors told the students how much they appreciated this
activity of their school and congratulated them. Then they asked them why they were
doing such work and enquired if a school was not meant for learning different subjects
like history-, geography, physics, maths, etc. They asked if manual work should find
place in a school- They were, in fact, trying to see if the children valued what they were
doing. The replies of the students were very revealing and showed that they were capable
of fresh and original thinking:
“This is also learning because we learn so many new things.”
“This is more practical than what we learn from books.”
“Much more interesting. We enjoy doing work with our hands.”
“.More fun than being tied to books.”
“It is necessary these days to learn to work with our hands because it is not easy to get
servants.”
“I have learnt to repair things at home too.”
“We learn to work together.”
After the visitors left, the Headmaster continued the discussion and asked the group
how they could further improve this activity at school and asked for suggestions. The
students responded very enthusiastically:
“We should have greater variety and more things to do.” “We would like to go out of
the school sometimes and help in the city.” “We need soap, towels and washing
facilities.”
“We would like to learn how machines work, e.g., engine, cars, etc.” “We want to
work on a farm, milking cows and harvesting rice, etc.” The children in this school, as
you can see, were learning to be self-reliant and not dependent on anyone to do the jobs
that require the use of the hands. Have you observed at home or in the neighbourhood
what kind of work domestic servants have to do? Men and women who are very poor and
have large families, offer to work as servants in a home. They sweep and mop floors,
wash and dry clothes, wash vessels, remove garbage, run errands and guard the house
sometimes. Why do you think some people get their own work done by servants? Is it
because they think that working with their brains, sitting at a desk all day, wearing clean
clothes is superior to working with their hands and perspiring in the heat? Is it because
they are lazy? And what about the servants? Not having gone to school themselves, what
other job can they do if they are not to take up domestic service? What can the country do
for them?
Think upon these things.
Again notice that there is another group of servants supposed to be of a low caste,
although they are also human beings like us — the people we call sweepers or jamadar
who clean the garbage on the roads and also wash and clean the lavatories in our own
homes. Don’t you feel outraged that educated people should allow this? Do you realise
that if a child is born to a sweeper he may have to carry on the same work as he grows up
if he is not given the opportunity to go to school? Why should he? Of course, things are
now changing in our country and many people realise that these practices are wrong and
they have begun to rely on themselves-, and there are many opportunities available for
the children of the less fortunate people in society. Yet a lot more needs to be done.
Are you aware that Mahatma Gandhi worked for the poorest people with great
passion? Sometimes he lived in the colonies of the jamadars. He cleaned his own
lavatory and made the people in his Ashram at Wardha or Sabarmati do the same. He
taught us that all work is holy if done in the right spirit. He also taught us that human
kind must not be divided into castes. No person is high or low because of his birth.
Now will you begin by doing your own work both at home and at school and learn to
use your hands also? Will you learn to do small things like sweeping, scrubbing,-
gardening, varnishing, repairing a fuse or plumbing, washing clothes or dishes, cooking,
white-washing, etc.? There is great beauty in working with one’s hands.
Does this activity of the school appeal to you?

6. Making Decisions
Sonali went to school by the school bus. She was in the sixth class and she was a
thoughtful girl. Most children chatted in the bus and sometimes made a great deal of
noise till they heard their teacher raise her voice. Immediately a lull would follow for a
few minutes, succeeded by another round of chatter. But Sonali was never like the others.
She would look out of the window and watch the scenes that caught her eye.
On that particular day she reflected upon what the huge boards on both sides of the
road had to say. One spoke of the best butter, another of A, B, C tyres, a third of a new
clock, a fourth about some new hotel, a new bank, and so on. They all had very
interesting pictures, large ones, and they all seemed to say that they were the best. So
Sonali asked her teacher that day why there were so many boards in the city and who put
them up. Her teacher explained that those were known as hoardings and every company
that produced things or had some service to offer like a hotel or a bank used these boards
to advertise their products so that people came to know of them. “The cleverer, the bolder
the advertisement, the greater the sales”, she said. Sonali was quite amused that the things
she saw and used in her house, like toothbrush, toothpaste, cream and powder, squashes,
jams, woollens, bed-sheets and towels or radio and transistor were all advertised at
sometime or the other. She learnt that these companies spent a lot of money on
advertisements because they wanted to attract more and more people so that their sales
would go up and their profits too! Business is a strange world. It deals not only with
making things but with making people buy these things and the more subtle and clever
your ways of influencing the minds of people the greater your success as a businessman!
Sonali also found out that apart from hoardings at street corners, business-men used
radio advertisements, the television, and the cinema as more effective means of telling
people what to buy. She remembered, how, before the commencement of a film and
during the interval there were several slides advertising some household goods or the
other.
The next time she spoke to her teacher, she placed before her another problem. If there
were two convincing advertisements about the same item, for example, two types of cloth
or pens, how would one decide which one to buy? Do you go by the more powerful
advertisement? How would you come to a right decision in a shop? This puzzled her.
Her teacher pointed out very patiently that there could be two ways of going about it.
One, you imitated what other people bought and, unable to decide for yourself, for fear of
making a mistake, you picked up whatever is popular. “Is this right?’I she asked. Sonali
thought that making a blind choice based on other people’s ideas without thinking for
oneself may not be right. So she said “No, I don’t think that is right.” Then there is the
other way by which you keep yourself fully informed of all the latest things available;
watch the advertisements find out if that particular brand of item is suited to you and your
way of life; also consider if you can afford it, think on these things, and then buy. “This
might be the intelligent way,” she said. Every time you are influenced by other people
and don’t use your own judgement it may be harmful. For example, some advertisers ask
you to take a tablet every time you have a headache or cold. This may not be the right
advice for your kind of body and you have to find out for yourself what suits you.
Gradually you will learn to make intelligent choices, she said. Notice that what Sonali
learnt about the influence of advertisements can be extended to other things. Take the
way we dress or the fashion of our hair-style, etc. Do you notice how much you are
influenced by your own favourite film heroes or heroines, their latest style of dress, the
way their hair is combed and dropped over the forehead or the sandals they wear, etc.,
which, of course, changes from film to film and you have to change, too, likewise. When
you are influenced either by advertisements or by your heroes and heroines, what
happens is that even if you want to break away and be independent, original and true to
your own nature, you feel awkward and out of place and wonder what your classmates
will say. Do you notice that the influence of your classmates on you is so strong that you
would hesitate to be different from them lest they should laugh at you or make fun of
you? But if you are strong inwardly and learn to be independent of others you will soon
lose your fear of others and, perhaps, you will be a happier person for that.
The art of making decisions, small ones or big, has to be learnt now, isn’t it? It may be
small things of daily life like ‘Should I continue to play or do my home-work?’ or a
slightly bigger decision like ‘Should I study Science or Arts after class ten’? Whatever it
is, if you learn to think for yourself now, it will help you when you grow up. At that time
you have to take bigger decisions: what career to follow, whom to marry, what work to
do for the country and so on. It is good to learn the art of thinking for oneself when one is
young; otherwise we may all lead unthinking lives, always influenced by other people,
which may not be a good thing after all.
What do you think? Will you exercise your brains right now and find out the answer to
these questions?

7. The Art of Conversation

Conversation is a great art well worth understanding. My friend, Kalyani, has a fund
of information about things around us, about flowers and birds, about cities and villages,
about pollution and environment, about yoga and herbal medicine, about literature and
religion, theatre and music and about so many other things. She takes a keen interest in
life. She is alive and aware. It is an education conversing with her for she shares with
fervour, the knowledge of things she has learnt over the years, through observation and
experience, and enjoys talking to people.
Then there is my friend Daniel, who is not so well informed about subjects like
science or history but has travelled widely and has done a lot of mountaineering and
hiking in the hills. The tales he relates of his adventures are a pleasure to listen to. He
speaks with an enthusiasm which is infectious and he does not monopolise the
conversation as some people do. He will draw you in, by asking you little questions about
your own experiences. As a result you never feel tired listening to him, for both of you
are partaking of a dialogue. Begum Khatoon is of a different kind. Shy and diffident. She
speaks slowly, gently and her conversation has a lasting effect on you because she is
straight and simple and speaks of things that go to the heart. She will ask you how you
feel and what you like most and will talk about the little things that give her joy. It is so
true, isn’t it, that you feel comfortable and at ease when you are in conversation with
gentle people who are not pushing their personalities on to you?
Another type is Uncle Mohan and his companions. They are always talking
vehemently against something or the other they have read in the current newspapers or
magazines; condemning somebody, agreeing with one item, disagreeing with another.
They have several opinions about the government, about industry and trade, about textiles
and handloom, about America and Russia and so on. They go on and on and no one pays
attention to the other. Sometimes it starts well but soon deteriorates into a heated
discussion, with everyone present taking sides on the issue, or pressing his point of view
alone. So it often resembles the confused jumble of sounds we hear when our radios are
not tuned on correctly. There can be very little communication, is it not, if each one has
and expresses strong opinions? So tired is Auntie Shanti of these loud discussions in their
home that she turns a deaf ear to them and busies herself in one corner with her knitting.
It all seems so different from her own girlhood home, where everyone conversed quietly
and visitors brought a tot of cheer with them. Have you noticed another thing? People are
quite often very respectful and even show deference in their speech and behaviour with
their superiors and yet are very rude and inconsiderate in speech and conduct with their
subordinates?
 Let us consider how children converse at school. When you are together at recess
time, what do you talk about? Perhaps about how you spent your holiday, what you have
just bought, what you like to do. But when you talk, you will agree that several of you
talk at the same time. No one listens to the other. No one speaks in a soft tone. Very often
pupils at a school shout. The art of conversation is different. It is not loud, idle chatter at
the top of your voice. It is good that there is so much energy, so much fun to share but it
is sad that most of us do not know how to listen to each other; isn’t this so? Notice
another thing. At school we invent a new language all our own. Sometimes it is slang or
bad use of language; at other times it is casual, colloquial. Then when in adult company
we let slip words like ‘I’d like to go there, yaar’ or ‘It bugs me so’, ‘How b-o-r-i-n-g I
say’, and so on. You would of course know many more such expressions! Adults who
hear you get worried about you.
What about your own use of language? Have you observed how you converse with
people? How sensitive are you? Is your conversation polite, respectful and courteous?
Can you make conversation easily and naturally? Do you tend to so have you asked
yourself why this should be so? Do you have a open mind, ready to see the other person s
point of view? Would you like to learn the art of conversation when you are in the midst
of a conversation would you pause and watch yourself?

8. The Joy of Sharing

As Aslam and his best friend Arjun walked home from school that evening you could
see that they had been deeply moved by the talk given by the lady from the organisation
called ‘School on Wheels’. They had discussed with great excitement what they heard
and by the time they reached home they had resolved that they would join the movement
as volunteers.
The lady who had come that afternoon to their school had pointed out the woeful
conditions faced by the poor in the city and wondered if the boys and girls studying in
this school had any idea of the hard lives the poor had to lead. She described with great
feeling the lot of the construction workers in the city, that is, those labourers, men and
women, who worked for contractors at building sites, offices, workshops, etc. These
labourers came from distant towns to the city to eke out a living. They were on daily
wages which meant that if they did not go to work on a certain day due to illness; they
had to go without their wage for that day. The men did most of the skilled work like
masonry, carpentry, welding, fitting, etc., while their womenfolk carried bricks, cement,
earth and the tiles needed for construction. Their children who moved with them from
place to place had no proper schooling. They played around, fought with each other or
helped their parents in little ways. It was tragic she said to see bright-eyed children, who
ought to be in school, looking bedraggled and dirty. That is the reason some people
organised themselves with the help of volunteers and started a movement to give
education to these children. It had started in a small way a few years earlier but had
gradually gained in popularity. They had started with classes for children during the day
in one of the buildings and they used improvised materials. Gradually their fathers and
mothers also became interested and there was a demand for a proper school for them. It
was for this purpose this lady was going around asking for volunteers among teachers and
senior students of various schools.
Having heard all this, Aslam and Arjun determined to offer help. The following
Saturday after school was over, they asked their mothers’ permission and set out to meet
this lady at the address she had given. On reaching there, they were delighted to find their
geography teacher, Mr. Mathew, also present. They were taken round the improvised
‘school1 and Aslam and Arjun could hardly believe all they saw and heard. Seated on the
floor with slates in their hands or old notebooks, there were about forty children in one
room huddled together, of ages ranging from three to twelve years but they were very
attentive and eager to learn, Mr. Mathew who was a competent and dedicated teacher
took some children out and helped them with art. Arjun joined him. Aslam started
teaching arithmetic to a group of boys in one corner. They had been there for three hours,
but time fled. When they returned home there was a glow of satisfaction on their faces for
this was their first encounter with the less fortunate. It felt so good to share and give of
what they knew. They learnt to await each Saturday. It soon became the most important
day of their week. So involved were they in the lives of these children that they began to
plan ways of enriching the lives of the children in other directions. They discussed their
plan during the week with Mr. Mathew and sought the permission of the Principal to talk
to the other students in the Assembly about what they were doing and about the needs of
poor children. As a result of this, they collected clothes and money which with great
feeling they presented on 26 January to the children they were teaching. With the money,
they had bought sweets and some small gifts for the children. They had also taken with
them a number of other senior children who taught them songs and games on that day.
The children learnt what sharing means. It means not only giving one’s money, clothes,
books and other things to those who need it more than us, but also giving one’s time and
energy and affection to others because you want to see them also happy.
Isn’t it strange but true that we act with a sense of urgency only when we are deeply
moved? Although we see so much of poverty around us daily, we seem to take it for
granted that such is the lot of the poor. Sometimes we prefer not to look at suffering. But
isn’t it part of education when we are young to feel this concern for society and its great
burdens? Is education merely a matter of passing exams, getting degrees and jobs and
settling down without a thought about the people around us, or must it include a concern
for all life, the poor and the sorrowing, the crippled, the beggar and the disadvantaged?
Think on these things and find out how school education can be broadened to include
such concerns.
Have you had the opportunity to care for people who are less fortunate than you? Can
you discuss the ways in which each of us can contribute to enrich other people’s lives?

9. On Competition
Mrs. Uma Shankar, an experienced teacher in a reputed school, received a letter from
her best friend, Zubeida, and as it raised interesting questions she shared it with her class.
It ran as follows:
Dear Uma,
 I want to share with you one incident that has made me very unhappy and about which
I want your opinion. As you know, my daughter Hameeda, who is just six, goes to school
now. The other day there was an art competition at her school. Perhaps, mothers were
expected to train their children at home. I didn’t, but on the morning of the competition I
sent her to school with some paper and crayon. Hameeda left home looking very gay and
happy. She returned home in tears, quite broken-hearted and sobbed inconsolably. She
was bitterly disappointed that she had received no prize unlike some of her friends. She
could not understand why this had happened as they had all done the same thing —
drawn pictures on paper! After I had pacified her and bought her a little gift and reassured
her that her painting was beautiful she seemed a bit soothed. It hurt me to see a little child
of six, so pained for no fault of hers. As I tucked her into bed at night my little Hameeda
asked “Ma, today I did less well, didn’t I? Dhruv did better than me, isn’t that so?” Such
a question from a six-year-old did come as a shock!
The whole incident left me furious and puzzled. I was naturally very distressed at my
daughter’s unhappiness and I was worried about her loss of self-confidence. I feared that
feelings of inferiority and failure might forever be instilled into her little mind even from
this tender age. On the following day, I gently told her teacher that they could have
spared the children all this pain and frustration if they had only skipped the competition
and allowed the children to draw or paint, which is such a beautiful thing to do. The
answer was: “But surely the good ones should receive some encouragement”.
Tell me, Uma how important and integral to learning is competition? Must we applaud
excellence and punish mediocrity to make children learn? All this grading and ranking
and prize-giving that we have in our schools, are they necessary? Can’t children learn
easily, happily without comparing themselves with others and competing hard against
everyone else, as if, somehow, their success depended upon some else’s failure? Must
learning be so cruel? Do write to me soon.
Yours affectionately,
(Zubeida.)

