Saturday, March 3, 2012

The half glass is filled!!!

Hello Friends! This incident happened before the Christmas vacation. Our school was taking us for a three day camp to Silvassa. The experience mentioned below is my experience before I went to the camp.
This was our first camp for such a long duration. Everyone was very excited because we could stay with our friends in a room and chat with each other all the night without any restrictions.
There is a girl in our class whom I knew since last year but she was not a very good friend of mine. She is an only child in her family and thus is a pampered child. She has a habit of finding flaws in everybody. This was a first camp for her without her parents and as she does not have any other friend in the class, she wanted to join us in our room. Our group did not want her in our room as we thought that she would be a great interference to our privacy. Also, we were of the opinion that as she is from high class family, we could not be “Ourselves” in the room. We were praying that something will happen and she would cancel her plan of coming to the camp. I was talking to Aai and Baba about this at home for last few days. Both were of the opinion that we should accommodate her and should not be so mean but I was not ready to change my way of thinking. That day our luck smiled back at us and our teacher announced that each room will accommodate 4 students. Our group was very happy as we were four of us as close friends. That day, this girl was absent in the school and my friends gave me the responsibility of informing her about this. A mixed feeling of happiness and guilt ran through my mind while telling this to her. Suddenly her excitement went down and she said that she will not come to the camp as she could not adjust with anyone else. I including my friends felt very guilty of our selfish behaviour. That day when I returned from the school and was thinking about this matter gravely, suddenly a thought came to my mind which changed my way of thinking. I remembered the time when my colony friends used to ignore and exclude me in everything. I suddenly started feeling very guilty of my mean behaviour and I felt ashamed of myself. I immediately called this girl and told her that if there would be four people staying in a room we were ready to adjust. She was very surprised to see the “sudden change” in my behaviour. After a lot of pursuing (even here I was mean because this was to satisfy my guilt) she was ready to come. I also spoke to my friends about this and they were quite fine with it (maybe because they were going through the same feeling as I was going through).
The experience mentioned below is my experience after coming from the camp.
There was a drastic change in me after returning from camp. One reason for this was obviously because I returned home more responsible and wise. When Baba asked me the second reason for this the following is what I told him:
“Baba I was very wrong in judging this girl. In the camp instead of four we had to stay seven in a room. We had three more girls staying in our room; two of which were quite good friends of ours but one of the girl was not very co-operative. She wanted to be first in everything. Due to this behaviour of hers everyone had to adjust a lot but the most surprising thing was that this girl (whom we were not ready to take in our room earlier) adjusted the most. She did not even take bath for two days. Also she adjusted a lot while sleeping. (I forgot to mention before that I was a bit ill while going to the camp so Jayant Kaka had prescribed some medicines for me to take).This girl everyday used to remind me to take my medicines and also used to remind me of what to eat and what not to. Actually she took more care of me than my friends and not for a moment did she let me feel that my parents were not there.
Really ,Baba until now Lata Aaji used to always tell us to see that the half glass was filled rather than seeing that the half glass was empty but I never used to understand the real meaning of this but after this camp I really know what she meant by it. The reality is that we never gave this girl the opportunity to show her good side. The problem was in us and never in her. She just reacted to the circumstances which took place in the school but in the camp we got to see how she reacted to a circumstance as took place in the camp. Really Baba I am wiser than before.”
Now this girl is a very good friend of mine along with my other friends and even now when asks me that was it out of guilt or sympathy that I suddenly changed my mind about her coming to the camp, I tell her the same thing that I told Baba and on hearing this she just smiles. I suppose this smile is because of her good experiences and memories which she had at the camp due to us.
So just see that the half glass is filled!!

2 comments:

  1. As you mentioned here ;You may be more wiser now but best part I found is You are really very honest to yourself as well as very courageous by accepting own behavioral mistake.Very very good.

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  2. Very well put. Your honesty is remarkable. keep posting.
    regards,
    sanjay bhagwat

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