Quick Beer on a Full Belly

The class was amazed to see on the Lecturer's desk a bag of sand, a bag of pebbles, some big rocks and a bucket. It was time for a pre-exam lecture on time management. He beacons an undergraduate to come on the platform and fill up the bucket.

A thoughtless novice starts with the sand, then the pebbles, then wastes lot of time pushing in the rocks, which not all fit in the bucket and makes a mess.

"Isn't that poor time and thought management" shrills the lecturer, "If you'd have put the rocks first, then the pebbles, then the sand, all three would have fit to the full. This is much like time management, in that by completing your biggest tasks first, you leave room to complete your medium tasks, then your smaller ones in given time. By getting lost into your smallest tasks first, you spend so much time on them, you leave yourself unable to complete either medium or large tasks satisfactorily.

And the lecturer re-fills the bucket, big rocks first, then pebbles, then sand, shaking the bucket between each so that everything fits. And heaves a sigh of anticipation of thunderous clapping.

"But Sir," Walks in one student, slouched at the back of the class, "you've forgotten one thing…..."

At which the student approaches the bucket, produces a can of lager, opens it, pours into the bucket and quips with a smile, "No matter, Sir, how much full, your bucket or belly is, there's always time, space and thought for a quick beer."

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A Health Officer drives into a village to check what precautions the villagers are taking for pure drinking water.

The Village Head assures the Bureaucrat that they chlorinate the village Pond, discourage activities like swimming, washing in the pond, collect water from the pond in clean utensils and boil water. Even then for the sake of safety, they drink beer only!

I like playing with Children

Dear Children,

I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing with them. For the moment I forget that I am pretty old and it is very long ago since I was a child.

But when I sit down to write, I cannot forget my age and the distance that separates you from me. Old people have a habit of delivering sermons and good advice to the young.

I remember that I disliked this very much long ago when I was a boy. So I suppose you do not like it very much either. Grown-ups also have a habit of appearing to be very wise, even though very few of them possess much wisdom. I have not yet quite made up my mind whether I am wise or not.

What then shall I write about? If you were with me, I would love to talk to you about this beautiful world of ours, about flowers, trees, birds, animals, stars, mountains, glaciers and all the other beautiful things that surround us in the world. We have all this beauty all around us and yet we, who are grown-ups, often forget about it and lose ourselves in our arguments or in our quarrels. We sit in our offices and imagine that we are doing very important work.

Grown-ups have a strange way of putting themselves in compartments and groups. They build barriers... of religion, caste, colour, party, nation, province, language, customs and of rich and poor. Thus they live in prisons of their own making. Fortunately, children do not know much about these barriers, which separate. They play and work with each other and it is only when they grow up that they begin to learn about these barriers from their elders. I hope you will take a long time in growing up.............

Jawaharlal Nehru December 3, 1949