Many of us have had such experiences, haven’t we, of feeling highly elated and
thrilled on being praised and rewarded and also of sinking into dejection at not
succeeding or at being ranked low?
Some people feel that organising various competitions and spurring children on to do
better each time, competing with everyone else is a good thing, for it makes children
tough and when they grow up they can compete with the same spirit and make it to the
top as the most successful people in the world. Others feel equally strongly that
encouraging competition at school by giving marks, grades, ranks and by organising
various competitive situations destroys something beautiful in the child. Comparing one
child’s ability with another’s and constantly motivating one to beat the other, is being
violent to the inner being of the child by sowing seeds of jealousy and hurt. Would it not
be right that instead of training pupils to be tough and competitive when they grow up,
we helped them to become so intelligent that they would refuse to compete and bring
mare discord into the world? Because the best in them has been nurtured they would
flower and help others do so. Therefore, should we not let them learn at school with a
sense of freedom and without the pressures of comparison and competition? That is why
Zubeida asks that question in her letter to Uma:
“Must we applaud excellence and punish mediocrity to make children learn?” It
prompted Uma to hold a spirited discussion in class that day and most of the children
confessed that comparison did hurt them and was not necessary or desirable.
Wilt you also give this question serious thought? Discuss it in class or with your
friends.
Do you remember any situation when you specially needed reassurance and kindly
appreciation?
Do you think competition results in discouragement and fault-finding?

10. On Relationship
There was a general grumbling session on and they were talking about their teachers
— some nine or ten students sitting by a lovely lotus pond. None of them watched the
goldfish in the waters, for their eyes and ears and minds were on the conversation. They
were discussing their teachers. Their feeling was that a teacher who develops a prejudice
against a student never drops it. However hard you tried, it was always the same story;
the same distant look, the same harshness in the voice, the same remark in the notebook.
They may talk of not having fixed opinions, but the students’ experience was different. If
they liked you, you could do no wrong; otherwise you were always in the wrong.
“Teachers are very partial,” they argued.
One of the girls said, “I don’t like them generally, because most of them are so
narrow-minded, conservative”, using haltingly the latest word she had learnt in class.
“Look! What is the point of having a co-educational school, if girls can’t talk to boys or
boys can’t talk to girls? We have to sit separately, eat separately, and read separately. The
other day, Saleem and I were together looking at the Encyclopaedia in the library to find
out all about dolphins and there was Miss X giving me a nasty look. I wished I could
have gone under the sea myself.”
They conceded that there were exceptions and some of the teachers were wonderful
people but in a large school like theirs, the verdict was that most teachers cannot be
loved. Teachers are to be feared and obeyed.
In another corner of the school, correcting notebooks of various classes was a group of
teachers discussing students. They felt that students were no longer eager to learn, no
longer hard working and innocent as in their days. “They are a bunch of lazy, good-for-
nothing kids,” they grumbled. Gone are the days when you saw their eyes shine in class
with understanding, when hands would be raised before they answered, when all their
work was neat and tidy; (something has gone wrong today. There may be exceptions but,
on the whole, (students are not interested in their studies. They are too distracted. Perhaps
it is because of the cinema or the radio or the television. Their minds have become
restless. They are pleasure-seeking. They are bored with everything except those things
that arouse their sensations. “Their parents are to blame,” they said,’’ Do you think
parents have any time for children these days?’’ they argued.
 Yet another teacher said, “I don’t mind their being pleasure-loving or even l»zy but
they are so arrogant these days. They no longer show any respect. They come to school
because they have to. The other day one of the boys answered me so rudely that I could
have punished him. I feel children should be dealt with very firmly”. As this teacher
spoke you could tell from his face and his voice that he was smarting under a hurt.
In yet another corner little Tejas who was a shy boy and his group of friends were
discussing in quiet whispers how to deal with Rakesh, the bully of the lass. They were all
dead scared of him, for he acted smart and made them un errands for him, teased them
and even beat up little Tejas once. Of course no one ever mentioned these things to
teachers, for that is never done. Boys who sometimes complain out of desperation are
called “sneaks” by the rest. One could tell that relationships at school were all very
strained and tense. On the same day some parents had gathered together in Mr. Sharma’s
house. their children studied in the same school. They wanted to request the Principal to
call for a parent-teachers meeting. They were concerned about the fall in the standard of
the school. One mother said that her boy, who was so bright the previous school and had
brought home such good reports, had deteriorated sadly in every subject. She felt the
teachers should be stricter with the students and extract more work. Another disagreed
and said she thought they were giving the children too much work and wished they were
kinder, not stricter. A father bemoaned the teachers did not teach children any manners
these days. Yet another mother remarked that her child was learning to use bad language
and wondered from where he was picking it up.
Of course, some parents did say that a teacher’s life was becoming very tough these
days for various reasons. As one mother put it, ‘I find it impossible to relate to even one
child and make him understand things. How can we expect a teacher to look after forty
children,” and so on. But from their conversation that morning, you could tell that parents
demand a lot from teachers and from their own children and have their own notions of
what a school should be. There is very little understanding between home and school. In
fact teachers have hardly any relationship with parents.
Have you thought about your own relationship with your teachers? Is it based largely
on fear, or do you feel free to talk to some of them? Do you realise that if we did not have
fixed notions about each other we could relate better and that good relationship is
essential for learning?
What is your relationship with your parents? Of course you will say you love them and
they love you, but do you feel unafraid and free to tell them everything about yourself so
that you don’t hide anything from them? Have you ever been hurt by them or by conflicts
with them? How are you related to your classmates? Does anyone bully you? Are you
very shy by nature? Why should you, allow anyone to bully you? Can you not be strong
yourself?
Relationship between people is such a delicate thing, isn’t it? It is like a flower. You
have to tend it, not trample on it for if you trample on it, it will die. Building a
relationship requires, does it not, consideration for the other person. People who are all
the time concerned about their own little satisfactions and pleasure show very little
consideration to others. That is a sad thing.
And so, if you become aware of all this when you are young, you can reach out to
people more easily as you grow up.
 Do you believe that what you think of yourself is more important than what others
think of you? Would you like to take up the criticisms in this essay and examine then
objectively?

11. Leisure

The school was to close for the next two weeks for it was Diwali time and the students
were looking forward to it, all excited. Their faces were aglow with joy. To think that
they did not have to get up early and get dressed and rush to the bus stop! To feel that
they could take their home-work leisurely, without the daily fear of the teacher’s
demands! To be able to do what one liked and just feel free and easy! That’s what a
holiday means to most students.
That day, at school they exchanged notes in an animated fashion about how they
would spend their holidays. They had all kinds of ideas and interests: going for picnics,
seeing at least six films, going to the circus that was coming to town, visiting relations
and looking for interesting things to eat, watching TV or video, travelling and so on.
Many were excited about the types of crackers they would collect and burn during
Diwali. Then there were others who had a variety of hobbies and wanted time to pursue
them: stamp collection, coin collection, music, particularly the sitar or tabla, violin or
mridangam, photography, cooking, gardening. Some children said they would like to
spend their leisure learning new things not taught at school, like a new language or dance
or weaving or embroidery. They were keen on doing something creative. Very few said
they would like to read story books. In fact this school was in a big town and television
was available and so slowly, students were getting out of the reading habit. It was greater
fun seeing things directly on a screen. It gave immediate satisfaction and pleasure. In
smaller towns where no television was available, there were any number of cinema
houses jutting out of street corners claiming attention in a loud manner. You could buy
fun!
Does anything strike you about the ways these boys and girls were planning to spend
their holidays? Are you different from them? How do you like to spend your leisure? Are
adults different from young people in this? Have you noticed how they ‘spend’ their
vacations or week-ends? First of all, we normally choose what we like to do and avoid
that which we don’t like, that which does not give pleasure. Secondly, the senses and the
mind which depend on entertainment seem to demand more and more new forms of
entertainment. Boredom sets in if you had to do the same thing over and over again
unless you did it naturally because it is a hobby and you like to do it; so if you don’t have
a hobby you seek variety even in entertainment.
Do you notice that such a constant seeking for different forms of pleasure can make
you dependent on outward things to keep you happy? As a result, with too many
distractions, the body and mind get more and more restless and often we don’t have a
good night’s sleep. All energy seems to have sapped. This is what the psychologists say.
Find out next time for yourself whether it is true. Observe how you like to spend your
free time; see whether you are dependent on different forms of entertainment to give you
some hours of fun. Of course, fun and laughter are good things and one must have a lot of
them but can one have fun even while doing maths or physics, history or geography? Can
one be happy helping mother or a friend in trouble? Can one look after a plant or a garden
most naturally and be happy? Think upon these things. How necessary are outward forms
of entertainment for inward happiness? Does interest lie without or within? How can one
discover one’s own interests? At what age do you think interests are formed?
Also consider the other question. What is energy? What are things that dissipate your
energy? Do you know what ‘dissipate’ means? It means the wasting of energy. For
example, observe how your body feels and what is the state of your mind after you have
seen a commercial film, full of action, of violence. Is there a difference between that state
and the way you feel when you are fresh in the morning after a night’s rest? Is it true to
say that too much of entertainment can dissipate energy?
If that is so, how can you ‘conserve’ energy? Not by denying yourself all
entertainment. That would be silly: but, perhaps, by choosing a form of entertainment that
refreshes makes you feel joyous. Also, do you ever like to be alone by yourself just
watching nature - the sky or the birds or trees, not asking for pleasure. Try it sometime. It
might give you a lot of joy.

12. On People and Their Ways

Arun was asked to escort his masi back to her home which was about two hours from
their town by train. Arun felt absolutely elated, for that meant that he had grown up. He
went to the station on his bicycle and bought two second class tickets and also got the
seats reserved. He put them carefully into a small new wallet his mother had given him
and came home. Revati masi who was his favourite aunt had come to spend about a week
at her sister’s place because she was lonely in her own home. Her eldest son was married
and had gone to another city where he was employed. Her daughter was studying to be a
doctor and was doing her house-surgeonship that year and so she was staying in the
hospital and came home very rarely. Masi stayed with her younger son and daughter-in-
law, Sarika, with whom unfortunately she had problems of relationship. Sarika was a
bright, sprightly girl but man considered her too ‘modern’. Whenever she came to her
sister’s house, Revati masi would narrate incident after incident to prove that modern
girls were very selfish, pleasure-loving, arrogant, and her sister would console her.
Strange isn’t it, how we base our opinions about people on incidents of daily life, on
people’s conscious and unconscious behaviour? Day after day, these incidents
accumulate and the opinions get fixed and we form our own images of people. So Revati
masi had one image of her daughter-in-law and that young lady must have carried her
own image of her mother-in-law — how old fashioned she was how possessive of her
son, and so on. The son was in a dilemma for he was fond of his mother and his wife. On
most days he pretended to be deaf and this instigated the two ladies. Life is like that, full
of inner conflicts and man-made problems. It might have helped if they had talked things
over, but they didn’t.
At any rate, Arun was happy that he could make a trip with his aunt, may be for a day
and return. He took a set of clothes neatly arranged and a small bag with his soap,
toothbrush, etc. Once in the compartment, he acted very responsibly and saw to it that his
aunt was comfortable. Then he started looking around and observing the people around
him. “It takes all kinds to make the world”, his father had once said and he hadn’t quite
grasped the meaning of that sentence at the time, but now, things were beginning to be
clear. Each person was so different from the other. There was a woman who was very
kind and attentive to her child and another who scolded her boy for every little act of
curiosity; there was the old man with a cheroot who had kindly twinkling eyes and a
harsh looking bloke in the corner with a fixed scowl. Then within minutes Arun
overheard an argument. Four men were settling matters with the ticket collector by
offering him a bribe in order to get their berths for the night. They had a long distance to
travel and had no reservations. The bribe was given quietly and taken quietly after the
noisy discussion. Arun had his ears tuned to their conversation for it was the first time he
was actually seeing grown-ups behave in this manner.
Away, in another corner of the large compartment another group of men and women
were sitting in judgement on the fallen standards of the country. They complained about
what it had come to! Cities were being spoiled by high-rise buildings. “Nobody cares”,
they groaned. Forests were being cut by greedy contractors; everything was becoming
costly. The topic changed to the impossibility of getting admissions into any professional
college like engineering or medical purely on merit. So on and on it went, the droning
voices of complaint. So engrossed were they in what each one had to say and they talked
so loudly, they never bothered about being considerate to the people around them. They
never considered the little child which was trying to sleep, the young couple who were
just starting their new life, the bright young student who had his book close to his chest
and was trying to concentrate on the printed matter. This happens very often doesn’t it?
We are constantly speaking critically about the happenings in our country without a
thought about what is happening around us; and isn’t there something we can do
ourselves to stop the wrong things that are going on in our country without always
blaming other people for it?
We are also part of the country, aren’t we? Arun observed all this and was quite
amazed.
He looked out. They had arrived at a station. There was the usual clutter of cups and
glasses. Tea and snacks were being served by hawkers and railway men. He loved
looking out of the window, watching the curious assortment of strange people — rich,
poor, very poor; tall, short; fat, thin; brown, black, fair and so on- There was an
interesting group at the water tap, all with their bottles trying to fill water and all eager to
get to the tap first, jostling, pushing. Each person acted as if his need was the greatest.
The young boy standing timidly in one corner would have been left out if an elderly
woman hadn’t helped him fill his bottle. “In small things and big, people act without
thought of others” thought Arun. Consideration is a beautiful quality. It comes, as you
learn to observe how inconsiderate people including yourself are, and immediately there
is an understanding and a change. Try it some time.
At the next station a group of boys and girls entered the compartment. They were from
the University and they were agitated and debating loudly as to whether it was right for
the Vice-Chancellor to close down the University and turn them out of the hostel. There
had been a strike of some sort by a section of students. These students who entered the
compartment were not a party to the strike. They appeared to be serious about their
studies and they were angry that their exams would be delayed just because of a handful
of wrong-doers. They were full of spirit and it seemed as if the whole compartment was
drawn to them. Arun looked at them with wonder and respect.
When they alighted at their home station, Arun felt he had enjoyed the trip immensely
just observing the different kinds of people he had come across. He was very silent and
pensive as he walked home with his aunt. The impact was great.
People are so different; and yet, do you notice points of similarity? What does each
one basically want? Are we different underneath the skin, as it were? Or do you notice
some common trend in all of us? Find out for yourself.

