Triple Stream: Sweet are the Uses of Adversity

TRIPLE STREAM

Editorial

SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITYtc "SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY"

Buddha said, “For a wise man there is nothing to be called bad.  Any adversity of life provides a step for his growth, provided he knows how to utilize it.”

Rt. Hon’ble Srinivas Sastry, the sliver-tongued orator of Guild Hall fame, came from a very poor family.  He was sent out of the class when the school inspector visited, because he did not wear proper dress. When Bilder Beck, the European Principal fined him half-rupee for going to the school without a shirt and getting drenched in rain without an umbrella, he cried and said “If I had that much of money, I would have bought a new piece of cloth for shirt – making”.  The compassionate Principal gave him money to buy a shirt and prayed a God to forgive him for his harsh treatment of the boy.  When Sastry visited London as Privy Councilor later on and went to the ex-principal’s residence, he took with him the shirt (which he carefully preserved) and showed it to Principal with a smile.

When some one sent mangoes to Srinivasa Sastry’s mother (when he was a boy), she politely declined to take them because she had no money to buy chilies, oil etc… to make pickles out of them.            
Some are born with a sliver spoon and some are born with a wooden ladle.  Gopalakrishna Gokhale was plunged in poverty, when his father suddenly died and his four sisters had to be provided for by his uncle.  Gokhale’s brother, who was eighteen, became the breadwinner of the family on a salary of Rs.15.  Out of that meagre income he used to send Rs.8 to educate his younger brother. Out of this amount Gokhale used to pay Rs. 4 towards his school fees and spend the balance on food, kerosene, books and other essential needs.

Once a friend took Gopalakrishna Gokhale to witness a drama (much against his wishes) and later on demanded the money he paid for the ticket. Had he known it earlier, Gokhale would not have yielded to his pressure.  However, out of self-respect he paid him two annas (the ticket money).  To make up this unforeseen additional expenditure, Gokhale studied under a street lamp irrespective of the weather instead of using his own kerosene lamp.  After his matriculation his sister- in-law sold her gold ornaments for his higher studies.

Dr. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution, had a hard time as a student.  He carried loads in Satara Rly. Station.  When his father retired from service, the family lived in a single room in which cooking, bathing and sleeping had to be managed, sharing the meagre accommodation with a goat and a hen.

Sir Tiruvalur Muthusami Iyer, first Indian Judge of Madras and Chief Judge of the High Court came from a poor family.  He had no money for his education.  A temple servant used to provide him a kerosene lamp for his study. When he became the judge, he went to the temple and thanked his benefactor, the old attendant of the temple.

Justice C.V. Ranganadha Sastry who became the first Hindu judge of the Small Causes Court was poor.  As a boy he used to walk five miles everyday from his village to learn English from a European Judge.  The Judge guessed that he had no breakfast on account of his poverty and asked his wife to give him milk to drink. Justice Sastry used to tell his friends about his experience of poverty and his trials and tribulations.

Andhra Kesari Tanguturi Prakasam tasted the bitter experience of poverty when he was young.  He used to stand on a machan on night-long vigil in a small field to protect the crop from jackals.  His mother ran a small eating-house.  She had only one silk sari.  Once he had to walk a distance of 20 miles to borrow Rs.2 from his uncle to buy an application form for school admission.  He had to walk the distance empty-handed!  He studied with the financial help of his teacher Mr. Naidu. By his will and skill he rose to eminence and affluence but sacrificed every thing for the country.

Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya and Prakasam were “co-rivals and twin incomparables”. Dr. Pattabhi, who became Governor of a State and President of the Indian National Congress, was born in a poor family.  His father, Karanam of a petty village, found it difficult to educate him.  From Gundugolanu, his village in West Godavari District he had to walk to Eluru for his studies, Sometimes a milk vendor who pitied the boy used to carry him on his sling.  He could study B.A. in the Madras Christian college on a scholarship given by Mr. Singaraju Subba Rao.  Admiring his intelligence and brilliance in studies, a leading lawyer of Kakinada Mr. Ganjam Venkataratnam gave his daughter to him in marriage.

