JAIN AUNTY AND THE MILLIPEDE










Pablo Picasso, once, said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” 

And, that explains why the end of the innocence in human soul, is the end of human soul itself.
Children are pure and unpolluted. In our frantic attempts to make them ‘grow up’, what we actually end up doing is - make them ‘give up’ their innocence… their purity, their curiosity and sense of wonder. We also end up doing one more thing… a vicious thing, indeed: We pour poison into their hearts… Yes, the poison of ‘discrimination’ and ‘bias’!

Caste, class, colour, gender, nationality and religion… every kind of discrimination or bias is alien to a child. It creeps in as it ‘grows up’. In other words, it wasn’t there in us while we were little children. We picked it from outside, only to be polluted and poisoned!

The ability to see the goodness in others and live with them harmoniously is a fine education. In fact, as Picasso said, it takes a lifetime to paint like a child!

What a truth!

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales,” advised Albert Einstein, “If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

Imagine Einstein without the supreme gift of wonder-struck child!

Of the many articles penned down by little kids for our latest book – ‘I AM Good, The World is Good’… ‘Jaisi Drishti, Waisi Srishti’, I particularly loved the one penned by 10-year-old Arindam Joshi. It’s titled “Jain Aunty and the Millipede’. I wish to share it here, in today’s Blog, so that it can make your heart a little lighter and this world a little brighter…  
  
  
JAIN AUNTY
AND THE MILLIPEDE
- Arindam Joshi (10)

I have developed a lot of respect and love towards Jain religion. Jainism has an important principle of ‘non-violence’, which made me think about it deeply. This happened following an interesting incident, which happened in my life recently.

There is an Aunty living in my building. Her name is Sarala Jain, whose faith is Jainism. She was cleaning her bathroom on a fine day, when a small millipede entered her ear. It is called millipede, because it has hundreds of legs. She was scared if it would enter inside her brain and it could be lethal. However, she was equally scared to visit a hospital, thinking that it would be killed while removal.

She suffered the pain for some more time before she hit an idea of getting the millipede out without hurting it... She kept a Samosa on the table and bent down, facing her ear against it. The millipede came out of her ear. To everyone’s surprise, it was accompanied by a few baby millipedes! She carefully removed all of them and dropped them inside the nearby garden!

I think, we should respect Jain people because of their kindness.

This is a real story of a Jain woman.


GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Anil Bedi

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