13. School Day

There was a lot of excitement for about a month before the School Day when parents
and friends of the school were to share in the joy of an evening of entertainment. It was
also the day when merit cards were distributed to all the children in the school who had
achieved 65 percent and above in a subject or had gained merit in games, music, arts,
debates, drama, and hobbies. In this particular school, they did not give prizes only to the
first three pupils of a class. They wanted as many children as possible to be rewarded for
effort or talent; as a result, there was less competition and more participation on the part
of children. The pupils were all looking forward to the School Day.
The teachers who usually drew up the programmes to be presented had decided on
three main items involving the majority of the children. There was to be a historical skit
in English depicting an episode in the Life of Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh; a
pageant in Hindi bringing scenes from India’s freedom struggle around the item of the
Salt Satyagraha when Gandhiji led the famous Dandi March — this was written by the
pupils of class VIII, after they had studied about it in class and it was completely
improvised; there were also several folk dances depicting the coming of the rains and the
joy with which it was welcomed in Bengal, Punjab, Kashmir, Gujarat, Maharashtra,
Kerala, Karnataka, Orissa, and so on. The songs were selected with care and the dances
prepared in typical folk style with a lot of attention to the authenticity of the costumes.
One hour had been allotted at the end of each day for rehearsals but the children took
so long to assemble that Miss Chitra Gokhale who was in over-all charge had an
enormous burden which a lesser person would have given up. But she had grit and
controlled the whole exercise, allotting different venues and teachers for each item. Yet, a
persistent problem the school faced was the lack of a sense of punctuality in most
children. It was as if the children felt so free after classes were over, that it took them
some time to let off steam and collect themselves together again. So, the students’ council
was asked to discuss it among themselves and take the responsibility for getting
rehearsals started on time. As the day drew nearer, of course everybody became more
serious. Isn’t it true that we seem to need a challenge to make us serious and responsible?
On School Day, back stage, there were a whole lot of emotions on display:
nervousness, excitement, jealousy, frustration, anger, cooperation and team work.
Teachers and parents were doing the make-up. The ‘queen’ looked so gorgeous that the
little maid who had to wear simple clothes was a little jealous. There was a search for
folk jewellery and flowers among those doing the folk dances. Everyone wanted to look
nice. Teachers had a hard time controlling the various moods and emotions of the
children, but, on the whole, the spirit of joy and expectancy was infectious and as each
character came out transformed, there were loud claps of appreciation. The green-room
seemed to be a mini stage where life’s drama was enacted year after successful year.
The scene in the pandal was different. Some teachers and pupils were arranging chairs
and seeing if the view from each angle was alright. The Principal was moving about
looking into the details of the seating arrangements, the position of the volunteers, the
microphones and so on.
Ten minutes before the time indicated on the invitation, the Principal and teachers and
senior students were at the gate, ready to receive the guests, feeling proud of their school.
The chief guest and his lady arrived, happy to be invited by a school, happy to relive their
own childhood and forget the political worries of the day. After the invocation, a pupil
spoke hospitable words of welcome and then the function started dead on time. The stage
was a simple affair with only a backdrop of navy blue cloth and a few improvised sets
which the children themselves could easily remove. This was a progressive school that
gave more importance to children’s acting and participation than dead furniture and
patterned sets.
The English play was very good. At one stage, the teacher who directed it, feared that
the queen may not know how to carry the large, round, hooked skirt she was wearing,
Elizabethan style, and her heart missed a beat, but the queen carried herself so well, she
might have been Queen Elizabeth herself! Children usually have a way of rising to the
occasion. It is the training period that is difficult, when they give you a hard lime.
The Salt Satyagraha scene was moving and brought tears to the eyes of the young and
the old in the audience. The boy who acted the Mahatma’s part looked every inch like
Gandhiji. He had seen Attenborough’s film on Gandhi thrice to make sure he got all the
finer points of Gandhiji’s walk, expression, smile, bend, dress and all. He was the best
boy in the school and took his part very seriously. The words were simple and direct
because they were written by the children and so the whole pageant was very natural,
each child doing his part with a great deal of understanding and emotion. There were
about eighty students taking part. The music was also beautiful. The audience was deeply
moved. Parents craned their necks to spot their loved ones in each item. School Day is an
important day for parents and they love it. They recognised other children as well, as they
remembered little anecdotes their little ones had related at home.
Then came the folk dances, bringing a fresh breeze as it were into the pandal. The gay
abandon of the dances as they rejoiced at the coming of the rains was infectious and there
were happy smiles on the faces of the audience. In fact there had been a severe drought
for two successive years in that town and so young and old yearned for the fresh
downpour of the welcome rain. The songs were in different Indian languages and they
had been learnt with great attention paid to correct pronunciation and intonation in
Marathi, Bengali, Malayalam and other regional languages. How simple it is to learn the
languages of India and how wonderful it is to be able to speak them. Each language is so
rich and beautiful, with a cadence all its own. This raises a question in the mind — why
do we make things complex by fighting over which language children should learn at
school and which they should not?
 The entire evening and all the items were a roaring success. Backstage there was a lot
of hugging among pupils. The teachers were relieved and were happily tired.
In the pandal the Chief Guest was led to the dais. He made a very thoughtful speech
congratulating the children and asking them to prepare themselves while at school, for a
life of promise, excitement and discovery. The lady gave away merit cards which had all
been arranged meticulously on the table with proper ribbons and labels by Miss Gokhale
who had served the school for thirty years. There was perfect silence in the pandal. It was
obvious that the children of this school had learnt to listen and were very respectful. The
Principal thanked everybody. She was particular about saying a good word for the
children, the teachers and the workers. It was a wonderful experience for the school as a
whole — an emotion-packed experience.
Do you realise what a range of emotions are involved on School Day and how we all
behave a little foolishly at times? Do you notice how other days are so ordinary? Why is
that so? Think about it.
Are you familiar with the story of our country’s struggle for freedom from British
rule? It is a wonderful story now in the pages of history. Read about it, discuss it and
learn about what the human spirit can do when roused by a tremendous force to a
collective aspiration for freedom from slavery.
Give thought also to the learning of languages. How: many do you know? Wouldn’t it
be fun to be able to speak several? Would you like to devote some lime to learning to
speak the language of another State in the country so that you can travel there and feel
one with the people there? You can then learn lo read simple books and perhaps, if you
are good at it, some of the literature too. If you live in the north try to learn good Hindi
and a south Indian language like Tamil which is one of the most ancient languages in the
world and is rich in literature. Or, you could learn Kannada, Telugu or Malayalam. If you
are from the south, make an effort to learn Bengali, or Oriya, or Assamese apart from
Hindi - you can then bring the whole country together emotionally. A country’s wealth is
her languages, her literature, her culture, her spirit. Do you agree?
Think about Annual Day at your school. Do you find similarities?

14. On Getting Hurt

Let us examine several situations at school and at home that hurt pupils and make
them unhappy because of that hurt.
The most common is, of course, the instant when you get a good scolding from your
teacher. You have probably done something wrong, inspite of her telling you gently
many times and then she decides to deal with you firmly. If you realise that she is right,
you feel less hurt, although you wish she had not shouted at you in the presence of other
pupils! If you are intelligent you will not repeat the mistake or carry the hurt with you.
You see her point and say “sorry” and leave it at that. But if you are not intelligent and
you take her words to heart, you sulk and withdraw and you try various ways of
justifying yourself, or of suppressing your anger, or you react and hurt someone else in
turn. This is very unintelligent because you will only hurt yourself further.
 Another situation that causes hurt is when you are compared with a student who is
brighter or cleverer than you. Do you agree? It may be mother or father at home who
constantly ask you why you can’t get marks as high as your classmate. They don’t
realise, unfortunately, how much that hurts you, but imagine their remarks will make you
fare better the next time. But you feel bad and gradually, unless you care for your friend
deeply, you may become unfriendly with him! Similarly, sometimes in class too, teachers
compare students and rank them as ‘Very Good’ or ‘Average’ or ‘Poor’. That is why
when the progress report is prepared, have you noticed how secretive you are and unless
you have done extremely well in the tests, you don’t like to show the report to any one?
You hide it and are even afraid to show it to your parents. What does that indicate? That
you do not want to get hurt further and as a result do everything to save your reputation in
class. You see, we care so much about what other people think of us, that we always want
them to think highly of us. Only with friends can we share our True picture of ourselves.
That is the reason why, sometimes, when your classmates burst out laughing upon you’re
giving a stupid answer you feel hurt. If you are not a sportsman or if you are not
intelligent you will keep all these feelings of hurt inside you bottled up and perhaps plan
secretly how to take revenge on the boys you don’t like! One hurl leads to another and to
another and another and so on.
Teasing each other at school starts as fun but sometimes ends up in a serious brawl.
You all have nicknames for each other, don’t you? Fatso, Cadbury, [Link], Tube light,
Golguppa, Cry-Baby, and so on. You don’t usually mind it, but sometimes when you are
not in the mood and the other fellow is not sensitive enough to notice that you are serious,
he teases you at the wrong time and you come to blows. Perhaps your mother was angry
with you that morning or your teacher, or you were worried about something else but this
fellow continued to irritate you and you gave vent to all the anger inside you and beat
him up. This is common and sad. Next time, observe your friend’s moods, be sensitive to
his feelings so that you don’t hurt him by leasing him out of all proportion. One can have
innocent fun but it should not lead to another’s distress. Have you seen movies with
Charlie Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy or Johnny Walker? Well, there are many situations
that provoke a lot of innocent laughter, but you would have noticed that the moment the
fun begins to hurt another, we stop laughing, the audience is quiet and our sympathies are
with the man who is hurt.
Similarly, in some schools where hoys and girls study together, boys lease girls and
girls tease hoys, or if a girl is seen talking to a boy, other girls will tease her. Why does
this happen? Is it not natural for girls and boys to talk to each other, share books, read and
play together? Sometimes- unfortunately, it could be the fault of elders, teachers or
parents, who think that boys and girls should live and learn in different compartments,
and so when you grow slightly bigger they begin to warn you and an uneasy climate
prevails at school. It all starts as a joke in a very small way but soon the person who is
teased gets very hurt and feels miserable. These results in unnatural relationships and
boys learn to gang up with boys and girls with girls. What shall we do about this
situation?
What else hurts you? We have referred to scolding by teachers, the behaviour of
classmates, comparisons that are unhealthy for you teasing, and the pattern of behaviour
of boys and girls as some examples. You can think of many more because you would
know best what your hurts are at this age. Find out some more situations and discuss
them with your teachers.
The next question is how to stop getting hurt. Consider what happens to you when you
are hurt. Sometimes one does not mind physical hurt so much as mental pain. What
happens to you when you are compared or teased? It rankles in the mind and the same
words come to the surface of the mind again and again; you withdraw and lose interest in
all things; or you take revenge and become aggressive. You can observe these in yourself
if you watch yourself the next time you are hurt. In fact human beings get hurt all the
time, young and old alike. The same thing happens to grown-ups also. Since it is not
possible to change other people, we have to understand our own hurts, how they start,
how they develop and simmer and cause further hurt and see if it is possible not to get
hurt in the first place. That requires an alert mind that is always watchful.
So can we start learning how not to get hurt even when we are young?

15. Meeting a Challenge

This is a true story, the story of the determination of a young girl. Saraswati at her
father who had been working as a shop assistant just when she was, the twelfth class and
her brother, Lakshman, was in the eighth. The family as overcome with grief. Her mother
was dazed. It looked as if life had come to a stop for them with the only earning member
in the family gone. Saraswati knew that she had to do something. She made up her mind
and started looking r a job, any job. Through her headmistress she got the position of an
ayah a lady’s house and took it up. As her school had morning hours, beginning 6.30 and
ending by 12.00 p.m she was able to report for work by 12.30 p.m. Her employer was
kind and understanding as Saraswati was a student. Saraswati loved looking after the
baby and was such a help to the lady that was almost a member of that family. She had a
very loving nature and was very careful and attentive about her work in the house. She
got a meagre salary but her mother supplemented the income by making and selling
papads and pickles. They moved to a smaller house, in the same little town, which had
just one room and no water facilities. They managed bravely and when Saraswati
returned home at about nine in the night she was tired. Her mother would wait for her
return and they would share together their simple meal while Saraswati told her all about
her school and about the doings of the baby that lay. Then she would do her homework
and study for her twelfth standard exam, was hard work indeed, bin she got her energy
from somewhere. Her brother Lakshman continued with his eighth class and studied
moderately well. He wasn’t sensitive to what his sister was going through but he was not
a problem in any way. On the contrary, he helped his mother, running household errands
and selling the papads and pickles to old friends.
Soon Saraswati passed her twelfth class exam with credit and with the help of the lady
for whom she worked, was able to get a job as telephone operator! Her worst days were
over and she got a better salary. Yet, it meant long hours of work and the learning of new
skills. Soon, she proved so efficient, so honest and so good that one and all liked her. And
what is more, in three years’ time she studied for her B.A. degree privately and
completed that creditably. She was now a graduate.
 Always a spirited girl, she started taking interest in her locality and the needs of the
poor people. She would go to a blind school when she was free and read to them. She
wrote articles about injustices in society, the callousness of citizens and sent them to
newspapers. She was already leading a full life — and quietly studying for her M.A.
degree.
It was then that Saraswati had another problem on her hands. Lakshman had finished
his twelfth class exam getting an aggregate of 72%. Both mother and Saraswati were
happy, but where he should go next worried them. The boy, of course, wanted to enter the
Science College and study for his [Link]. Yet, after seeing so many unemployed graduates
around her, Saraswati fell that she had to find some other avenue which would equip him
for a job. She consulted friends, who advised her to get him admitted to a Polytechnic in
the city. She paid one visit to the place and she knew it was the right thing to do. There,
they gave a Diploma after three years but provided a lot of practical training both in
mechanical and electrical workshops. It was difficult lo convince Lakshman because, like
many other people, he thought a college degree was ‘superior’ and his friends were going
to college, but Saraswati had a way with her. She was firm with him and yet kind. She
persuaded him to visit the place and after a visit he agreed that it was worth a try because
he loved working with machines. Since he had secured good marks, he got admission
with a merit scholarship. Saraswati was delighted.
Within a year he realised that his decision was right, for, in the Polytechnic he learnt
several skills and after the completion of the course he immediately got an apprenticeship
in a firm that was manufacturing machine goods. He was an excellent mechanic and was
much in demand. Our country needs mechanics, fitters, turners, electricians. It is good to
remember that people
Working at a desk are in no way superior to those who work with their hands.
Saraswati had even greater dreams. She hoped that in the distant future he might be
able to set up his own shop, because the government was giving loans to enterprising
young men who wanted to be self-employed, and have their own little business. She
would set him up, she decided.
But, in the meanwhile, she was content with her life as a telephone operator, her wider
interests in society and service, her brother’s apprenticeship and the steady increase in the
family income. Now they could move to a slightly bigger house. Her mother was frail but
otherwise strong of heart. She stopped making papads and pickles for sale but she
continued to make them for friends and ways enjoyed cooking a simple meal for her
children. They too loved it and looked forward to having dinner together, for nothing
tasted better than food cooked by mother.
Is it not true that while at school we all think we must go through college and get a
degree and then look for a job? Is it also not true that college degrees do not necessarily
prepare you for any specific job? There is a general feeling it is better to be a clerk in a
bank than a carpenter in a shop or a repair worker.

16. Questions That Troubled Aditi

That it is better to be a clerk in a bank than a salesman of motor parts. But that is
absurd, isn’t it? Every society needs workers of different kinds and if you are good at
working with your hands there is no reason why you shouldn’t train to be an excellent
carpenter or a horticulturist. There are institutions that give you this practical training.
Remember this when you complete class twelve or even ten for you can then have a
wider choice of careers
Do you know of anyone who has had to face hardships in life or have you faced
difficulties yourself?
What are the qualities of mind and heart one needs at such times?
Aditi was a bright pupil in the eighth class of a government school in the city. She was
full of curiosity and questions about the happenings in the country and in the world. Her
father encouraged her to read the daily newspapers, both Hindi and English. She was
reluctant to start reading as she felt that newspapers were more for adults than for pupils
at school, hut her father coaxed her and soon she found it had become a habit with her.
She looked forward to the morning papers and glanced through one, before rushing off to
school. As she put her mind to it more and more, many questions begun to bother her
about me way the world was being shaped by grown-ups.
When she got to read the newspapers she discovered that almost everyday there was
some mention of accidents, burglaries, crimes and murder. These were real happenings
not fairy tales. Not a day passed without some dreadful thing taking place in this country
or outside. A plane hijacked, a bank looted, a train derailed, someone murdered and so
on. “What a cruel world this is!” she thought. “Why is there so much violence and why
should newspapers give them so much importance?” Sometimes they were even the main
headlines! This bothered her.
Then, she gradually educated herself about the relationship between nations and soon
came to realise that America and Russia were Super Powers because they were very
highly advanced, and powerful. She discovered that both the powers were arming
themselves with the latest military weapons while talking of peace. Both powers had
nuclear bombs and if one were to go off a good part of the earth could be wiped out and
millions of people would be killed. She shuddered to think that it was one of the most
powerful countries. Then there were other wars reported between the Jews and Arabs,
between Iran and Iraq and the same sad story everywhere. Nearer home, there were
tensions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and, of course, within India
itself. She couldn’t grasp the whole thing but as she was well informed she began to ask
questions every time something serious was reported. Once she even decided she would
study political science in a good University and have a thorough knowledge about the
countries of the world.
Then, one day, something attracted her attention which made her turn her mind to a
totally different problem. She read a gruesome report of a newly married bride being
burnt to death by her husband and his family because she had not brought sufficient
dowry. Her father had provided the couple with a large sum of money and many other
useful household articles but she had not brought things like a scooter and a refrigerator
and she was nagged every day about it! Of course, the husband reported she had
committed suicide but the neighbours stoutly maintained that it was murder. A case had
been registered. Aditi was horrified that such things could happen to young girls and
asked her mother and teachers how this dowry system became so dreadful an evil in
society, “Why should girls be considered inferior to boys?” she asked in rage “Why have
men to be tempted with money before they agreed to marry? Why does the government
allow this horrid system to go on?” she enquired. She then learnt that legislation had been
passed banning the giving or receiving of dowry but the practice still continued in secret.
She found out that there were many women’s organisations that were fighting against the
dowry system and attempting to awaken the minds of people. Once, she chanced upon an
advertisement in the newspapers appealing for donations for a women’s organisation
which was doing good social work. Aditi was moved and she immediately took out from
her piggy-bank the fifteen rupees that she had saved, went to the post-office, filled out a
money order from and mailed the money to the Secretary of the organisation. She felt
good ‘inside’ after that. It is true, isn’t it, that it is only when we have real concern for
something, a genuine feeling about something that we act? Can you think of instances in
your life when you have acted upon feeling very strongly about something?
Next, Aditi started finding out whatever information she could get about girls and
women, both from newspapers and magazines and from uncles and aunts she talked to.
She discovered that far more boys than girls were going to school, particularly in villages.
Many people still considered a boy an asset and a girl a liability to the family. Girls did a
great deal of work, from even five years of age, with the mother in the fields gathering
fire-wood, sweeping floors, drawing water from the wells, caring for baby brother or
sister and so on. That is why they could not go to school, and even if they did for a few
months, they dropped out because there was work at home. Their mothers had to work on
the farms too along with the father. That is the lot of our poor, especially the poor farmers
who comprise the vast majority of our population. Aditi’s question was: “Hasn’t every
girl a right to education and how can we give it to her?”
Once she attended a women’s meeting with her aunt who was also interested in such
things and found them discussing the status of women in society and how, inspite of the
fact that Indian women had progressed very well in various professions and one of them
had even risen to be the Prime Minister of the country, generally, women had less voice
than men in all decisions about the home, the education of children, their future and so
on, or even in society. Women workers in factories and cities were paid less wages than
men for the same work. Several cases of injustice were brought to light at that meeting.
So involved was Aditi that her mother had to remind her that she was still a pupil at
school and so had to wait a few years, till she had completed her education in the
University before taking active part in social work. “Use this time to prepare yourself,”
she said. “Find out as much as you can and be ready to play your pan, when the time
comes,” she advised.
Do you feel strongly about any of the things happening in our country or in the world?
Have you the correct facts? Try to get the correct information about social injustice,
about poverty and illiteracy, about ill health and minds alive with questions concerning
them.

