Rumination-something from the past
(I do not know why I remembered this incident all of a sudden. It happened many many years back (much before I became public ) . Anyway I thought it is worth penning it, if not at least for the fun sake.)
On a visit to my hometown my dad asked me to accompany him for a convocation function at his friend’s Hindi college (of course it is not a mega event) but for me it was between devil and deep sea situation. I was too scared to stand before a small gathering and utter something sensible. I was too scared to say no to my dad. In our family most of the time his dictates run. I really didn’t have much of a choice, I opted for the former rather than annoying dad (he himself was a great orator and a professional speaker and I stood nowhere in his oratory skills) . I was on the look out for something to say , so I picked up one of the stories from ‘the prayer of the frog’ The story goes like this – there was a master with a dog .Somewhere the master heard that cod liver oil is very good for dog’s health, so he brought it and with a great effort he started giving it to his dog. The poor dog was struggling and the whole scene was really pathetic. This ritual continued for many days (many of our infants undergo the same treatment during the first years of their life).One day after the ritual was over the master left the spoon accidentally near the dog. To his great surprise he noticed that the dog was licking the spoon and enjoying the code liver oil which the master thought that the dog loathes. It was quite revealing , it was not the oil that the dog loathed it was the method of administering it .It is a very important lesson for all teachers , very often in our keenness to ‘administer’ knowledge/education we follow the technique the master used and get frustrated .We need to think into the method of ‘administering’ the so called education.(As I was addressing a group of students who were supposed to be taking up the profession of teaching I thought that the story was relevant). I stammered through the story and dad as in the classic story of kalidasa did the rest.
The original story in full
Dog and the Cod Liver Oil
SPIRITUAL STORY BY ANTHONY DE MELLO
A man began to give large doses of cod-liver oil to his Doberman because he had been told that the stuff was good for dogs. Each day he would hold the head of the protesting dog between his knees, force its jaws open, and pour the liquid down its throat.
One day the dog broke loose and spilled the oil on the floor. Then to the man’s great surprise, it returned to lick the spoon. That is when he discovered that what the dog had been fighting was not the oil, but his method of administering it.
The method is the key…we should not be frustrating about it so much as we do most of the time and also we should avoid the biased opinion about one particular method. It is not the way that matters but the delivery!!!
That is true.But in our enthusiasm to do and get results we focus on the method we feel that it is right.It is an honest mistake!