A childhood common sense lesson

Some small incidents teach big lessons in life, even bigger than many years of education put together can.

I was 12 years old and was in class 9^th. My priciest possession was a Physics book by Kumar & Mittal costing Rs.20. That was roughly 6 months of my pocket money then. I was taking my half yearly exams. When I came out after Physics first paper, I found out that somebody had stolen my book.

My closest friend Amit saw my situation and came to my rescue. He gave a practical suggestion. As someone has taken your book in the first paper, you take someone else’s book in the second paper. Try to finish the second paper 5-10 minutes early and come out before others to get the book. He justified this very neatly. This won’t amount to stealing, as you are only recovering your loss. You didn’t start it. When I tried to argue about the person whose book I would be taking, he said, “That’s not your problem. Did the person who took your book think about you? Why are you thinking about the whole world? You are not stealing someone’s book and selling it. You are only settling scores.” We discussed this for a few minutes. But in the end he won by saying “It’s your wish. If you want to be a loser, I have nothing to advise you. You must take revenge for the wrong inflicted upon you, otherwise you will always be mistreated. You should not be a weak person who takes things lying down.” At that age, I certainly didn’t want to be a loser. So I agreed with him and got someone’s Kumar & Mittal book after the second paper exactly the way we planned.

I rushed home so that nobody would find me with the book. There were two conflicting voices going on in my head. It was like a Bollywood movie, in which there is one good version of yourself wearing white clothes and one bad version wearing black clothes, both presenting their arguments.  One voice was strongly saying that I was a thief and the other practical voice was congratulating me on being brave in taking the first step to live smartly in this big bad world. You have to stop thinking too much about others, if you want to be a smart man and not a dumb guy. I erased the name of the actual owner quickly and the book became mine. Life went back to normal.

But a few months later, my father found out that the book wasn’t mine. It was a big shock for him. His son was turning into a thief despite all his teachings and the atmosphere he provided. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is the way kids were brought up those days. I got the first slap of my life from him then.

We were 2 brothers and 2 sisters. All four of us were brought up in a democratic atmosphere and were always encouraged to question and understand things logically. So, despite the historic slap, I defended my actions. I was still unwilling to accept that I had done something completely wrong. I felt my act was justified the way the world was around us. My basic question was, “Should I take it lying down if anything wrong is done to me? Should I not take revenge? Should I not teach the wrongdoer a lesson? And above all, should I be a dumb guy tolerating everything, should I be a loser in the name of being a good boy?”

My father, to his credit, listened to all my concerns very patiently. We discussed in detail all the scenarios and options, arguments and counterarguments.

He explained, first, that it wasn’t my fault that my book had been stolen. Life is not always fair and one should be mentally prepared for any wrongs. But one should never blame himself for the wrongs of others.

Second, revenge is not a good thing. An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. A book for a book will make the whole school a thief. The best policy is to forgive and forget, my father said. If it’s hard to forgive, the second best thing is, don’t forgive but forget. Forget not for the sake of wrongdoer, but for your own sake, for your own mental peace. If later in your life, you are in a situation to take revenge from that person, and it’s still important for you to take revenge, go ahead. But why take away peace of your mind thinking about it all the time?

Despite all this teaching, he said, if taking revenge was still so important for me given my young blood, the third best thing would be, “to take revenge from the person who did wrong to you rather than from someone like him.” I should have taken the revenge from the boy who stole my book. Why was I taking the revenge from someone innocent? I should have used all my smartness in finding the thief rather than in becoming a thief myself. Settling someone’s scores with someone innocent is not smartness but cowardice. “If you had guts and brains, you could find out the thief,” he said, “I would not feel so bad even if you had beaten him and I had got the complaint from the school about that.”

He got a new book for me and made me return the book to its original owner. This happened about 30 years ago, and to this day, lessons from this incident have guided my response to any injustice or unfairness done to me.

But I am writing this today because I am perplexed at the educated world’s inability to follow the clear message from the above story, i.e. “If at all necessary, take revenge from the person who did wrong to you rather than from someone like him.” Isn’t it a commonsensical thing to do? Isn’t it as simple as 2+2=4?

We are taking revenge not from the wrongdoer, but from the persons who are like the wrongdoer, persons who are of the same religion or caste or race or looks or who speak the same language or who dress like him. I see many Physics books getting stolen when some people in France hate Muslims because someone from their religion killed their French brother or sister. Or when US airstrikes kill many innocent civilians in Syria or Iraq. I also see the same story being played out when a young boy turns terrorist to take revenge for the death of his family members not from those who killed them, but from innocent people in India, in France or in the USA.

Each act of revenge perpetrated on any innocent could give rise to a chain reaction following an exponential growth pattern. This is quite similar to the nuclear chain reaction, which produces an atom bomb. Are we heading towards humans killing humans in a chain reaction, a mega human bomb killing millions in a few years, as a nuclear bomb would do in a few seconds?

I know it is very difficult not to react after losing your loved ones. But if the reaction itself gives rise to the same action that resulted in your loss, why should you react that way? Many times, we are both, a perpetrator as well as a victim.

I hope this common sense will prevail upon the leaders and citizens. But I am not sure. After all, common sense is not so common.