17. On Money
Mohan’s father was in the Merchant Navy. His task was to sail across the oceans for
about twenty days in a month or sometimes for two or three months at a stretch, carrying
merchandise for companies that were trading with other countries. Mr. Singh liked his
job. In fact, since his school days, ever since he had read stories of Marco Polo, Vasco Da
Gama and other great explorers he had wanted to become a sailor and live his life on the
seas. The only thing he missed, as he grew older, was his family. He had a son Mohan, a
daughter Usha, and there was, of course, his wife Irawati. He would, however, write to
each of them regularly. His son, Mohan, was like him in many ways, restless,
adventurous, full of spirit and mischief. He was intelligent but needed constant guidance.
So his father started writing a series of letters to him. In the latest letter he was answering
Mohan’s question: “What is wrong with working for more and more money? Money
gives power and power gives position in society. Rich people enjoy their wealth and do
not suffer at all. Father, why do some people say ‘money is evil’? What is wrong with
it?” Mohan had written a forceful letter after a discussion with his best friend, Tahir, and
they both awaited Mohan’s father’s answers to their queries. This was the reply Mohan
received.
My dearest son,
I was most happy to see your letter awaiting me when our ship reached Southampton
and I read and re-read it. I am so happy that my little boy and Tahir are discussing such
important matters and are beginning to question things. Lei me try lo answer your
question on what is wrong in the search for more and more money. Let us not start with a
dogmatic statement that it is wrong or right. Let us investigate. Let us enquire.
Now, why does man need money at all? The answer is clear. Man needs money for his
living. He needs a house to shelter him from the sun and the rain, for he can’t live on the
streets. He needs food and the money to procure it. Otherwise he would starve.
He needs decent, comfortable clothes. If he has a family he needs money to educate
his children, buy their books and notebooks, etc. If he has to look after his own father and
mother he needs a little more money so that he can keep them comfortable. In the present
set-up, with so much pollution around and consequently, curious and baffling diseases
and epidemics on the increase, we are always falling ill, so we need money to pay the
doctor’s fees and buy medicines. Money is also needed for going from one place to
another, in the same city or outside. Further, man needs some relaxation and he also uses
money to go to a cinema occasionally or buy a radio. These seem to be some of his daily
necessities — food, clothes, shelter, transportation, medicine, recreation and so on. A
simple man like a clerk or a factory worker or a salesman earns what may seem like a
small sum of money but he uses it wisely and is more or less content.
But the trouble starts, when he compares himself with others who have larger houses,
better food, more expensive clothes, large cars and several forms of entertainment in their
homes or clubs. It is true that common people do not have money to spend on trifling
forms of entertainment or pleasure. It is also true that common people often feel jealous
of the others. It is at this point that the race starts: they begin to imagine how wonderful it
would be if their children also had the latest television set, the latest toys and so on, with
the list growing longer and longer! They become dissatisfied with the simple work they
are doing. They no longer experience the joy of the simple things in life. They aspire to
become managers and bosses. They want to climb the ladder of success because they
think more and more success will bring more and more money and with it will follow
position or power. That is how society becomes competitive with people striving to beat
or outwit each other, as in a game, always wanting to win, feeling thrilled when they get
what they want and very disappointed and frustrated when they don’t succeed. This
desire for more and more things is limitless because mankind is inventing more and more
things — better cars, better refrigerators, better machines, better comforts, more and
subtler forms of entertainment and man will go on inventing them. So, there is no end to
this desire for ‘more’. Do you see this?
Therefore, let us take the poor clerk as an example. When he started working, he was
perhaps contented with a little money. He was perhaps trying to save. He looked after his
father and mother and kepi people around him happy. Sometimes he would bring a small
gift home, for, at that stage people were more important than things. If they were free in
the evening, they would go for walks or lo the park. They would tell stories and share
jokes. They would look at the sky and the trees and the birds and feel themselves a part of
nature. There was time for work and time to be happy together. Even at work there were
less problems because the mind was not always obsessed with the wanting to become the
‘Manager’. He paid attention to every detail and did a good job. This made him feel
satisfied at the end of the day. It is easy to imagine how one feels when something has
been accomplished.
Then gradually as he began to chase money and power and be like the others he
became more and more aggressive and angry because unless he pushed himself he could
not gel what he wanted. So ambition, love of money and the things that money can buy
and the feeling of power that it gives became important to him. Yet, strangely, instead of
that bringing more joy to the family he noticed that there were more quarrels, more
dissatisfaction, more misunderstanding. His wife and he who were basically simple
people and good friends earlier, hardly spoke to each other. She was busy shopping and
going to meetings or parties. She neglected her children for they were left with servants.
Concern for each other and affection were almost gone.
Would you call this a wise kind of life? Starting in a simple profession with limited
money, being driven by ambition and jealousy, racing for better and better jobs, pushing
others out, getting more and more money and position, pretending to be happy with
newer and newer things, but, in reality, having no simple joys like before. In this sense,
wouldn’t you consider money evil? Doesn’t it seem foolish to want more and more things
that money can buy? Discuss this with Tahir and let me know what you feel in your next
letter.
Keep well and look after mother and Usha.
With much love. Papa.

It would he interesting to know your own views on money, the need fur more and
more, and whether you can observe in people around you and in yourself this desire far
more and more things. How happy are you when you get something new. How did do
you feel when you lose a thing?
Think upon these things.

18. Excitement with the New

 Bachhu lived in the hills of the north where delicious apples, apricots, plums, pears
and other fruits grew. His father worked in an orchard; his mother did the household
work, gathered firewood herself and prepared the meals, while he and his two sisters
went to school. His younger brother was two years old and did not attend school.
Bachhu’s grandparents lived with them. There was also a young aunt, Munni, who had
lost her husband in the war. They had little money but they were happy. There was
electricity in their hut, newly installed, and a small transistor. Bachhu’s father had got it
as a present from a Bombay merchant for whom he had once done a lot of work, A young
student from the college in the city nearby had taught them how to use it. Even the baby
would open his eyes and ears in wonder when the radio emitted strange sounds.
Bachhu had just returned home after spending two months at his father’s brother’s
house in the big city, some forty kilometres away and he was bursting with news of the
many things he had learnt about the world outside his home. Mother had a problem
quietening him down at times. It was as if he had visited a totally different world. His
uncle was a Captain in the army and had a large house. Whatever Bachhu could not
explain in words he would illustrate through pictures. One such was that of a refrigerator,
and the family that had never moved beyond the hills, was quite excited that in their
uncle’s house mere should be an electric box to keep things cold! It seemed so absurd to
them. Then he described the large radio, the record player and the electric heater that kept
the room warm instead of the angeeihi of the hills, the television, where you saw pictures
of things happening at that moment in far-away places, the telephone through which you
could speak even to a person in London, New York, or Tokyo. He had also seen
aeroplanes take off and was shown pictures of jets, submarines, and countless other war
weapons. He was so excited. He said he was going to learn a lot of science and invent
new things and become a famous man.
Seated on the veranda, hookah in his mouth was grandfather, listening to Bachhu. He
smiled occasionally partaking of the fun, but at times he had a far-away look at the end of
a long and excited description. He said to Bachhu, ‘It Is true that scientists have
discovered some wonderful things and those who can afford them, must be very
comfortable, but tell me, are aunt and uncle and their children really happy? Do they get
together in the evenings to sing songs or tell stories? Do they have good friends? What is
their life like?’
Bachhu thought for a while and then said they ought to be happy because they had so
many new things in their home, but they had one sorrow — Cousin Mintoo who had
joined the air force had been killed in the recent war and aunt was inconsolable. This set
the tone for a different line of thought.
Grandfather asked if Bachhu noticed something: Men have used their knowledge of
science both to discover extraordinary things to provide entertainment and luxury, but
they had also developed instruments and weapons that could destroy life. “How many
innocent people die in an air-battle nowadays!” he exclaimed. “Is it right that man should
kill man and find ways and means for doing this? The world has become a frightening
place,” he mumbled and looked very sad.
Everybody was quiet for a while. The voice, speaking with deep feeling had its
impact. Bachhu also heard his grandfather politely; the words registered but his mind was
still excited with the many wonders he had come upon in his uncle’s house. He could not,
at that moment, see the harsh side of the wonders of science and the inventions of
technology, or how frightening the prospect of war and destruction could also be. But the
seed had been sown and Bachhu questioned his grandfather later on. Grandfather had met
old acquaintances who had served at the war front. He told Bachhu precious lives were
lost, whole cities destroyed, thousands rendered homeless. Bachhu listened with rapt
attention. Indeed, Bachhu’s grandfather was right.
Have you read of the effects of the atom-bombs which were dropped by the
Americans on the two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, during World War II?
The two cities were destroyed completely in a few seconds and thousands of innocent
people died or were wounded, blinded or maimed for the rest of their lives.
Now we have a far more destructive weapon in the nuclear bomb. If a nuclear bomb
were to be dropped anywhere in the world it would endanger life on earth, because apart
from human lives it would destroy plants, animals, birds, and insects and large areas of
the earth would become barren and lifeless. Isn’t it sad that man should utilise scientific
knowledge for destruction?
Yet, there is also the bright side. It is equally true that welcome discoveries of science
and technology are marvels that have to be seen to be believed. Can you make a list of
the wonders that science has achieved in the fields of communication, engineering,
agriculture, medicine, etc? It is true man has suffered, but man has also benefited greatly
by the work of devoted scientists. Read about their lives, their hard work, dedication,
diligence and perseverance. The study of science can be an extraordinary experience,
opening the doors to new worlds for you as well.

19. Parents’ Anxieties

Have you ever given thought to the anxieties and worries parents go through for your
sake? Here are some examples:
Faisel’s mother was worried about his health. His school timings were baffling — 7
a.m. to 1 p.m. The boy had to leave home by 6.30 a.m. to catch the school bus. With a
great deal of coaxing he would gulp down a glass of milk on some days, and run off to
school without anything on other days. To get children to drink milk is most difficult and
yet that is the most complete food available. Faisel’s mother would get up early, by 5
a.m., to prepare some parathas or sandwiches for the boy, and she lovingly packed this
into his tiffin box. She would tuck in a bit of fruit when possible. However, on most days
she was never sure that he had his tiffin during the recess. It was sometimes the crow that
had picked it up, for there were a lot of crows that congregated at the school during recess
time when a hundred boys or more were opening their tiffin boxes; sometimes, some
other boys dipped into the box and returned it empty just to tease him, for these are the
ways of boys at school. All this meant, that the boy had nothing to eat till about 2 p.m.
when he came home ravenously hungry. Faisel’s mother knew this was not good for his
health. Young boys and girls need to have a wholesome, nutritious diet at regular hours.
The body, when growing, requires a lot of protein and calcium and vitamins. She also
worried that he did not get enough exercise, for the school had no playground. It was in a
crowded part of the city. Right food, right exercise, right sleep — these seemed to be so
important for growing children. His mother helplessly worried about his health, and she
could not do anything about school timings, for schools have their own problems.
Jaspal and Yashpal were brothers. Jaspal was the more serious of the two and was
interested in his studies. Yashpal was ten years of age and in the sixth class where many
new subjects are introduced, but he was still very playful. The teachers often wrote in his
diary that he had not completed his homework for the day. Mother would persuade him at
times, scold him at other times; father would enter into the debates. Sometimes, and with
great difficulty, he would be made to sit at his desk. Mother worried as to why some
children are naturally too playful for too long and whether this boy would ever make
good. She avoided comparisons with Jaspal who was all she could wish for, but the
younger one was an enigma to her.
Deepu was now in the ninth class and although she was not a timid child, her mother
worried about many little things. The bus did not come near their house, so Deepu and
her friend, Maria, went by rickshaw. Although the rickshaw man was reliable and the
school was only a half-an-hour’s distance away, her mother worried about accidents and
any other untoward happenings, for she was of a worrying nature. She would stand by the
gate for nearly an hour before the expected time so that she could see the rickshaw at a
distance, returning home. Times being what they are it was becoming increasingly unsafe
for girls to move about freely in that town. There were many unpleasant characters
loitering here and there and so her worry was natural.
Vikram’s father was determined that his boy should become an electrical engineer like
him. He wanted him to enter the Indian Institute of Technology after his twelfth standard,
which meant that he had to score very high marks. The boy was bright and was getting
seventy percent marks now but “that will riot do” said his father. Unless he secured
ninety percent marks he would not mind a chance in the entrance tests, for the
competition to the I.I.T’s and other engineering colleges was stiff and as his father
worried and goaded him Jay in and day out. It was as if he was reliving his younger days
in his son, so much was the pressure. Sometimes for the best of reasons, fathers arc so
ambitious that their expectations from their sons and daughters are very high. This brings
about a great deal of tension in the house. If you are in such a situation how would you
face it? Think about it.
Arjun’s mother was at a loss about her son and spent sleepless nights over the reports
from school about the boy’s behaviour. They found him aggressive and violent. He used
foul language, they said, and the poor lady wondered where he was picking this up from,
for there was nobody in the house who used such language. His father had died and she
brought him up alone and did her very best for him with her meagre means. Yet, he had
become restless and disobedient and he was not yet in the seventh class. She would
appeal to him with all her heart and sometimes he responded, for there was a nice side to
him, especially where his mother was concerned, but the reports continued to be the same
— fighting, bullying, teasing, not doing any serious study, and so on. Her anxiety was
painful to watch.
Manju’s parents were very poor. They had three children and all of them went to
school. Although the school did not charge tuition fees, the costs of textbooks and
notebooks and stationery were rising year by year and so too the cost of uniforms, and
every June the parents spent sleepless nights wondering how they would meet these
mounting costs. They did not want the children to sense this and so they kept it all a
secret, bearing the burden themselves and putting on a brave smile in front of the
children. As prices rise day by day many parents suffer a lot to educate their children.
Sanjay’s mother was disillusioned. The boy had shown so much promise when young,
but now that he had come to the ninth class he felt he had grown big and should be
treated as an adult. He was no longer willing to listen to his mother or father. His friends
were supreme. There was even a complaint that he had missed school one afternoon to
see a movie. Sanjay’s mother didn’t like the look of his friends. They were all at that
awkward age when legs grow long and beards appear on the face and boys don’t know
quite how to meet these physical changes. That is when they imagine they are quite
capable of managing themselves and resent adult interference. Sanjay’s mother prayed
and hoped this was a passing phase and it would all be over soon.
Take the case of Supriya who was also in the ninth class in another school and her
group of friends: Mumtaz, Sheila, Aparna, Rita and so on. Their mothers tried to
understand the ways of modern girls but were sometimes at a loss. They wondered when
these girls ever studied as they were so restless. So much of their time outside school was
spent on listening to film music over the radio or in idle chatter. They considered study a
necessary evil. Their mothers recalled their own school days when they held their
teachers in awe and showed a lot of respect for school rules and did everything on time.
“What has happened to the world?” they worried. They did no: seem to know how to
influence their own daughters.
Parents’ worries are varied and many. They cover a wide range of human life —
physical, emotional, intellectual, social and so on. They worry about the lack of outward
manners. They worry about the inward state of mind and heart. They worry about their
young for many, many reasons. Perhaps children are not aware that though they love their
parents, they cause them great anxiety without meaning to do so.
Where do you stand? Find out for yourself if you have given any cause for worry to
your parents. Talk it over with them and you may find them very understanding and
helpful. Often it is because you avoid talking things over as they occur, that these
anxieties accumulate. Parent’s are your best friends in the world and there is much that
you can do to relieve their worries.

