Dad Taught Lesson

Dad taught a lesson.

                   

A boy was born in the second decade of the nineteenth century at the peak of the Spanish flu pandemic in a small village. Unfortunately, his father expired just within a few months of his arrival on the living planet. There were two brothers and a sister along with the mother of the family. Since both the sons were teenagers, their parental uncle looked after them as a guardian. But he wasn’t as clever as their father. He couldn’t manage their traditional business of farming. There was a huge loan mounting on their heads of a money-lender which was taken against their mortgage land. He couldn’t return the loan, therefore the money-lender took the control of some farms as per existing rules and the agreement between them. In this way, they were deprived of their most of the ancient property. Though he was born with silver spoon in his mouth he was found poor at a young age. Anyhow he completed his education and passed the board examination. Both sons got married and they were doing their traditional business of farming. Their expanded family grew up. He found that he couldn’t manage his family from insufficient income from the land due to frequent drought, flood and seasonal crop diseases. There were no education facilities nearby for his growing children from his ancient village. He, therefore, decided to shift him selves to the nearest town with his family for the better bright prospects in his further life. Since he was educated, he got a job in a private bank at drop of hat as fortune favour the bold. His elder brother looked after his farm and would provide annual food grains and other items to his family. He was quite happy there. 

Good days come to those who wait. After independence, there was the nationalization of banks in the country. All banks get nationalized. Then there was a hike in their pay from time to time. His financial position fairly improved than earlier due to the nationalization of banks. Hence he could build his own house in the town.

             

He had four sons and two daughters. All of them were going to school and college. But his youngest son wasn’t so serious about his study. He would always spend his valuable time playing games. When he was in fourth class, his father put questions to him about the news in the newspaper. He innocently replied to his father that he didn’t read the newspaper. He put another question to him. Why did not he read the paper? His son told his father that it would take a lot of time for reading such a vast newspaper with so many pages. So much time gets consumed in reading newspapers daily. He couldn’t spare his valuable time in such a silly matter. Instead of doing such unwise things, it would be better to spare extra time in study. As soon as his father heard his reply, he immediately told his son. If he read the newspaper daily for a month, it would hardly take a half-hour to read the whole newspaper. He was surprised to know the fact told by his father. All of sudden, he said to his father whether he was making a joke with him. His father asked him to read the paper right from that day for a month. No sooner did he start reading newspapers as advised by his father than he would realize what his father was telling him.

 Although his father wasn’t a political man he had a deep interest in politics. He was of the opinion that everybody should be in touch with politics. Every citizen is a pillar of the nation, so he should know about the political situation in the country. He wasn’t unbiased still he used to read the anti-government newspaper. He was of the opinion that opposition papers would always criticize the bad governance of the ruling party. Pro-media would always support the government. If we are interested to know the drawback of the government, we should read the opposition newspaper only for the real truth. He used to hear all Indian news bulletin daily on the radio of his time along with news from the foreign media like BBC. Since this was the prevailing atmosphere in the house, his youngest son was also acquainted with it. He gets habituated to reading news-papers and radio bulletins. After a few months, he noticed that the newspapers headline-only gave him the most information about the event and subject. He could guess the inside matter from the titles it- selves of printed news. Radio news bulletin also contributes a lot to the matter. That’s what he understood from his father’s hint which was given to him.