Once Pattabhi proudly said: “When my bed sheet is torn, I use it for a shirt. When the shirt is torn, I use it as towel. When the towel is torn, it reincarnates as a handkerchief. He advised this writer to keep the soap after taking bath on its edge to extend its life, but not on its flat bottom!

Lal Bahadur Shastry as a boy had to swim across the Ganges with his books on his head because he had no money to pay the boatman to ferry him across the water.  When the boatman offered him a free lift, his self-respect did not allow him to accept it.  When he was Home Minister in Uttar Pradesh, his friends used to call him “Home Minister without home!” Even when he died as Prime Minister, he did not own a house. When he resigned his Railway Ministership accepting responsibility for a Rail accident, he went home in a bus (not Govt. vehicle allotted to the Minister) and asked his wife Lalitaji to cook only one vegetable curry as his income was reduced. Even as Prime Minister he shared a rope cot with his youngest son. He led such a life of Spartan simplicity and voluntary poverty.

All over the world there are instances of adversity leading to prosperity.  Dale Carnegie the multimillionaire of America, the author of ‘How to win Friends and influence people’ experienced grinding poverty. As he could not pay a dollar to board the town train, he stayed on the farm and commuted on horseto study in the college. At home he milked the cows, cut the wood, fed the hogs and studied his Latin verbs by the light of a coal oil lamp until his eyes blurred. At midnight he set the alarm for 3’o clock.  The piglets were kept at kitchen stove. When alarm went off, he crawled out of the blanket, took the basket of piglets to their mother, waited for them to nurse and then brought them to the warmth of the stove. His coat was too tight and torn and his trousers too short but he held his head high.

He began to learn public speaking, as he milked the cows or rode the horse. He used to stand upon a haystack and address the imaginary audience by making gestures with his hands. The frightened pigeons flew away in panic. He rode a goods train for a hundred miles without a ticket by agreeing to wash two cart-loads of wild horses. When the train stopped, he used to go to the town to book orders for a private company which engaged his services.

Ford, the famous American millionaire, a world renowned automobile manufacturer, started his career as a humble mechanic. His expertise and experience made him climb the ladder of fortune rung by rung.

Honda, the famous Industrial multimillionaire of Japan whose Honda Cars and two wheelers made him world-famous, started his career as a milliner leading a hand-to-mouth existence and achieved success through his diligence and intelligence. We find hundreds of ‘rags to riches’ stories. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Loyd George, the well-known Prime Minister of England rose to eminence out of humble beginnings. His father drove a donkey cart for his livelihood. He educated his son with his meagre income. His son gave a good account of himself in studies and eventually became England’s Prime Minister and famous as an orator. Once when he was addressing a public meeting, a mischievous member of the opposite party heckled him by putting an inconvenient question: “Mr. George! is it true that your father drove a donkey cart? Are the cart and the donkey still there”? Lyod George’s repartee was: “Yes.  I don’t know what happened to the cart but the “donkey is still there” (He said this pointing his finger at the heckler). Those who mock at poverty are the real donkeys.

A life without struggle, a game without resistance from opposing team, a sea of limpid waters without turbulent waves, a life journey without problems and perils does not give self-confidence or thrill.  It gives neither satisfaction nor mental growth. There is real pleasure in riding a spirited and mettlesome horse than in creeping over a jaded hack!

Let us draw a lesson from ‘The Mahabharata’ when Queen Kunti prays to Krishna after the great battle of Kurukshetra and Dharmaraja’s victory and coronation, Sri Krishna begs his aunt Kunti to permit him to go to Dwaraka.  Then Kunti says with tears in her eyes: “Now that we are safe and victorious, if you forsake us, my Lord, I pray for a thousand-fold misery.  As your presence will be available only in times of adversity, we welcome trials and tribulations by the thousands”.

It is adversity, misery and deprivation that is man’s true friend. It is the sad spectacle of the misery of a bird that moved the sage into poetical expression resulting in the birth of ‘the Ramayana’.  Soka became Sloka.  There is a world of Truth in what Draupadi said to Satyabhama: “Happiness never issues from happiness. Only from adversity one attains happiness.”

As Johnson said “slow rises worth by poverty depressed”. But it does rise.

–I. V. Chalapati Rao