20. On Beauty
Amol and Amita were good friends. They shared many things together, particularly
their love of beautiful things. Amol had an eye for line, form and proportion. Amita loved
colour. While Amol communicated his thoughts and feelings, his awareness of beauty in
terms of sculpture, Amita communicated through shades of colour. The boy had a feel in
his bones, as it were, for three dimensional structures such as buildings and statues. The
girl lost herself in landscape painting.
The Tai Mahal with its exquisite domes and columns evoked in Amol an unforgettable
response. He spent hours studying the grandeur of the Red Fort, the extraordinary
proportion of a mosque or a cathedral. When travelling in the south he marvelled at the
exquisite gopurams of the temples at Madurai, Rameswaram and Kancheepuram. In his
spare time, he would sketch what he saw and show it to Amita. He loved thumbing
through design books and his eyes noticed many fine points about architecture. He was
about fifteen at the time, but this had been his passion from childhood. He knew he would
become an architect one day.
Amita, his cousin, had been his best friend all along. They were of the same age and
shared this love for beautiful things. Her interest was in painting, and starling with pencil
and crayon as a child, she had shown great talent in the use of other media such as water
colour and oil. Her landscapes were admired by all, for the shades of colours she used.
Rembrandt was her favourite in choice of light and shade. She too was conversant with
the works of the master painters of the world and could distinguish between a Van gogh,
a Hebbar and a Hussain, a Gulam Sheikh and Swaminathan. She thought Picasso was a
great artist. All this was possible because much of her spare time was devoted to the
reference of art books.
Amol’s father was an art historian, a professor who had made a deep study of the
history of world art. He taught in the University and was regarded as a great scholar. He
had an enormous library at home, of books on art, design, architecture, music, world
civilization and such like. It was here that Amol and Amita learnt to love books and they
were different from many of their schoolmates who did not read serious books. They too
enjoyed light reading but were on the whole attracted by things of beauty. Their parents
took them along when they travelled through different parts of India and this led them on
to discover that our craftsmen in India produced exquisite things like the dexterously
woven baskets of Assam, the minutely embroidered shawls of Kashmir, the delicate
brassware of Jaipur, the beautifully shaped miniature sculptures of the south, the wall
paintings once exclusively done by the women of Mithila in Bihar, the mica work of
Hyderabad and the handloom designs all over the country. It was as if their eyes were
drinking of beauty all the time.
Amol’s mother was from Tamil Nadu and his father was from Uttar Pradesh. She was
a great lover of Hindustani music and this had brought them together. She also played the
Veema and was conversant with Carnatic music forms. Her favourites, however, were
Pandit Jasraj’s vocal music and Amjad Ali Khan’s sarod. Neither of them could
understand why there was supposed to be an estrangement between the north and the
smith in our country. She spoke fluent Hindi and he had learnt good Tamil. They saw
great beauty in each other’s distinctive ways of life. They wanted their children to grow
up to be good Indians respecting the cultures and tradition-, of all parts of the country.
They were very sorry whenever they found like minded people who identified themselves
only with their particular state Carnatic music and art that rightly belonged to everyone.
On one occasion something happened to them which opened their eyes in another kind
of wonder. They were travelling up in the north. During a boat ride on the Ganges they -
saw. one morning the most exquisite sunrise. It was as if a ball of many splendid colours
was coming slowly out of the waters — pink, amber, gold, and red. All four of them were
breathless with joy.
Travelling further they were in the midst of the Kumaon hills and early .one morning
they caught a view of the snows on the great mountain peaks of Trishul, Nanda Devi and
Annapurna. It was so magnificent that they were silent for a long while. The mind was
very quiet.
“Beauty is the fullness of heart,” she said.
 “Rather, Beauty is the emptying of the mind,” he said, “for at such moments you have
no thoughts in the mind at all.”
Amol and Amita were silent for a long time.
After that experience they were very humble, and less sure of their own opinions on
painting or architecture or music. They had seen the glory of God. Man’s experience on
canvas or stone seemed limited in comparison.
Have you enjoyed seeing beautiful things? What are your favourites? Have you ever
watched a sunrise or a sunset? Do it sometime. What is good taste? Discuss it in class.

21. When Trees Hold a Conference What Do They Talk About?

About the cruelty of man, of course. And this is how it happened:
Sudha loved the old house in which they were living. It belonged to her grandfather. It
was a ramshackle place and was coming to pieces but it had those high ceilings of yester
years, beautiful arches at the entrance and Sudha felt it had character, the sort that goes
with houses of an earlier century. She loved moving in and out of it and most of all she
loved the mango tree in the compound. Often she would sit under it and admire its
branches, the way they were formed, its leaves and their personality, their shades of
colour and so on. The only child in the family, she had grown to be very reserved. Her
only friends were trees, and of all, this particular mango tree, with which she would
converse for long hours after school.
That day she was miserable as she sat under the tree, choking with tears, for a decision
had been taken by her parents that they would move to a modern flat in another part of
the city. They were selling this house to some contractor and Sudha chanced to see him
that morning. He looked so harsh with a frown and a bristling moustache that she was
afraid he would demolish everything she loved — that door with a beautiful carving that
led to her father’s study, the arched verandah at the back, the dome-shaped windows, and
so on. She worried particularly about the mango tree. Would this cruel man cut it down?
There was so much said these days about the ruthless cutting down of forests and trees.
Would she lose her friend? Earlier, she had asked her father why on earth they should
move when they had such a nice house, but father had said it was old and did not have
modern amenities. The toilets were old-fashioned and far away from the bedrooms; there
was no wash basin; no proper kitchen or store, not even ventilation. Above all, the new
house was in a good locality where she would have friends and she could even cycle
down to school. It was an apartment, part of a set of multi-storeyed flats. They were on
the fourth floor and there were eight floors. Sudha hated the whole scheme but she
couldn’t argue with her parents, because after all, you can only point out something to
your parents if you feel strongly about it. You can’t argue with them. Apparently they
know better because they are older and wiser. So she kept her sorrow to herself and now
under her mango tree she wept quietly and she dozed off. That is when she dreamt this
dream:
Her own special mango tree had called a Conference of Trees in the Himalayas, or so
it appeared. There were so many trees: banyan, peepal, ashoka, palm, pine, doedar, neem,
fig, rubber, jackfruit, mulberry, jamun, teak, sal, parijata, sandalwood, rudraksh,
tamarind, cotton, kadam, cinnamon, rain, walnut and eucalyptus, as also gulmohar,
jacaranda, amaltash, etc.
Her own mango tree was the first to speak up. She proposed that banyan should chair
the Conference and all the trees swayed in approval. So banyan was the chairman. He
then asked Sudha’s mango to explain why she had summoned this meeting and mango
gave a short speech on how their lives were threatened in these heartless days by the
cruelty of man. She reported the various cuttings she had witnessed near her place of
stay: how cruel men in dark robes axed ten trees in front of Sudha’s house because a
factory was to be put up and how she feared for her life because her dear friend Sudha
was going away. She wanted firm action. Then every tree spoke up and it was practically
the same story, of how trees were being cut mercilessly in forests and plains, how they
saw their friends and brothers who were swaying happily a minute ago, felled by some
cruel stroke, how it didn’t make sense, for trees were meant to serve man in a hundred
ways and how in the olden days they were even worshipped. The teak made the most
powerful speech of all and gave gruesome details of how the slopes of all hills and
mountains were getting eroded. He described how some strange men came secretly in
huge lorries by night, how they camped there for a day, looking around and marking the
areas and how cruelly they axed his brothers. It was all accomplished quickly, heartlessly
and then the trunk of the trees were cut into logs and placed in piles on the lorries and
taken away, “God knows where!” he said. And he cried that if he was alive today it was
only because there was no space in the lorry! He was sure they would come back one
day. As he cried, the others also cried and it all became very emotional. So banyan called
them to order and suggested that they should go about the business in a cool and rational
manner. He wanted bare facts to be narrated as to what men did with the trees and why
they were cutting them.
The facts that emerged were: i) that suddenly there was a boom in population and this
resulted in the need for space for more houses and cultivated land, ii) that the wood
which was used earlier mainly for fuel and as timber for houses and furniture was now in
greater demand for various other purposes. Wood products had become very popular.
From wood was made paper, rayon, cellophane, photographic films, plastic and synthetic
lacquers. That is the reason they explained the landscape was becoming so bare. The
green earth was no longer green. People did not realise that this ruthless cutting of trees
was also responsible for changes in the climate. Places were getting hotter or colder. The
seasons were no longer moving in the same cycle. It was hot when you expected it to be
cold and vice versa. Rainfall was also affected. People had to understand that trees were
their brothers and were here to protect the earth and their life on earth.
Considering all this their Chairman asked if there was some hope for the earth and the
tree families and slowly some of them spoke up: “Yes,” said the gulmohar and spoke of
her friend Mintoo who cared for her. Mintoo was a little girl of nine.
“Yes,” said the jamun and spoke of the kindness of his friends Ahmad and Akhtar and
how they cared for him.
“Yes, indeed,” many of the flowering trees spoke of how the children in the primary
classes in the mission school had looked after them.
“Yes, of course,” said the mango and spoke of Sudha’s friendship.
 “So children are our hope”, remarked peepul.
Then neem, ashok, teak, deodar, rubber, cotton all spoke up about an extraordinary
thing that happened to them. Just when they were fearing their end, groups of bright, kind
looking men and women came and clung to them, one at each tree, and when the axe-men
came they could not axe them without killing the men and so the trees were saved! They
heard the people say that this was called the ‘Chipko Movement’ and people who cared
for trees had prevented the clearing of forests and the cutting down of wooded areas in
many places by this act of kindness and bravery. Growing from this there were new
societies being formed by intelligent, sensitive people and were called: the Friends of the
Trees, the Million Trees Club, and so on.
After hearing all this banyan got a resolution passed by ail the trees giving their silent
support to children in schools and out of schools, to young men and women of the
Chipko Movement, to the various dubs and to whoever cared for the well-being of trees.
They also approved heartily of the plan in some cities: ‘Each One Plant One’. They
wanted their families to grow.
At this point Sudha woke up with a start. Her mango tree was still there and there was
no sign of any Conference. “What a dream!” she sighed.
A week later, when with great hesitation, she revisited her old house from the new
one, her heart leapt up with joy at the sight of her mango tree. The contractor had not cut
it- Even though he looked fierce he was a kind man and didn’t cut trees unnecessarily. He
invited her to the house and noticing her fondness for the mango tree he told her that she
could visit the house anytime and be with the tree.
Will you take care of trees?
Will you plant a new tree wherever you are, even as you grow up, and look after it?
Have any trees been cut in your neighbourhood? When were they cut, by whom, and
why?
Are there any groups of people where you live who have formed clubs for the
protection of trees? What is the work they do?

22. Who Cares for Public Property?

Mr. Prasad was a dedicated teacher. He had taken to teaching as a vocation soon after
he had completed his M.A. degree in history with a first class, because he felt education
was the highest profession man could aspire to. Although he had other more lucrative
offers of jobs in tourism, business and so on, he decided to teach and that at a school in
preference to a University. He was clear in his mind that he wanted to meet the minds of
the young and help them to learn and learn from them himself. He believed that teachers
must keep learning all their lives and a teacher’s true education comes from children. To
him, right education was not merely acquiring information from books and passing
exams. Right education meant learning to observe life around, learning to use your eyes
and ears. It meant learning to listen to all the sounds around you and being attentive. It
meant relating to people in the family, at school, in society and being considerate to them.
It meant being concerned about the earth we live in and being related to nature, to trees
and flowers, birds and animals, the skies and the stars and so on. He had a very wide
vision of education. Children loved him because he was so human and understanding and
also because he was very intelligent and had a first-rate mind.
During the last one week, so many things were happening in the city where he lived
that he was full of anguish and even anger. There was a report that a group of students
from the local college had burnt a bus in which they were travelling because of a quarrel
with the bus conductor which lead to blows and finally to the destruction of the bus itself.
It was a government bus and this meant it was the property of the public. He thought of
the state of public property elsewhere and realised that while people cared a great deal for
the things that belonged to themselves or their families they treated common property
like trams, post offices, banks, railway stations, pavements’, roads, offices, guest houses,
parks and gardens with no respect. He wanted his children of the ninth class to observe
all this and learn how to respond to such situations before they left school. So he talked to
them, pointing out what was happening and encouraged them to make a thorough study
of their own mohalla, their own locality.
They set out in groups with notebook and pen and visited public places around their
locality and noted down whether public property had been damaged or was intact and, if
damaged, the nature and extent of such damage. This was a fact-finding study and
included visits to the local hospital, the railway station which was quite near by, and
some government offices, apart from the pavements and a children’s park, (that was what
it was supposed to be, but in reality was full of rubbish and the bars and the swings were
rusty and broken and no child ever came there). They noted down all the defects and
came back to class.
A discussion followed on what action should be taken. Some pupils advocated
collecting money and repairing them themselves. But then they realised this course of
action was of limited value because people would continue to destroy these things all the
same. Another suggestion was that they should meet the officials at their offices and talk
to the managers, directors, etc. to ensure that their offices and property were taken care of
and were not meant to be used without care. Then they realised that the managers may
not take school students seriously. They may be nice to them but explain that they were
helpless. The public had to cooperate and this was difficult. So they gave up that line of
action. One student suggested that they write in ‘Letters to the Editor’ in daily
newspapers and bring to the attention of several readers that such violence and
destruction ruined our own mohalla, that public property belonged to each one of us and
each one of us must take care of it. They approved of the idea and a group started
working on several drafts of such letters.
This led to a discussion on whether it was possible to really change the beliefs and
ideas of other people and how to create public awareness and a sense of civic
responsibility. Although many suggestions were put forward the general feeling of the
class was that since society is made up of individuals, each person must feel the
responsibility and act in a way showing utmost care and respect for public property and
public places and only then would their mohalla change. So strongly did they feel this,
under the inspiration of their teacher, that each of them in the ninth class decided to do
themselves first what they expected others to do. As the old saying goes: ‘Charity begins
at home’; so they started picking up pieces of paper in the quadrangle of the school and
throwing them into dust-bins. They attended to leakage of taps to avoid wastage of water.
They switched off ceiling fans when they left a room, to prevent wastage of electricity.
They talked to little children who sometimes, out of fun, scraped desks and chairs with
blades or pen-knives. They repaired torn notice-boards. They organised the proper
collection of garbage outside the school gate by helping the municipal man whenever he
came. Then they went to every house in the locality near the school and handed out
leaflets they had prepared, urging people to care for public property, TO keep roads clean,
to care for trees and not cut them down, and so on. In some houses they were received
well and the people praised them for their work. In other houses the people were quite
cold and closed their doors. They learnt to take both praise and blame without any fuss.
And as they did their best they learnt one great secret — you have to respect property
yourself if you want others to do so.
Do you think this is also part of education or would you consider it a waste of time?
Discuss the whole question in class. If you think this is important will you start observing
what is happening around you, in your-school, at home and in your locality? Will you
help your younger brother or sister do likewise?

