Play wise, play fool to achieve your goal

There once lived a great mathematician in a village outside Ujjain. He was often called by the local king to advice on matters related to the economy. His reputation had spread as far as Taxila in the North and Kanchi in the South. So it hurt him very much when the village headman told him, "You may be a great mathematician who advises the king on economic matters but your son does not know the value of gold or silver."

The mathematician called his son and asked, "What is more valuable - gold or silver?" "Gold," said the son. "That is correct. Why is it then that the village headman makes fun of you, claims you do not know the value of gold or silver? He teases me every day. He mocks me before other village elders as a father who neglects his son. This hurts me. I feel everyone in the village is laughing behind my back because you do not know what is more valuable, gold or silver. Explain this to me, son."

So the son of the mathematician told his father the reason why the village headman carried this impression. "Every day on my way to school, the village headman calls me to his house. There, in front of all village elders, he holds out a silver coin in one hand and a gold coin in other. He asks me to pick up the more valuable coin. I pick the silver coin. He laughs, the elders jeer, everyone makes fun of me. And then I go to school. This happens every day. That is why they tell you I do not know the value of gold or silver."

The father was confused. His son knew the value of gold and silver, and yet when asked to choose between a gold coin and silver coin always picked the silver coin. "Why don't you pick up the gold coin?" he asked. In response, the son took the father to his room and showed him a box. In the box were at least a hundred silver coins. Turning to his father, the mathematician's son said, "The day I pick up the gold coin the game will stop. They will stop having fun and I will stop making money."

The bottom line is
Sometimes in life, we have to play the fool because our seniors and our peers, and sometimes even our juniors like it. That does not mean we lose in the game of life. It just means allowing others to win in one arena of the game, while we win in the other arena of the game. We have to choose which arena matters to us and which arenas do not.

 Contributed by Mr. Seshadri Srinivasan

aoldeva said...

Oh! Really a very great philosophy which everybody has to apply to his/her life. - Devarajan MK

July 14, 2010 6:38 PM

SPK said...

Very useful lesson.

July 17, 2010 7:59 PM

Do you know ?

Mere coincidence...........


Adil Shahriyar, son of Muhammad Yunus  (close family friend and advisor to Mrs Indira Gandhi,  at whose place Rajiv Gandhi's brother Sanjay's wedding was solemnised) was tried in a US Federal Court by a jury, and convicted on a five count indictment  and sentenced in 1982 by District Court to 35 years hard labour in prison for trying to blow up a ship, illegal possession of firearms and carrying them across State borders
and drug trafficking.

He appealed to the 11th Circuit US Court of Appeals which rejected the appeal on 21 November 1983 saying, "We find that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to  support the verdicts and therefore affirm the district court's denial of the motion for judgment of acquittal"

Rajiv Gandhi became PM on 31st October 1984. It was just at that time 3rd/4th December 1984 -- that the infamous and catastrophic Bhopal gas tragedy shook the world.

Warren Anderson, the American CEO of Union Carbide, the company whose plant it was in Bhopal, was indicted and imprisoned at Bhopal, a little later.

Reagan was the US President at the time!

Warren Anderson is freed by Rajiv Gandhi and, by great coincidence, Adil Shahriyar was granted Presidential pardon "as a goodwill gesture", and freed. He went back to his doting father, Mohammad Yunus.

Anderson flew back to the US.

Anderson's departure from Bhopal was not a stealthy one. He flew out on the official plane of the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Arjun Singh, to Delhi, where he was reportedly granted audience by everyone from top bureaucrats to Cabinet Ministers to the PM and even the President.

contributed by Mr. Bhaskaran Sivaraman 

Y.Hariharan said...

Why is this piece so obscure? If the contents are true why not bring it to the attention of Indian Media like NDTV etc. Y.Hariharan

September 17, 2010 11:46 AM

 

Do you know ?

Kiran Bedi, India's first woman Super-cop has started a website that enables the common man to get the Police to "act" positively. Please read contents of the site below and share the infrormation with others so that we all contribute to making India safer for one and all!!

 

This is very important information about a web site called as www.saferindia. com             .        This is a site of an NGO started by Ms Kiran Bedi  you can go to  this site an log your complaint regarding any crime if the police at your  place is not accepting your complaint. Then this NGO will mail your complaint to  the DGP of your area. You can also use this mail as the legal document   in case of filing a case in the court of judgment.      This is to be noted that this site is directly administered by  Ms Kiran Bedi  so all your mails directly goes to her. Friends, Please spread this information in your network so that any one in  such need can go to this site and launch his/her complaint . There is another provision in case the police does not lodge a FIR ....I got a complaint registered with the police requesting them to file  a FIR. after waiting for a week, when they did not do so , I filed an application under the RTI seeking information about the reason for not lodging a FIR, the person responsible for dereliction of duties and the action taken by the police against him...... Knocking came a cop at my doorstep requesting me to come to the police station and collect the FIR.....

 

 

contributed by Bhaskaran Sivaraman