Vedanta Khushi : I Can – My Father Can’t

(a heart touching story)

This incident is a little old. Dharmendra, a small farmer from Amara, Uttar Pradesh, has a small piece of land on which he cultivates seasonal crops, sometimes vegetables. His family has 4 people, his wife and 2 children, elder girl Radha is aged 12 and the son Cheeku is of 7 years. As the land is small he is comfortable cultivating himself and if required his wife helps him out.

The village is quite remote and children are not encouraged to go to school. This is the reason that he and his wife, both remained illiterate. The land holders took away almost half of Dharmendra’s land by forging documents.

But children are children, as they play together they also mingle for seeing pictures in the books of children who were going to school, though very few in number. This interaction helped both his children learn few alphabets and few words. Their interest in education was quite evident. But both the children never told about this to their parents.

After heavy rains, the village had a number of cases of viral fever. It was spreading in almost every house. Dharmendra was worried as his wife and son had caught viral fever too. The village doctor visited almost every house and gave medicines, with dose and frequency written on a slip. Dharmendra had arranged these medicines in such a way that it became easy to identify through positioning as he could not read a word, neither anyone within the family.

But destiny is destiny. In the night heavy showers and wind mixed packets of medicine. It was not possible to check with doctor because of heavy rains. Taking a chance, he asked his daughter Radha to get water to give medicine to the mother and son. The over-dose of medicines reacted and soon the mother and son started vomiting. Their condition became serious. Dharmendra ran to the house of doctor and brought him on his cycle.

As the doctor saw the condition and medicine he became very angry and slapped Dharmendra.

Whole family being illiterate had almost costed 2 lives.

Radha also started crying.

With great difficulty doctor was able to make both mother and son stable.

Dharmendra was ashamed of what had happened and could have happened.

He decided to break the rules set by his ancestors on education and very same moment decided to send his both children to village school. As the rains stopped and the viral retracted, he got his both children admitted to school.

Radha, though should have been in class 8th if she had gone to school regularly, is now in class 4 and his son Cheeku is in class 2nd.

When Dharmendra goes to school to meet teachers, he puts his thumb-impression, but when it comes to Radha and Cheeku, they both sign their names.

Radha is simple and humble, but Cheeku naughty and teases, look “I Can but My Father Can’t” sign.

**Not necessary we have to give importance to education only when we face drastic circumstances. Education is not just learning, it also silently teaches moral values.