23. Caring for the Environment

Their headmaster was young and energetic and had what one would call “a modern
mind”. He was very contemporary and was actively aware of new discoveries and trends
in the various fields of scientific enquiry. He was a passionate environmentalist and his
pupils were a lively, vivacious group. The headmaster believed that his pupils should be
exposed to good minds and often invited specialists to talk to the senior classes. The
school had recently become a member of the newly formed Environmental Society in the
city. They had also completed a project on ecology and on that day, a talk was scheduled
on ‘Caring for the Environment’ by a well known scholar.
It so happened that it was the second day of the Third Test Match between India and
England. Kapildev was leading the team and the match was being played at Calcutta. The
boys had their ears glued to a transistor that one of them had brought to the school and
the expression on their faces, expressed their excitement and interest. Amarnath was out,
Ravi Shastri was batting at forty-eight and Gasvaskar was not out at eighty-six. They
were anticipating the thrill of Gavaskar’s century. It was at this point, their own school
hero, cricket captain Raghu rounded them all up. Reluctantly they trooped in, one or two
of them openly muttering, a few others kicking at pebbles on the path, to work out their
annoyance. A few listened to Raghu who explained: “We have a guest speaker. We have
to show him respect after all. He has come all the way to speak to us”.
The lecturer was a young man with a very pleasant face and keen eyes. He
commenced, by apologising profusely that he had agreed to speak on a day when they
ought to be listening to the cricket commentary! He confessed that he was also interested
in Sunil Gavaskar’s century. So disarming was he, that ail their resistance was broken at
once.
He made the lecture so interesting that soon, the entire lot of students were moving
with him, following his explanation, deeply absorbed. His theme was Environmental
Hazards’. He spoke of how man was deeply related to the earth and to his environment.
Man is not an isolated being. He has need for air, water and earth. They are the resources
from which he draws his energy. In days gone by, man had a harmonious relation with
nature and took from her lap the very minimum needed for his survival but as so called
civilisation advanced, he began to destroy nature ruthlessly for his own comforts and
luxury. He is now becoming totally insensitive to the sounds and silences of nature.
He showed slides to illustrate his talk on how man was destroying the environment,
how environmental pollution had become a crucial problem. “You can observe three
kinds of pollution”, he said, “air, water, and noise.” How was air polluted? It was by the
fumes of buses, trucks, cars, aeroplanes, which made the atmosphere unhealthy to breathe
and live in. The location of industries and factories close to living quarters contaminated
the atmosphere by their fumes, chemical and other wastes. Man uses chemicals for
industry and creates in the process, vast amounts of chemical wastes. If these cannot be
recycled they remain pollutants and harm the earth and the atmosphere. They are
dangerous to birds, animals, plants and man. Besides, the carbon monoxide emitted by
factories destroys the purity of the air and people are denied a breath of fresh air in
industrial areas. He showed several examples of atmospheric pollution from all over the
world. The children were aghast.
Then he dealt with water pollution. Look at the state of the sewers in a city. Notice
how all the wastes from the homes and the city itself go into the river and from there on
to the sea. Similarly, all industrial wastes are emptied into the river.
In many places the river is man’s life, being the best source of water, but the callous
way in which we throw all waste materials, like kitchen garbage, as also human waste,
soils the river irreparably. You see, right down, the sea bed is the origin of life with the
growth of very small creatures, but they need a fresh and clean underwater environment
to grow in. Unfortunately they are all killed because the sea is polluted. At the surface
level also down to 10 to 20 feet there is waste material accumulating. The waters of the
earth will cease to be our treasure if we continue in this manner. Many scientists and
others are worried about the destruction of man’s water resources. He illustrated this as
well and further pointed out how men were killing rare species of whales and seals for
their own food and how even dolphins were becoming rare.
The next problem he touched on, was that of meeting the noise pollution in the city.
Significantly, at that moment, a microphone in the locality blared the latest film song
disturbing the peace of the school and the children laughed spontaneously. They were
very familiar with this type of pollution, for it was impossible to escape noticing that
restaurants and meeting places, temples and sacred places were all using loud speakers
either to draw attention or entertain. “Don’t you think drawing attention in this manner is
a deplorable thing to do?” he asked. “Little do people realise that music, loud and
exciting, when played through gramophones with amplifiers at street corners, left their
mark on the atmosphere.”
Another source of noise pollution was, of course, the car and truck horns that blared
through the city roads. Traffic was becoming uncontrollable due to the rise in population
and most city streets were crowded with huge trucks and lorries. No one cared about
diverting them or regulating them. These are some of the hazards of industrialisation, he
said, whatever may be the benefits.
The children were full of comments and questions. They pointed out how near their
own homes and even in front of the school there were mounds of garbage that the
Municipality did not clear regularly, which in turn made living intolerable. “Something
must be done,” they said. The lecturer agreed most appreciatively and remarked that a
beginning could be made by distinguishing between three types of garbage: the kitchen
garbage that is the real waste, then items such as leaf, fruit skins and flower, and dry
waste, like paper, bottles, plastic, etc. If these could be placed in each home in three
separate bins, then the kitchen waste could be thrown into the Municipal Containers for
disposal; the leaf, fruit, etc. could be recycled and used as organic manure and the paper
and bottles could be disposed of separately for reuse. This would minimise the problem
of waste. The children had learnt something new which they talked over with their
mothers later.
The children next questioned the speaker about the problems arising from the ruthless
cutting of trees and forests. The speaker pointed out how deforestation affects the
biosphere, the ecology of the earth. When trees are cut, the water-cycle of that area is
affected and there will always be less rain. “Do you notice how our climate is changing?”
he asked. Most cities are becoming warmer with a steep rise in temperature. There are
droughts and periods of very little rainfall because the whole process of evaporation and
condensation, which you must have read about, is endangered. Besides, there is abundant
soil erosion causing damage to the land. Trees are meant to be protected over thousands
of years and the earth kept green and beautiful. That is why it is so important for children
to learn to plant at least one tree and take care of it. Gradually, as you grow older, you
will be more careful about caring for the environment, about looking after the earth, he
said. And at this point he showed the most extraordinary pictures of the earth taken by
some cosmonauts from space. He appealed to them to look after this beautiful earth of
ours.
The children were moved and so too were the teachers. They had become so absorbed
in the lecture that the earlier excitement over the cricket score receded into the
background. And so as the lecturer went out of the hall he was surrounded by an eager
group of pupils, some of them wanting to have a second look at the slides.
Apart from this, from then on, the school’s participation was more active and
spontaneous in the programmes of the city’s Environmental Society. Each class
undertook a project for the local Citizens’ Committee.

24. On Being Afraid

They were all residing in a girls’ hostel and had gathered together by the river that
morning.
“Did you hear that loud bang last night after we put off the lights?” asked the girl in
the red sweater. “I was so scared. What was it?”
“I don’t know,” said Sheila. “But I was scared, too. It was so dark outside, I was afraid
to go out”.
“I hate to go out in the dark. I feel as if something dreadful could happen,” said Anita.
“What are you afraid of?” they asked the new girl.
“Of snakes,” she said and they smiled.
 “What about you, Lalitha? Aren’t you afraid of anything?”
Lalitha was not taking part in the conversation. She was sitting by the river looking
rather pensive. But at the mention of her name she pricked up her ears. “Oh, of ghosts,”
she said making it up on the spot for she had not thought about it before. Strange, isn’t it,
the way we make up things all the time?
“Mr. Anand read us some ghost stories in class today,” added Vanita, “and it made my
blood curdle”.
“I am not afraid of anything,” boasted Sujata who had travelled with her parents to
America and had seen something of the other parts of the world.
“What about the Maths test tomorrow?” interposed the girl in the red sweater. “Aren’t
you afraid of that?”
“My God! I quite forgot about it,” said Sujata and her eyes showed that she was
mortally afraid of the test in question.
Lalitha, the pensive one, intervened this time rather quietly. “You know I was thinking
of my mother. She is terribly afraid of my father. He drinks, you know, and we are all
scared when he returns home at night.”
“It is exactly the opposite in my house,” said Sheila. “Father is scared of my mother.
She is the one who is very strict.” They chatted animatedly that morning about their fears.
They were always, afraid that some teacher or the other might scold them for doing or not
doing. Sometimes they said they imagined that their own classmates may laugh at them
for giving a foolish answer which could make them feel very ill at weak and so they were
afraid to participate in class; at other times they were afraid they may be late for P.T. or
games or dance. And, of course, there is always the dread of doing poorly in the
examinations, of failing in this subject or that or of what their parents would say about
their progress reports. This was common to all and some mentioned that they disliked
being compared with their brothers or sisters or anyone else in class and were afraid their
parents were bound to do so. Then again there was also the fear of boys, that they may
lease them, may pass comments, may not speak politely or behave in a less gentlemanly
fashion. These girls seemed to be consumed by so many little fears.
But did you notice that all these fears were of something trial may happen in the future
and seemed to arise in their own minds. First, the thought that something may happen
arises in the mind and immediately it evokes a feeling of fear. Do you notice fear is
nothing but a thought of something that may happen in the future, or a remembrance of
something that happened in the past and is to be avoided ?
And also consider what happens to you when you are full of fear? Suppose you are
afraid of not being popular among your classmates, or of” what they may think of you. or
of their not accepting you as pan of the group fully, then what happens to you? You begin
to imitate them in everything they do don’t you? You follow the way they dress, the way
they talk, the language they use the jokes they crack, the way they walk or do things and
so on. Even if you feel like dressing differently or doing something differently, you
suppress that feeling and decide to do what the others do and avoid conflict. Gradually,
starting from these small things it is likely that your thinking also is shaped by the group
for you may be afraid to be original, to have different views on anything. So you cease to
be creative if you are afraid. You will never know what it is to be free if you are all the
time trapped as in a cage by the fear of others. And, mind you, this is equally true of
adults. Many grown up men and women are mortally afraid of the opinion of society, of
what others will say about them. In this respect they are like children. They too are not
free and happy or original and creative.
Then consider how one should deal with this thing called fear. Is it good to ignore it
and let little fears accumulate throughout school life in the hope that one day you will be
unafraid? Can that happen if you don’t learn to meet the little fears of daily life here and
now?
Would it be all right to run away from it and play games or see a funny cinema and
hope that escaping from it will help you get rid of fear? Should you suppress it and tell
yourself everyday, “I am brave”, “I am not afraid”, when actually you are afraid?
Or would it be more intelligent to see that little fears do not accumulate and become a
big thing inside you by understanding each incident, as it happens, and by not letting fear
take root in the mind at all? Try it sometime and see what happens.
Also discuss these things openly at home and at school. It may be fun to share your
fears with others.

