the other side

Two students got into a major argument... both convinced that ‘I am right’ and ‘the other is wrong’. Their teacher decided to teach them an enduring lesson. She brought them up to the front of the class and placed them on two sides of her desk. In the middle of her desk was a large, round object. She asked them to state the colour of the object.

One said ‘White’ while the other said, ‘black’. Another argument started between the classmates about the colour of the object. The teacher asked them to trade places... their answers interchanged too! It was an object with two differently coloured sides!

Kurosawa’s great film – Rashoman – is the story that involves various characters providing alternative, self-serving and contradictory versions of the same incident. What we see depends on the position we are placed in... not just the geographical position but the ideological conditioned corner that we get pushed into. We must travel to the other side and explore the view from there too. We must know the other side!

Sticking to single positions is woe betide

Check out the view from the other side

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Another tongue

‘It was really funny’, the little boy was telling his grandfather about what happened at school… ‘The new student speaks English in a funny vernacular accent. He was mispronouncing all the words and we made fun of him. You should have seen his teary face!’ The grandfather calmly spoke out, ‘If he speaking with an accent, it means he knows another language other than English. You know only one. Surely he is better off than you.’ The lad understood his mistake and promised to apologise and learn his colleague’s language.’

This story was told by Sonia Shirsat at the Zone Conference of JCI – Zone XI. As a Youth Icon, the internationally renowned celebrity singer was speaking about moving ‘Beyond Borders’. In a riveting presentation using audio visuals, she described her own crossing of various borders: from mind to vision, from geographical ones to organisational ones, from belief to practices, from past glory to new challenges

This Monday Muse just focuses on the borders of the tongue that Sonia crossed so significantly. Her greatest claim to fame is her fluency over the Portugese Fado, a language she mastered long after her college days. Her ability to cross the borders of various genre of music has made her a globally sought performer who can, in the course of a single show, move across multiple languages and styles.

So often, so many of us mock people who are trying to converse to us in our language. We ignore that the other person is actually transcending the borders of tongue to communicate with us. Besides accent, we also ridicule dialects. We must move beyond the borders of a single language and travel the trip of multiple tongues. We may not master every language but we will advance as communicators every time we try.

While love should never dim for our mother tongue

Let’s move beyond borders to acquire another one!

whose Gift?

Pedro warned invitees to his wedding that he would not be accepting any gifts, even if they were handed to him at home. But, one friend came visiting with a huge gift. When Pedro refused to accept it, he handed it over to Pedro’s two-year old niece who was playing in the hall.

Thrilled to receive the gift, the little girl tore off the gift paper. When unpacked, she was disappointed to find a stainless steel container, of no use to her. So she pushed the gift to her uncle’s hands and moved away. Pedro was furious with his friend and as he held the gift, he noticed some inscription that stated the gift was from somebody else to Pedro’s friend on his marriage!

He had ‘passed on’ the gift to Pedro without realising that his name and that of the giver was inscribed along with the date, for posterity! Without delay, Pedro handed back the gift to his friend, pointing to the inscription and saying, ‘this gift is yours, not mine!’ The discomfited friend quietly took his gift back.

It happens many a time that we receive gifts of opportunities but they come packaged and we feel to notice that they are prospects in our name. We pass these gifts to others, without knowing that they are actually meant for us. We wait for opportunities, yet do not recognise them when standing right before us. It is not enough to receive opportunities; we must recognise them.

Make most of the gift that comes in your name,

Passing opportunity carelessly is surely a shame!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Why & Wherefore

Last week, a man was brutally butchered by a mob driven by a rumour that he was consuming beef, which is banned by the law in that state. Worse was to follow with the ‘why and wherefore’ of weird justification for the killing a human being, which is not acceptable to the law as well as rationality. It is akin to the wolf, in an Aesop’s fable, which runs into a lamb.

Wanting to find reason to turn the lamb into lunch, the wolf growls: ‘last year you insulted me’! The lamb replied, ‘I was just born a few months back.’ The wolf retorts, ‘You grazed in my pasture.’ The lamb said, ‘I don't eat grass yet.’ But the wolf persisted, ‘You drank from my pond.’ The lamb replied, ‘The only thing I drink is my mother’s milk.’  At that point the wolf ate the lamb saying, ‘Well! You certainly like to argue!’

The wolf finds many why and wherefores for his predetermined act of violence against the innocent lamb. The phrase ‘why and wherefore’ is as old as Shakespeare, who used it in the Comedy of Errors in 1590: ‘Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?’

So often, some of us defend the indefensible.  We scout for justifications based on our prejudice born of divisions of religion, ethnic, regional, economic and every divide that sees one human being as lesser than oneself. Every time, we indulge in irrational choice for our ‘why and wherefore’ we are walking the talk of murderous hate mongers.

In the aftermath of the violent act, as time passes, we become complacent. And the vested interests, on all sides, start planting the seeds of hate again, under the garb of nationalism, religion, ethnic pride and the like. These messengers of hate talk about ‘teaching them a lesson’. But lessons are meant to be learnt by us by challenging the divisive ‘why and wherefore’

Why should a human being be killed out of season

When in the why and the wherefore is no reason?

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.