Friday 19 April 2019

Parrikar’s Watermelons

The whole world is looking to India as a Spiritual Leader. Unfortunately, hardly few are aware of the great heritage we have carried! There is a story behind this which could motivate all of us to carry our heritage to young generation. To educate for the same, LATE SHRI MANOHAR PARRIKAR, the former Chief Minister of Goa, gave a story which strongly influences that how important it is for the young generation to know their culture and how are we losing it if not taken seriously.
"I am from the village of Parra in Goa, hence we are called Parrikars. My village is famous for its watermelons. When I was a child, the farmers would organize a watermelon-eating contest at the end of the harvest season in May. All the kids would be invited to eat as many watermelons as they wanted. Years later, I went to IIT Mumbai to study engineering. I went back to my village after 6.5 years. I went to the market looking for watermelons. They were all gone. The ones that were there were so small. I went to see the farmer who hosted the watermelon-eating contest. His son had taken over. He would host the contest but there was a difference. When the older farmer gave us watermelons to eat he would ask us to spit out the seeds into a bowl. We were told not to bite into the seeds. He was collecting the seeds for his next crop. We were unpaid child laborers, actually. He kept his best watermelons for the contest and he got the best seeds which would yield even bigger watermelons the next year. His son, when he took over, realized that the larger watermelons would fetch more money in the market so he sold the larger ones and kept the smaller ones for the contest. The next year, the watermelons were smaller, the year later even small. 
In watermelons, the generation is one year while in humans, generations change after 25 years. In seven years, Parra's best watermelons were finished. It will take us 200 years to figure what we were doing wrong while educating our children. Unless we employ our best to train the next generation, this is what can happen to us so we must attract the best into teaching profession for which RBMI, Bareilly fits the great place and still spreads the heritage to young generation. 
Great story indeed! Each one of us is responsible to offer our best culture to next generation!

GAURAV SINGH (ASST. PROFESSOR, RBCET-BAREILLY)

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