25. Feelings
What are feelings? How do they arise? Have you ever been aware of a strong emotion
arising in you?
For example, have you been out on a terrace or a verandah and suddenly become
aware of the full moon? How did you feel at that moment? Did you not feel it was an
extraordinary sight to see the whole sky aglow? Did you feel your heart throb and a great
sensation fill your entire being? Did this ever happen to you? Or, has the sight of the new
moon, just a thin arc with a lone star nearby thrilled you?
Have you ever felt the majesty of the mountain not just from a picture-book but by
being in real contact with it as you stared at its snow-capped peaks? Have you ever felt a
mountain?
What about the ocean with its vast expanse of water? How does it feel to stand on the
sands and look beyond the horizon, listening to the swinging, dancing waves, sometimes
calm, sometimes frolicking, sometimes angry? Have you ever taken the whole scene in,
with your eyes and ears? If not, do so next time and see what kind of feelings arise in
you.
Nature is generous and has much to offer. If your heart is open you will listen to and
notice the sounds of nature and respond to the wind whistling through the leaves, the
warbling notes of a bird, the murmur of a brook, you will watch the dewdrop on a flower,
the outline of a tree against the sky, the glow of sunset on the sea. All this beauty of sight
and sound evoke feelings of wonder and great well-being.
There are other times when your feelings are different. Perhaps you have turned your
face away at the sight of a beggar, for you cannot bear the twinge of pain it brings. Or it
may be a feeling of tenderness or sympathy for a disabled person to whom you want to
reach out. It may be concern for the woman carrying a child in her arms while balancing
a large basket on her head running across the road; it may be a touch of pain felt when
you hear the whine of a dog hit by a stone- or, the sight of a horse being whipped to make
it trot faster, or again, the sight of an overburdened rickshaw with the poor man
struggling to cope with his burden. Then there is the feeling of silent awe that
accompanies the sight of a dead body being carried on four shoulders.
Think of other situations — the sickening smell of a dirty lane, the stench of an open
lavatory, the stark reality of poverty stricken people on the road, the strange sounds and
curiously mixed odours at a railway station you can surely add on to the list.
We respond in different ways to different situations. It would be interesting to observe
how we meet these situations and what impact they make on us. How strongly do we feel
anything? Will you try watching how you respond to situations and if you are in the habit
of keeping a diary, try noting down your feelings about the things you observe.
Let us now examine a common emotion, felt by young and old, teacher and student,
parents and friends; the feeling of anger. Can you find out the things that make you
angry?
Once a group of students like you, were asked to describe what made them most
angry. Some very interesting statements made were:
When I am accused of something I have not done.
When someone has wronged my friend.
When teacher is prejudiced against me and is partial to another.
When I want something very badly and can’t get it.
When mother keeps nagging me and all the time to do this or that.
Now consider the amount of chemical energy that is wasted when the body is in a state
of anger. Observe how you suppress your feelings and boil inside or burst out in a rage
and say all kinds of things, or how you cry in anger. Think of the amount of time it takes
you to be normal again after the incident. It is important to understand ourselves and all
the feelings that arise in us. Just as there are so many extraordinary things outside us,
there are many strange, unexplained things inside us too, in our minds and hearts. We
usually love to go out on long journeys, don’t we, discovering the beauties of the
countryside, the wonders of the earth and the seas and the skies. Likewise, it might be fun
to goon a voyage of discovery inside us, wouldn’t it — to find out all about ourselves,
our thoughts, our feelings, our responses, our actions? The beauty is that for the inward
journey you do not have to spend a lot of money or go away to a hill-side to meditate or
do anything different. If you observe yourself, the way you walk, talk, dress, eat and
relate to your friends, teachers, parents, if you learn to look at the trees and the flowers
and the beauty of the earth, if you observe people and their ways, you begin to learn a lot
of things about yourself and your feelings.
Think of some situations at home or at school that awakened strong feelings in you.
Talk it over with your friends.
If you look around, you will find that Nature has infinite form, infinite beauty and
infinite variety. Can you put down some aspects of Nature that have touched you?
 26. The Art of Questioning
Let us look at a day in your life and see if there is any place in it for questions. You
are young and naturally curious and your mind is possibly full of questions about life
around you, about what you read in books, about what others tell you and so on. In fact,
one may say, the art of learning is closely related to the art of questioning.
Notice that at school something quite different happens most of the time. It is the
teacher who asks you the questions and you have to find the answers! She has taught you
some physics or history, perhaps, and she questions you closely to find out if you have
understood what has been explained. So, gradually, your mind becomes more full of
answers to questions on various subjects rather than questions to which you want the
answer. Of course, if she is an intelligent teacher she allows you to raise questions at
every point and lets you discover things for yourself. In that way, she knows your mind
will keep growing because there is wonder and curiosity in it.
As a matter of fact, it was the feeling of wonder that was the birth of what we call
subjects today, or the various branches of knowledge. Discovering cave paintings, rock
edicts, parchments, coins and the like, the historian asked: Who could have produced
these? When did they live? What was their life like? And thus the study of the story of
man began. Looking at the vagaries of climate and rainfall, of mountains and
earthquakes, man discovered more about the earth by questioning, and so was born what
we call geography. While history dealt with questions related to man in time, geography
sought answers to questions about man on earth. Wondering about the physical laws of
the universe, men asked questions about natural phenomena which have resulted in
physics and chemistry. Newton’s law of gravitation was the answer to his wonder: “Why
does the apple fall to the ground?” The biologist asked questions about plants and
animals and their behaviour. This is so with practice everything you call a subject. They
are answers to questions. Their starting p. is wonder, leading on to curiosity and enquiry.
Does language belong to group? What was its origin? Think about it.
In your daily life too, you can see it happening all the time, can’t you? You spot a
snake in the compound and instead of running away from it, all rush around and wish to
look at it closely and you marvel at its glow skin and its graceful writhing movements.
You see a car that has broken do on the road and you are full of questions about how it
happened and how a driver is going to get it to move. You hear there are computers being
brought to schools and you want to know more about them. Our surroundings eve
questions as day moves into night and on to another day.
Likewise, feelings arouse questions. You see so many people who are pc and you
notice so many who are rich and naturally you are moved to ask: ‘’ W is this so? Why
must some people suffer? Why does this inequality exist: Is there no justice in the world?
You listen to the story of people fighting with each other and ask, “Can’t we live
happily? Why do people fight?” and on. Compassion is the source of questions too.
If you learn this art of questioning and keep your minds alive you will fir that you do
not accept opinions and beliefs blindly. When you read the newspaper you will not be
carried away by one item of news or the other, good or bad. You will pause and question
if the report could be right. Try it sometime. If someone tells you that, “If you do such
and such a thing it will result in such a thing”, you will examine it critically. Cultivating a
mind that listens to questions and thinks over them quietly is a good thing. If your mind is
stuffed with the opinions and beliefs of others it will be like a cramped store room with
no space, no windows into the world. Isn’t that so?
Then do you notice that when you are far away from crowds, alone ant by yourself,
perhaps at night, certain very personal questions may arise within the mind?
Why did I get angry with ‘X’ today?
Why do I generally get angry over small things?
What arc my worries? What are my fears?
Little questions, big questions. Sometimes silly questions, some very serious
questions. That is the lime when you can have a dialogue with yourself, with nobody to
bother you with their queries. And if we learn to go on questioning ourselves about what
is happening inside us, we may discover many interesting things about the world within
us, just as we have so much knowledge stacked in our libraries because scientists and
others questioned things relentlessly and discovered new facts and laws about the world
outside us.
Here is an example of a dialogue with yourself where one question can lead to
another:
Why am I so nervous today?
Is it because I am afraid of exams?
Why am I afraid when I have studied everything quite well?
Am I afraid that I may fail?
You may not fail.
Yes, of course, but I may?
Then is your fear real?
Not quite, but it is a thought that something may happen.
What is a thought?
It is something that arises in the mind.
Is it a thing?
Most probably it is. though we can’t see it as we can see this chair.
Where do thoughts reside?
In the brain, perhaps.
How do they arise?
From relating to people and events outside us. For example: the thought came to me
that I may fail because I was faced with an exam.
Why should one be afraid of a thought then?
Yes, of course, it is silly but it happens all the same. What is thinking?
Now continue with this line of questioning and you may come upon some very
important discoveries, as important as those of Einstein’s!
Learning to question things happening outside and inside us can be fun indeed.
 30. Getting to Know Our Villages
This is the story of Kripal Singh and Kamaljeet Kaur who had been brought up in
towns all along and were quite ignorant about conditions in the villages. This is also a
story for many of our boys and girls who know so little about the real India, the India that
lives in our villages.
For a long time Chacha Harinder Pal had been inviting the children to his home in the
village, for unlike his brother Gurminder Singh who sought the comforts of town life,
Harinder had settled on his farm. He occasionally visited the town to meet his brother’s
family and at times he let his son Devinder accompany him. Devinder was a very simple
boy studying in the eighth class in a rural school, very bright and very contented. He
found it a little difficult to make friends with his cousins, Kripal and Kamaljeet Kaur,
because their language was different, their interests, he thought, rather strange and their
manners quite funny. Devinder would tire of the town very soon and crave to get back to
his village, to his friend Surinder with whom he could play gulli-danda or ankh-michoni
and be perfectly happy all evening.
This time Kripal and Kamaljeet made up their minds to visit the village during one of
their holidays. In fact their father insisted and they made the trip, half-excited, half-
doubtful for they felt there were many more exciting things to do in their own town.
Nonetheless they arrived there and the first morning they were quite disappointed
although their uncle had a pucca house with a lovely courtyard, overlooking a sparkling
stream. By evening they had such good things to eat — fresh amrud (guavas), bhutta
(roasted corn) huge glasses of lassi (sweetened buttermilk), cream, the kind they had
never had before, and later the most delicious makki ki roti and sarson ka saag (rotis
made of maize with spinach to go with it), that by night they were won over. Young
people don’t nurse prejudices for long. They are willing to observe and learn and make
friends. They now saw Devinder in a new light, as a fine, healthy boy and Devinder too
was overjoyed that his home had something to offer his cousins. By night they were
relaxed and chatted happily. Uncle promised to show them round their own farm and the
village, the next morning, if they could get up early.
Kamaljeet was the first to be up by five in the morning, a time unthinkable for them in
the town, and being a lover of nature she walked out into the courtyard and beyond and
looked up at the vast skies which she had hardly noticed before. Her aunt was in the cow-
shed supervising the milking of the cow and Kamaljeet found it most exciting and novel
as she watched the milking for the first time in her life. Her aunt gave her some to drink,
even without boiling, and she couldn’t imagine that such things were possible. Milk, to
town people seems to come in bottles, never from the cow!
The boys were up by this time and the whole house was agog and soon after a snack,
they were ready to move out. To their utter surprise they saw a vast expanse of wheat
ready for harvest, golden wheat that spoke of prosperity and well-being. Farming, in
uncle Harinder’s farm and in many others’ had been mechanised. No longer was the
plough or the bullock to be seen in plenty. There were a few scattered here and there, but
the bulk of the work was done by tractors and there were little machines of various kinds
to make the work simpler. There were tube-wells and no dearth of water. Lift-irrigation
had been introduced in the village and there were canals cutting through fields. The
children were totally absorbed learning all about new methods of irrigation. They had
read about it in their geography books back home, but it had all been so vague and dry,
just a name! Now it made sense and their cousin Devinder knew so much about it all that
they were amazed. A little further on, they observed the fertilisers that were piled up for
use and also the pesticides. Again these had been names that now became a reality. For
the first time, they touched the earth with their hands; they dug out weeds; they played
with grass; they looked at the ears of golden wheat; they actually saw other crops. They
marvelled at the way mounds of wheat were stored. They loved everything they saw.
They were transformed people.
On another day, they went to the village dairy, a completely mechanised unit and they
saw how huge and well-fed the cattle were, how clean the sheds were and how
intelligently planned. They saw the fodder and the food the cattle were given. They
played with the cows and the buffaloes till they were gently kicked occasionally and they
would laughingly bounce like footballs in the town! They had heard the phrases ‘the
green revolution’ and ‘the white revolution’ and their own teacher had tried hard to make
them comprehend, but, perhaps, she too had never been to a village, for otherwise, she
would have made it more vivid and much simpler. Kripal thought a visit to the village
must be made compulsory for all teachers!
The rest of the days went by amidst great rejoicing and wonderful discoveries about a
‘modern’ village such as this. They saw the village hospital with several amenities, the
primary health centre which cared for the sick. They visited Devinder’s school which was
a small building, but well maintained with lots of children and it seemed a happy place.
When the bell rang, the children themselves carried their mats out to the open spaces and
they sang songs at the assembly. One little boy read out the news. They were quite well
informed about happenings in the other parts of the country. In the classrooms they sat on
mats and had little chowkis in front of them. There were not enough black boards or
maps, etc, but Kamaljeet noticed that the handwriting of these children was much nicer
than hers’ or her friends’! They first wrote on slates, then with reed pens and ink. Every
page was beautiful. In this school there was even an improvised laboratory of tins and
cans, and pulleys and bottles for them to learn science. Their teacher had gone to the
town for a Seminar where he learnt all this. Devinder was, of course, the bright boy in the
school.
During their walks, they noticed that the people in this village were sturdy and well-
built. They were hardworking and full of new ideas. They saw a repair shop where a
young man repaired cycles, pump sets, hand tools and many other household things
besides. There was a village carpenter who made cots and tables and shelves. The village
masons were all well-clad and hard at work from morning till evening. The farm women
sang as they worked and talked quite loudly. They even had their fights. This place was
full of life, for the people seemed to love a good life.
One evening they met the headman of the village panchayat, an elderly gentleman
with a long, glowing grey beard and a golden coloured turban that glittered. Kripal and
Kamaljeet were a little shy and wondered what they would talk to him about but soon the
man put them completely at ease telling them all kinds of jokes and sharing big tumblers
of sugarcane juice with them. The tumblers in this village, they noticed, were far larger in
size than any they had ever seen at home. He told them stories of the village and
interspersed them with sayings from the Granth Sahib and tales of the Gurus. The
children were very impressed and very happy. Another evening they attended a village
wedding with their aunt and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The people were so
hospitable, so warm, so kind.
Their uncle then took them to see a Bhangra dance in the village and they were
delighted. People of all faiths danced together — Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. Spying two
little new-comers one of the men drew the children into their circle and they danced with
the rest. It was all so different from the Bhangra they had done on the stage at school —
so much more fun and joy and no nervousness about the audience!
“Was there no poverty in the villages?” Kripal asked. “And are all villages like this?”
His uncle explained that about twenty years ago this village too was not producing as
much wheat or corn as now and even now there were people who had less land of their
own; there were also people who did not own any land at all and they were comparatively
poor. But what had happened was that with the coming of the radio and some agricultural
officers who gave lessons on improved farming, the farmers of this village were willing
to change their old habits and learn modern techniques of farming. This took time and
many were still doubtful. Harinder Pal himself had to take the lead and show that tractors
would yield better wheat. He had to work hard to convince people about the need for
irrigation and fertilisers. But once they saw the results, the villagers were all convinced,
and they were so enterprising that in a short while their whole village had got
transformed into what it is today. Even their women had got trained and learnt many new
things about the farm, about cooking, about child-care, health and disease and about
cleanliness. Uncle added, that the old idea that our villagers are ignorant or unwilling to
learn is no longer true in many parts of the country and surely not here. Many adults had
even learnt to read and write. But more important than that was the fact they had open
minds and were willing to enquire, to learn, to change and grow as fast as possible. They
were adventurous and they were happy, buoyant and contented. This visit was such an
eye-opener to the children that they came back, delighted, and excited and talked about it
for days. They also became humble and more sensitive to life in a village. They had
grown to love their cousin Devinder and promised to return every holiday.
Have you ever visited a village in your part of the country? Have your experiences
been somewhat like those of these two children? What more can you add that can give us
a glimpse of a prosperous village?
If different, what have you seen that has perhaps made you sad? Let us remember that,
alas, not all our villages are as prosperous as some of these. We do have rich villages that
produce wheat, rice, cotton, maize, pulses, and grains of all sorts. We do have tea and
coffee estates and so on. But only some are prosperous. In the vast majority of them the
people are very poor and can hardly have one meal a day. Not all villagers own land.
Some do, others work for them, till the soil and do all the hard work, but are paid very
little. There is exploitation. There is poverty, squalor, dirt, disease. There is superstition.
Very few girls go to school. Girls are regarded as inferior to boys. Women live in great
hardship. Often men indulge in drink. There is great sorrow. These are also the realities
we see in villages. But the question is that if in twenty years some villages like
Devinder’s can he such happy, prosperous places, there is no reason why others can’t be
the same. Is it because we have not cared for them, not cared to share our education and
knowledge with them?
Do go into the villages and find out for yourself what the real state of India is, and
happily, one day, you may feel inspired to do something to improve their lot.

31. On Pressure
Have you ever examined this question? What are the pressures that operate upon you
in your daily life?
There is the pressure of having to complete assignments, projects, homework. There is
the pressure of tests and examinations which are always there like the sword of
Damocles. The progress report causes tremendous pressure.
There are the teachers who wield subtle pressure depending on their personality and
your relationship with them, their opinion of you, their likes and dislikes.
Of course, one may not recognise this as a pressure, bat one’s classmates do exercise a
great deal of pressure on you. You feel you can’t be different from them in dress or
appearance, in the language you use, the games you play, the recreations you seek. The
group exerts pressure on the individual.
Again, parents are a source of tremendous pressure though you and your parents will
not like the use of such an expression. Their expectations are usually that you must be the
best in the class or among the best, that you must score high marks in every subject
whether you like that subject or not, that you must pass out of school brilliantly, that you
must qualify in ail entrance examinations to colleges, universities, etc., that you must do
exceedingly well at the university, get a good job, earn well, marry the right person and
settle down happily. Every parent wants his child to succeed in life, and, success
according to most people means getting a good job, having a good reputation, earning
enough money and comforts, and, living ‘happily’. Whatever they could or could not gel
in their own lives but wanted to, they want their children to have, and more. Their love
and concern is a pressure, a strong force in your life and you mould yourself according to
their desires. Do you notice this happening to you?
Strangely enough, your elders and parents are themselves the victims of the pressure
of society upon them. Only successful people have a status in society. Money has a status
in society, so too power. Society seems to worship money and power and it exercises
pressure on parents and others to keep seeking money and power. They seem to be
trapped in this wheel called society. What shall we do?
Shall we examine what society is and why it exercises so much power on us? Would
you agree that society is a collection of individuals, of you and me and other people? If
this is so, should we blindly agree that what the group thinks is right and has to be
followed by all? If the group thinks one should not marry outside one’s caste, ii exercises
pressure on a man or woman to conform to the group’s ideas on marriage. Should we not
ask ourselves if it is prejudiced? Its ideas may be old fashioned and a man who is afraid
will be subdued by the pressure of the group. But if a man believes that dividing people
into castes is evil then he will not be afraid of the opinions of society. He will act
according to his own clarity. So, being intelligent and clear in the mind is the right thing
rather than following blindly the beliefs of society.
At the same time, we see many young people, particularly from the West, reacting and
revolting against the beliefs of society in an extreme manner and becoming ‘hippies’-
They wear dirty clothes, do not shave, they take drugs wandering all over the globe, do
not work, and so on. Do you think this kind of revolt is intelligent? Will it not harm
them? Is this kind of revolt wise?
If we revolt against society in this negative way, we create a new group with its own
pressures. So the question is how do we live and work in society and yet not feel its
pressures? For this, it is important that we start with ourselves because we are the people
who form society. We have to understand how our thoughts are formed, how prejudices
arise, how society influences our action, so that we can be free of such pressure.
The next time when you have to answer an exam or speak in public or take your report
card home or answer your parents about where you have been, the next time you sense
you are under pressure, will you go into it intelligently, question it and help yourself to be
free of it? Let us begin with small things and try to understand how little pressures make
our lives tense and unhappy. With this understanding there may be freedom and joy.

