THE MOVING STORY OF SPARROW NESTS

 

 T.N.Seshan and his wife learnt a valuable lesson*

In a management seminar once T.N.Seshan shared that while travelling in Uttar Pradesh with his wife, when he was the Chief Election Commissioner, they saw a large mango plantation filled with sparrow

nests.

Seshan's wife decided to carry two nests home.

The police escort called a young boy who was grazing cows and asked him to bring down two nests and offered to pay him Rs 10.

He refused as Seshan raised the offer to Rs 50.The boy told Seshan and his wife :

*Sahibji, I will not do it for whatever you will give.*

*Inside these nests are baby sparrows; if I give those nests to you, in the evening, when the mother sparrow returns with food for the babies and does not find them there, she will cry.*

*I do not have the heart to  see that.*

*▪* Seshan and his wife were taken aback and *felt small*.

Seshan later recounted :

*My position and the IAS label* melted away in front of that *little boy.*

*I stood in front of him feeling as small as a  mustard seed.*

After returning home,this incident continued to haunt me with guilt for days.

*Education, position or social status are never a yardstick for the measure of humanity.*

 *Don't Forget*

Knowledge is to know nature.

We don't achieve anything by gathering a lot of information.

 *Life becomes blissful when you have knowledge, sense and wisdom.*