Daring, Caring and Sharing

A teacher was teaching English grammar in a class. After the introductory session he asked the students to classify some common words into ‘singular’ or ‘plural’. First he said, ‘shirt’. Students shouted ‘singular’. Next he said, ‘shoes’. All shouted, ‘plural’. Then he said, ‘pants’. There was a silence. Then a smart boy said aloud, “Sir, it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom!”

Children learn the concept of ‘I’ and ‘we’ from social life, when they move as a family, participate in group activities at school or play as members of a team in games or on the stage.

Mahatma Gandhi, who led the struggle for Indian independence was not in the habit of wearing a shirt, even during winter or formal meetings. Surprised at this, a little boy asked him, “Why don’t you wear a kurtha, Bapuji? (Kurtha is a loose shirt commonly worn by men and women of India.) Gandhi explained that it was because he was poor and could not afford it. The boy readily agreed to get one kurtha stitched by his mother and gift it to Gandhi the next day. Gandhi replied that a single kurtha was not sufficient as he had a large family. He said he needed forty crores (400 million) of kurthas to properly clothe his brothers and sisters. He was clearly referring to all the poor people of India whom he loved dearly. He refused to enjoy a comfort which was not available to every person of India.

We must learn to be daring, caring and sharing. We should be daring to practise what we preach and believe. We must care for others, especially the poor and sick. We must be ready to share our assets and abilities to help the needy.

…………………………………………………………………………….

© By Dr. Babu Philip, Professor, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682016, Kerala, India and Leo. S. John, Maniparambil, Ooriyakunnath,Kunnumbhagom, Kanjirappally, Kottayam-686507, Kerala, India.

For more moral stories, parables and anecdotes for students kindly visit our web-site:

http://www.moral-stories.com

This is Story No. 67 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.