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When
we were in school our teachers used to drum into
our heads sayings, proverbs and other words of
wisdom. Little realizing the import of those
words, we used to memorize them by rote and all
it did was expand our vocabulary. As we grew
older their full meaning slowly dawned on us.
Viewing the Patna Daily over the past six months
has brought back memories of those wise words.
Allow me to share a few with you.
Honesty is the best policy: Very early I had
told myself that I should be upfront about my
identity. The readers should know that I am not
from Bihar and along the way I gave verifiable
information about me. With transparency comes
trust in you and what you have to say. I have
noticed that many of the readers share that same
philosophy.
You can't tell a book by its cover: When I first
saw the title of Mr. Sanjay Gupta's article
'Horrible Bihar' my immediate thought was 'why
the arrogance of this man'. After that, reading
his article with an already prejudiced
impression of him, was more like a fault finding
exercise. Only subsequently was it revealed that
the title was not given by him at all and that
he had merely faithfully recorded his own bitter
experiences. I learnt at that moment the true
essence of that proverb.
Look before you leap / Haste makes waste: Having
read some of the articles and comments without
fully applying my mind to the writer's intent,
there was more than once the urge to write and
verbally slay the author. The fact that I was
not a Bihari had always held me back. Otherwise
I would have made the proverbial leap and landed
in hot water. In retrospect I realize that if
someone had taken the trouble to write in he is
well within his right to voice his opinion.
Hastily jumping to conclusions was what our
teachers wanted us to avoid by teaching that
proverb.
It takes all sorts to make a world: Reading the
views of some writers which are diametrically
opposite to my worldview can sometimes be a
little frustrating. 'How can anyone be so
unreasonable?' was the reflex thought. After
some introspection and allowing for a rational
assessment of the subject at hand it becomes
easier to accept that many views can co-exist.
The best of men are men at best: It took me a
longer while to figure this one at school. At
PatnaDaily it popped up now and then as a
reminder. It alludes to the fact that everybody
makes mistakes and no matter how experienced or
senior we are the chances of making errors of
judgment or fact are very much there. Therefore
from now I shall not pounce on any perceived
mistakes or errors of anyone and shall
gracefully accept my own faults. (My teachers
would have been proud of me).
Brevity is the soul of wit: I simply added this
as an excuse to keep this letter short.
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Comments: |
Finally, after a long wait, I am
delighted to see an article by Dr
Ignatius. We really need illustrious
seniors like him to guide us in this
forum. I am touched by his humility
and the love for us Biharis. We
often try to find something common
between us and another person before
welcoming him as a friend, be it
faith, caste, region, language or
social status. What we fail to see
is the most visible common thread,
that of humanity. I would quote
Haribans Rai Bachchan here, 'Dharma
granth sab jala chuki ho jiske antar
ki jwala, mandir-masjid-girije sab
ko tod chuka jo matwaala;
pandit-momin-padriyon ke fandon ko
jo kaat chuka, kar sakti hai aaj usi
ka swagat meri madhushala" -' The
inner fire (of enlightenment) of his
should have burnt the religious
books (understood what the religion
means, not restricted to religious
books), he should have demolished
the temples, mosques and churches
(found The God everywhere, not
enclosed within a structure), he
should have cut off the traps (of
fundamentalism) laid by the priests,
only such a person is welcome to my
bar today (The world of ultimate
divinity). Though I don't even wish
to impose any restriction on anyone,
I do welcome Dr Ignatius to the bar
of PatnaDaily.
Often I write words, which I regret
reading later. Sometimes I feel I
was too harsh on someone, or
emphasized on just one aspect
ignoring the other to make it look
biased.
In my childhood, I used to read
short inspirational stories of the
great saints of all religions in a
magazine- 'Akhand Jyoti'. They were
the ones who never moved a little
from the path of compassion, truth,
non-violence, altruism and such
virtues. As I am growing older, I
realize how much it takes to become
a saint. I am just an ordinary man
often lured by the illusions of the
world. I wish visionary people like
Mr Rajesh Anand and Dr Ignatius
write more often to remind me the
things I have forgotten to practice.
Please feel free to write about
Bihar. As I had written in my
comment to Carolyn's article, I
believe those who criticize are also
the ones who love you. - Kumod
Jha - Feb. 8, 2006
As indicated by Dr. Ignatius Joseph,
it seems we often don't take to time
to think and start commenting in
reflex action. I have mentioned it
earlier also and would like to
mention once again that let's not
cast doubts on person's intention
writing the article and try to judge
the article and not the person or
person's intention.
I also learned something in my
childhood...Bura jo dekhan main
chala bura na miliya koi, Jo chit
khoja aapno mujhsa bura na koi...it
maynot be exactly right but you got
the point. I would urge people to
think about it before jumping on to
any conclusion.
Criticism is criticism, it could be
good or bad and author should not
take these criticism to heart -
truly my opinion. You may agree to
disagree with me on this - but it my
opinion.
Thanks to Dr. Ignatius and Kumod Jha
to write something related to this
topic because I felt very strongly
about it and have said same thing
during my comments on other articles
but have never written an article to
deliver my message.
We definitely welcome anybody
whether Bihari or not who has same
views and has something interesting
or worthy to share with us. Also, we
definitely look forward to all the
elderly and experienced people to
write and comment / criticize on
other articles so that we get
benefited by your experience.
Experience you can not learn, it
comes from experience.
Remember one joke:
A guy was very successful and
somebody asked him how did he become
so successful. The guy answered in
two words - "Good Decisions". Other
guy then asked how did he take good
decisions all the time. The guy
answered in one word "Experience".
Then the other guy asked how did you
get experience. The guy then
answered in two words "Bad
Decisions".
So, give benefit of doubts to
people. - Roshan Kumar - Feb. 8,
2006 |
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