Jawaharlal Nehru was a great statesman,
patriotic leader and prolific writer of India. He was one of the top leaders of
the struggle for Indian independence. He was elected as the first prime
minister of independent India and served in that position from 1947 to his
death in 1964.There is a story often ascribed to his period of service as prime
minister.
Once, he was presiding over an important meeting. There were several
dignitaries seated with him. Nehru felt a foul smell and asked a delegate to
investigate the cause of the dirty odour. It was reported to him that the
stinking smell was from the soiled and
sweaty socks of one of the dignitaries seated near him. Nehru asked him to
remove the stinking socks immediately and then return to the meeting.
The
person went out and the smell faded away. Later the person returned and once
again there was the same foul smell all around. Nehru asked him angrily,
"Haven't you removed the stinking socks from your legs?" He replied,
"Of course, I have removed them, sir. If you have any doubt, please see
this." Then he drew out from his pocket the pair of foul-smelling socks he
had removed and displayed them before the prime minister. "I brought it as
an evidence to prove that I have removed it", he added with an idiotic
gesture.
This
popular story may be fictitious, but it does teach us an important lesson of
life. Many of us leave our bad habits with the mind of that person. We leave
them only partially, half-heartedly and temporarily and still carry it silently
along with us.
True transformation needs a complete and whole-hearted
elimination of the harmful habits and its conscious substitution by virtuous
practices to prevent a recurrence of the previous vices.
Let us cleanse our hands and purify our hearts by true repentance. We may be stained
red with sin, but God will wash away our sins and make us as clean as snow and as white as wool.
.................................................................................................
© By Dr. Babu Philip, Professor, Cochin University
of Science & Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682016, Kerala, India, Prof. Mrs. Rajamma Babu, Former Professor, St. Dominic's
College, Kanjirappally and Leo. S. John and Neil John, Maniparambil,
Ooriyakunnath, Kunnumbhagom, Kanjirappally, Kottayam-686507, Kerala, India.
For more moral stories, parables and anecdotes for
students kindly visit our web-site:
This is Story No. 134 in this site. Please click ‘Older Posts’ at the bottom of a page to read previous stories and
click 'Newer Posts' at the bottom of
a page to read newer stories in this site. Please click on a word in the 'Story Themes' to read stories on that
theme
No comments:
Post a Comment