This is about an incident that thought me one of most important lessons of my life. I was one of those lucky kids who got to grow up around their grandparents, I spent early days of my childhood at my maternal grandparent’s home. One of my most favorite routines there was my grandfather used to recite us stories at bedtime. 

While all of my cousins would sleep half way through the story I would stay awake to listen the entire story and always asked my grandfather for another story and our story session would continue either until my grandfather feels sleepy or until my mom comes to pull me out to sleep along with her. My hunger for stories grew and all I would ask my grandfather was stories throughout the day and night, finally tired of being nagged around my grandfather introduced me to books.

 I started reading book as young as six or seven years old, to be precise I started reading from the day I was able to spell words and I would read anything and everything that I could lay my hands on.

One afternoon during my winter holidays my grandmother was in the kitchen garden busy taking care of the plants and my grandfather was seated in a chair nearby reading a newspaper, I went to the garden with a jug of water because I wanted to water the plant that I had planted few days before.

 As I was about to water my plant my grandmother stopped me, “Dear you need not water the plant today, it is not sunny and there is still moisture in the soil” she told me lovingly but being a stubborn kid that I’m I argued “No granny I have read in the book that we should water the plant daily” I said with all pride that a ten year old could muster, “But darling don’t you see the climate, it seems like it would rain anytime now so you shouldn’t water the plants now” she tried convincing me but in vain because I would not budge and went on to say “You will not understand granny because you never read books, ask grandpa for he only gave me that book”. 

My grandmother turned towards my grandfather and gave him a look.I don’t understand till date what silent conversation they had.My grandfather cleared his throat, closing the news paper he said “Darshanam” as he fondly calls me “I’m done with the newspaper how about a story now” he asked well aware of my answer. As soon as I heard the word ‘story’ I was very much excited and ran to my grandfather totally forgetting about my plant.

My grandfather pulled a small stool near his chair, made me sit over there and started narrating the story and it went on like this.

Once in the court of the king Krishnadevaraya there arrived five renowned scholars from distant lands and the king was overwhelmed by their knowledge in their particular field of study. He praised them to be the most intelligent ones and ordered to honor them with gold and silver but one of his ministers fondly known as Appaji was not impressed so he secretly went to the king and said “My majesty I agree they are experts in their fields but they are certainly not the most intelligent ones, if your majesty wishes to test my statement ask them to prepare their own meal today and come back tomorrow to collect the honors and send our secret informers to look over them”. 

Krishnadevaraya had great respect for Appaji and he was curious too so he instructed them as said and sent his secret informers to watch them The scholars went to the palace allocated for them and each undertook a task to prepare the meal. 

The scholar in medicine went to buy vegetables he looked all the vegetables but was not satisfied because one was not good for diabetes other was not good for asthma and another would cause indigestion, saying all these he rejected all of them and returned to the palace empty handed. 

The scholar in astrology went to fetch coconuts, as he was climbing a tree he heard the sound of a lizard and he started deciphering what the sound meant, after a few minutes he concluded that it meant ‘stay still’ so he stayed there frozen in the middle. 

The scholar in philosophy, who had gone to buy ghee took ghee in a glass jar and was walking back home but suddenly he had a doubt ‘which one is superior the ghee or the jar’ in order to clear his doubt he broke the jar and all the ghee was littered in the street and so he concluded that the jar was the superior one, he too walked back empty handed happy that his doubt was cleared. 

The scholar in dance who was in the palace was boiling rice in a pot, as the rice began to boil it made rhythmic sounds and he started dancing to the rhythm but as it continued to boil the sound was no more rhythmic and scholar was not able to dance so he broke the rice pot in rage and went away from the kitchen. 

The king was informed of all these by the informers and he realized Appaji was indeed correct they may be experts in their field but did not posses basic knowledge for survival which was very much important.

My grandfather completed the story and looked at me “So Darshanam tell me what is the moral of the story” I smiled and simply said “Grandpa I think my plant needs no water today”, my grandfather then gave me the brightest smile and caressed my head for he knew his granddaughter has learnt her first lesson in life.

From then on books are my best friends but never the sole companion for now I know not everything regarding life can be found in the books. It is indeed rightly said ‘AN OUNCE OF EXPERIENCE IS WORTH A TON OF THEORY’.

Cover Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash