THE TIMELESS CONFESSION...

The most effective way of teaching someone to be kind is by being kind myself. 


If I keep my word, respect my appointments, do not backbite… then, it is quite easy for me to teach the virtue of these things to others. In fact, there is no need for me to teach, if I really practice what I intend to preach…

The other person sees what I do, how I behave… and, he likes me for that; he trusts me… respects me.

If this is the wavelength from which I expect him to learn from me, he would. Not otherwise…

No one really likes to learn from a hollow person… One who doesn’t practice what he preaches.

I still remember all those people – some teachers, some relatives, some friends and some neighbors – who I had immensely liked for some of their fine behavior… I would come home and talk excitedly about them, their words and deeds, to my parents, particularly my mother. And, yes, she would listen to me with apt attention and great delight… without saying much… just allowing me to express how happy I was because of what I had seen in my idols… 

When I think about it, I now realize 

what her silent acceptance had meant: 

“My son, what you deeply admire, 

you soon possess… 

You become the hero you always worship!”

When our son was very small, he did the same thing. He would come home and tell us, particularly his mother, how impressed he was by some of his teachers and friends or even friends’ parents. We would happily listen to him without saying much… Yes, we, too, knew what an incredible influence such admiration had on our child.

And, just last night, a mother of a twelfth-standard student was telling me the same thing… “Sir, trust me, my son comes home and tells me each and every word you speak in the class about life, career and other things… You are a God for him!”

Though I felt embarrassingly shy to hear what she said last, I find nothing strange about it. I had gone home and said the same things about my heroes… My son had done the same thing… and, here is my young student!

Examples will always remain a thousand times better than precepts…

I do not remember so many things my teachers and elders had taught me in my life… But, some things I remember as if they unfolded before me just a while ago… Yes, they were the ones taught to me by my heroes… who, always, had practiced what they preached… Who had always walked their talk!

“Sir, I simply listen to my son with happiness when he tells me about you!” the young-one’s mother had confessed, last night…

And, this shall always remain a ‘timeless confession’!

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Aditi Kamath