32. The Sorrow of Division

One of the greatest sorrows of the world is that man is divided against man. This earth
of ours with its vast expanse of water, its variety of land ranging from the wide open
deserts to lofty mountains, its astonishing differences in climate and culture, its exquisite
relation with the sun and the moon and the stars, this earth, could be quite an
extraordinary place for man to live in happily, spending his time and energy in his quest
for its many secrets. Yet, if you observe what is happening in the world, you will observe
first of all, that the peoples of the world, far from regarding themselves as the inheritors
of a common earth, have divided themselves into nationalities: the French, the Germans,
the English, the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, the Pakistanis, and so
on. Each nation has its own geographic boundary and the people living in a particular
area of the earth think of themselves as belonging only to that part of the earth and
develop a close loyalty to that piece of land, to their own tribe, their own customs,
language, and way of life. So strong is this bond that the people next door who belong to
another geographic boundary are looked upon with suspicion. A wall grows immediately
between nation and nation for that is inevitable when you separate yourself from others.
So, we do not regard ourselves as human beings belonging to one large family of the
earth but as nations with different types of governments, different leaders, different
economies and different policies. This is unfortunate, for the result is that there is a sharp
division, not only outwardly through boundaries between lands, but inwardly in the mind
of mankind. In fact, divisions start within the mind of man and express themselves
outwardly as nation versus nation, religion versus religion, group versus group, and so
on, resulting in the most devastating wars the earth has ever seen since its origin.
Wars seem to take place because the minds of the people of the world are so shaped
and conditioned in divisions, in love of one’s country and hatred of another; because
violence has become our way of life. Can you imagine what that actually means? It
means that if you are an Englishman and if your country is at war with Germany, as it
happened in the last World War, your city is the victim of an air-raid, and one fine
morning you get out of bed and find your father, mother, brother, sister killed in an
instant, your house burnt down, your friends wailing and destruction as far as the eye can
see. Innocent people, but destroyed because they called themselves ‘English’. It could
happen the other way too. A German family may be blown to bits. This is the meaning of
war: senseless, ruthless killing with no gain whatsoever. What is worse is, mankind is
piling armaments, more and more sophisticated armaments. You may have heard of
them: cruise missiles, F-16’s, MIG’s, atom bombs, submarines, nuclear weapons, and so
on, newer and crueler forms of killing each other. Millions are wounded and maimed for
life. Cities and civilisations have been wiped out, for man has fought wars from time
immemorial. The difference is that if a nuclear war were to break out now the planet
cannot survive, for nuclear weapons have the power to destroy not only human lives, but
plants, animals, trees, birds, the whole of life on earth.
Think of the divisions that exist even today between nation and nation all over the
globe; think of how peoples are divided by the colour of their skin, the blacks and the
whites and so on and the sufferings of the peoples of South Africa. Or nearer home, think
of the suspicion and the gulf that exists between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Likewise, religious divisions have caused war both historically and even today,
between the Hindus and the Muslims, the Christians and the Jews. A religion is supposed
to help a person understand his place in the universe, his relationship with God and man.
It is supposed to help him transcend the earthly bondages he acquires through life.
Instead, these labels seem to create anger, frustration, dominance, violence and hatred.
Isn’t that the greatest sorrow of man?
Experts say that world governments spend about one thousand billion dollars on
armaments per year and if all wars stopped, there would be enough money to feed, clothe
and house all the peoples of the world. Think of another kind of division that exists now
between the richer countries and the poorer countries, where poverty kills the human
spirit, or of the division between the rich and the poor in the same country. Isn’t that
tragic?
Look at our own country, India. What are the divisions within the country? Do you
say, “I am a Maharashtrian”, “I am a Bengali”, “I am a Tamilian”, “I am a Punjabi”, etc.,
or do you say “I am an Indian”, and further more, can you say “I am a human being”?
What do grown-ups in this country say and do now? Aren’t they all divided in their
minds and hearts and therefore in their behaviour? One state against another; one
language against another; one community against another; one caste against another; one
sub-caste against another. What is happening to us? Isn’t it a very sad thing that inspite of
all the culture and the glory of the past that we are so proud of and speak of so often, we
should be such a divided nation? Could we go to the root cause of division itself, that is.
to the mind of man, in order to take a different turn altogether?
Can we help our minds see that all divisions are mischievous? After all, underneath
the skin, as it were, human beings arc all alike. We all suffer, we all rejoice. We get
angry, we get jealous. We are ambitious. We are kind. We are gentle. We have feelings,
we have hurts. We discover, we invent. Aren’t human beings really and truly alike even
though they may look different? Some are white, some black, some brown, some yellow;
some are tall, some short; some beautiful, some ugly but underneath the superficialities,
mankind is one.
Will you build a better world when your turn comes? Will you do something in little
ways or big to end the sorrow of division? Will you look after this beautiful earth of ours
and care for it and help it remain the home of all the peoples of the world? That would
indeed be a wonderful thing to work for.

33. A Dialogue
Do you notice that everybody seems to want ‘freedom’? Children want freedom at
school; mother wants freedom at home; father in the office. Teachers want freedom and
the principal wants freedom, too. Birds like to be free and trees demand freedom to grow.
Animals are most unhappy when caged or bound. The politician wants freedom. The
scientist asks for freedom. Birds, trees, animals and man — they all seem to need
freedom, space in which to grow. Nobody likes to be bound. Do you notice this? Shall we
discuss it further?
The teacher initiated this dialogue in class one morning and you could see the faces of
the children light up for they found this much more exciting than learning maths or
physics, history or geography. A lively discussion followed which went somewhat like
this:
TEACHER: When you say you want ‘freedom’ what do you actually mean?
PUPIL: I think it means ‘being able to do what one likes to do and not what one has to
do’
TEACHER: Is that so? Suppose you like to sleep late, get up only when your body
feels like it, bathe or not bathe depending upon your mood, dress shabbily and come
leisurely, just when you like, to school and not in time for the morning assembly, would
that give you a feeling of being free?
PUPIL: No, that would not be right because I would miss many things. But again,
when we occasionally come late, I do not think we should be punished. When we are
punished, we do not feel free.
Then the teacher started the discussion along another line of thought. She wanted the
class to look at the problem from another angle.
TEACHER: All right, let us look at what freedom means in the life of a teacher. Can a
teacher do what he likes?
PUPIL: Certainly not (in chorus’).
TEACHER: For example, he cannot say he will correct the notebooks when he feels
like it; he cannot come unprepared to class and teach without coherence; he cannot refuse
any assignment given by the principal and so on,
PUPIL: The same rules hold for the teacher as well.
TEACHER: Yes, do you see that freedom and responsibility go together?
PUPIL: But then, to whom is the principal responsible? He can do what he likes.
 TEACHER: No, he can’t. He is responsible to parents, to the public, to the community
at large.
And also to the teacher and pupils in the school. You see, freedom calls for the highest
responsibility. That is so in the government also. The legislators are responsible to the
people who elected them and so too the Prime Minister and his cabinet.
PUPIL: In a dictatorship there is no freedom, is there? TEACHER: No, because in a
dictatorship only one man’s judgement counts and everybody else is afraid of him. Have
you not heard it said that where there is fear there can be no freedom?
PUPIL: But in democracies also we see fear sometimes. TEACHER: Can you give
examples?
PUPIL: The businessman is afraid of the laws; the poor man is afraid of the rich man;
managements are afraid of strikes.
TEACHER: But in a democracy, people can talk about this, write about this, is it not?
PUPIL; Yes, newspapers publish all the wrong that is going on and so people have to
be watchful.
TEACHER: Yes, indeed, in a democracy the Press is a very important avenue for
people’s freedom.
PUPIL: But yet the people continue to be afraid.
TEACHER: Tell me, are you afraid? PUPIL; Yes, we are afraid sometimes.
TEACHER: Can you learn if you are afraid?
PUPIL: No, I am too agitated to learn.
TEACHER: Then what will you do? What do you do?
PUPIL: I give up learning and do something else that eases the mind.
TEACHER: But that is not intelligent. Isn’t it better to find out why you were afraid,
of what you are afraid and try to understand your fears so that after dealing with them
your mind may be free to learn?
PUPIL: What do you mean by ‘dealing with them’? The cause may not be in our
hands.
TEACHER: Yes, that is so, but by going on thinking about your fears and anxieties
are you helping yourself?
It was on these lines their dialogue continued that day. Perhaps you can go into these
questions, too.
You see, man is full of curiosity and wonder. He has investigated and tried to find out
everything about nature. He has patiently observed and studied the ways of birds and
animals. He has probed into space and tried to understand all about stars and planets and
the universe. He has delved into the ocean and gathered a lot of knowledge about oysters
and pearls, about whales and seals and dolphins and the whole of the under-ocean world.
He has studied the story of man and the civilisations that existed. He has discovered
caves and rocks and fossils that help him understand that story. He has made
extraordinary discoveries in medicine and surgery. That is, he has shown a great deal of
curiosity and wonder about the world outside him and has gathered enormous knowledge
about that world.
The teacher in this class is asking the children to delve into the world inside them, into
their minds and hearts and to observe what helps them learn and what does not. She is
asking them to watch and learn about the blocks to freedom, their fears and anxieties,
Their interest and attention and so on.
Would you agree that this study of ourselves is as important as the other about the
outside world?
Would you like to have some dialogues about these things in your own class or at
home?
Think upon these things.

34. Ravi’s Quest for the Meaning of Religion

Ravi was a sensitive boy of fourteen. From the time he was eight or nine he had that
deep feeling for something unnameable, for something beyond all description and this
feeling had persisted. When watching the sun rise, when walking alone, when listening to
great music, when tending a plant, there would be a strong urge welling up in him to find
out for himself who God was, where he lived, if anyone had seen him, and so on. He
noticed how the rose fades away by the evening, how plants wither away, how all life,
whether animal or man. comes to an end. He liked to be alone by himself when not
studying in class. His mother was a devout Hindu and would regularly offer prayers at the
temple near by. Ravi would accompany her sometimes of an evening and he liked the
atmosphere surrounding the worship of a beautiful image. The lights, the incense, the
sheer beauty of an arti austerely performed, those moved him inwardly- Could God be in
that image, he wondered? And yet, if God is all powerful why should he reside only in
stone images? Is God a person at all like man? These questions nagged him often.
His sister had married a Christian in a church. That day Ravi was deeply moved by the
wonderful decorum and order there, the hymns that were sung and the simple ceremony
that followed. The architectural beauty of the cathedral, the huge domes, lights, candles
had made him feel different. Did God reside here alone, he wondered? Why do they call
him the Saviour? That evening he read parts of the Bible before going to sleep.
There was a mosque near by and often from the terrace at noon he saw-large numbers
of men kneel and bend in prayer and the profound depth and volume of their prayer
struck a chord in his heart. Did Islam have the answer to his question, he wondered. His
best friend was a Muslim boy, Kasim, and he found out from his father that the word
‘Islam’ meant ‘peace’. The Muslims believe that all men are brothers and should live in
peace and friendship.
At school he had read in his history class the extraordinary story of Prince Siddhartha
and of how he gave up the comforts and wealth of a king’s life, gave up even his wife and
child and went forth alone into the forest to seek that truth that liberates all mankind, and
he came to be known as Gautama the Buddha who gave his dhamma to the world. The
dhamma taught people the cause of human suffering and how to end the suffering. Ravi
had a small image of the Buddha on his study table and was particularly impressed by the
serene face. He also learnt at school of Guru Nanak and the religion of the Sikhs, its
depth and wisdom, its powerful message of peace and love for all mankind and of
Mahavira and the founding of the great Jain religion which proclaimed the sanctity of all
life.
In every religion there seemed to be inherent the same urge expressed by man to come
into contact with something much nobler, greater and much more expansive. Every
religion spoke of compassion and the brotherhood of man. He was truly puzzled as to
why people of different faiths often killed each other when in essence the great teacher of
every religion spoke only of living with each other as brothers, of the beauty of love, and
of not hurting one another. His parents were proud that at so young an age there was so
much wisdom in him. Occasionally his class referred to him as the ‘philosopher’ but they
respected him.
Once he entered into a serious discussion with his father who taught philosophy at the
university. What do all religions say? In what ways are they similar? And his father
explained that only the outer forms of religions differ, like rituals and poojas and places
of worship are different; festivals and customs are different, but these are merely outward
things. In essence, all religions preached the oneness of man, of fellow beings and
exhorted all the peoples of the earth to live together in harmony. Religions also
proclaimed that everything is impermanent in this world. Whatever is born must die.
Change is the principle of life. Ravi listened and wondered how he would find out the
truth for himself.
He had an uncle who would point out to him with great affection that he felt there
must be a supreme Energy pervading all life in the universe and man has always yearned
to be one with that Energy, giving up his petty little self-centred activity. This Great
Spirit cannot be confined to places of worship alone, he had said. Service to fellow
human beings and care of animal and plant life was to him the greatest religion.
Listening to him, Ravi felt that there was a lot of wisdom in what he said but he was
bothered about the many superstitions that had grown around various religions and
wanted a scientific explanation. He was not going to be carried away by the beliefs of any
one person or group.
Once Ravi found a book on the history of religions in the school library and looked
through it in the study period. He discovered one very interesting point: when early man
saw the vast skies and the heavens and heard something of their fury in the thunder and
lightning, he was afraid and worshipped nature. Gradually he also saw the wonders of
nature, the sunrise and the sunset, the seasons and the vast expanse of water and they
developed in him a feeling of kinship with nature. Early man never sought to conquer
nature. He felt related to the skies and the stars, to trees and plants, to fish and fowl, to
the seas and the waters. In ancient India man was deeply aware of the sanctity of all life.
That was for him the basis of a truly religious spirit. Ravi was impressed with the idea.
True, he thought, discovering your relationship with nature must be the first step to
finding out what Truth is.
Have you ever been serious about things in life? Do you not think that religion is
important in life? Even great scientists who study life on this planet and the galaxies have
begun to get a glimpse of the inner life that pervades the universe. If in temperament you
are like Ravi, do not feel shy and smother the feeling of curiosity within you. Find out for
yourself more about the inner part of life.

35. What Does Progress Mean?

Has man really progressed from ancient times up till now? What does progress mean?
What does civilisation mean?
Think about this. If you read the story of man over the ages there has, of course, been
tremendous change in the way he lives and works. Think of early man as a hunter, wild
and naked, to whom hunting was a way of life, or of the shepherd who grazed his sheep
in pastures green, and think of modern man and his way of life today, particularly in an
industrialised society where he enjoys the fruits of his ingenuity and invention. Surely,
that is progress at one level.
Contrast the life of the early farmer who settled in small communities and used simple
tools for growing his food with the highly mechanised farms. They use the tools of
technology today to produce high yields of crops from the same earth. Consider also the
way machines have helped man toil less and save labour and sweat. Think of the clothes
man has woven over the ages. From the hand spun cloth, from the spinning wheel to the
modern textile industry that produces bales of cotton or synthetics. Houses of mud and
clay to skyscrapers, offices, factories, and a myriad buildings baffling the eye. Food,
clothes, shelter have all changed from ancient time till now after century upon century of
progress.
What is progress then? Is it the evolution of man’s mind and capacities, the growth of
his capacity to adapt to environment making himself its master rather than its slave?
Look at another side of his growth, his conquest of space and time. The story is one of
steady achievement, from the bullock cart to the jet plane; from pigeons that carried
letters to satellites that convey messages instantly; from the box camera to the television
and video-conferencing by which people can hold conferences viewing each other from
distant towns. Consider also man’s exploration into outer space and the marvels of space
technology, man’s landing on the silver moon of yester years, man’s probe into other
planets, the extraordinary sophistication of man’s genius in mastering the technology of
annihilating time and space. You can find out about many more such examples of how
man has delved into the secrets of nature.
Biology was a simple science once, but with the discovery of the DNA a whole new
vista has opened up. Man today can produce life in a test tube! Genetic engineering
teaches him even to alter those states of life. The marvels of bio-technology are about to
bloom. Is man master now not only of space and time but of his own evolution as a
species? Discuss this and find out more about the wonders of biological science. No
longer does it mean cutting up frogs and cockroaches. It is a new window upon man’s life
on earth, even as its sister science, medicine, has made gigantic leaps, particularly in the
field of surgery. Think of heart transplantations, brain operations, neurosurgery and the
combating of serious diseases like tuberculosis or cancer.
Another amazing discovery is the computer which can do practically all the functions
of the brain and with greater precision and correctness. Man need not carry loads of
information in the brain anymore, for the computer is his most reliable bank. Man need
not calculate and solve elaborate mathematical problems struggling with numbers. The
computer does it in minutes. The computer can help you make choices, decisions, it helps
you do business; it runs factories; it has eased communications and travel; it has invaded
the office and even the home. It plays games; it can produce music and poetry; it can
even correct its own mistakes! It has taken over most of the functions of man. He has
plenty of time now for mischief!
What does progress mean then? Is it the growth of man’s faculties of discovery and
inventiveness? When we say man has progressed from a state of barbarism to his highly
civilised position today, we have all these symbols.

End