Opinion

Hate mail to Gandhi


‘Separate the wheat from the chaff’ – this idiom reminds one of an incident that once occurred in Mohandas Gandhi‘s life. He used to get a lot of mails. Not all of them showered him with praise. There was some bit of hate mail too.

One day, it so happened that he was reading a mail that had criticised his activities to a great extent. This was happening in front of a guest. The visitor was curious to see what Gandhi’s reaction would be after having read that hate mail. Gandhi quietly put the pin that the letter had into his pocket and threw the paper into the dustbin. On probing, he modestly replied that he could not find anything else useful in the letter that was meant for him.

All things, big or small, come in packages of good and bad. It is up to us to separate the wheat from the chaff. However bad the situation we are put into might be, there will always be something worth eyeing, if we keenly look for it.

Verily, distinguishing valuables from worthless things and blowing away everything that is not necessary for us in this life is an art. As English novelist and poet Dinah Maria Mulock puts it, ‘Keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.’



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