By Vijay Darda | 01-01-2018
If we are passionate about doing something new and pledge to encourage new ideas, we can bring about the change
Last night the whole world was engaged in ushering in the New Year. You too might have celebrated a lot. You must have celebrated with zeal and enthusiasm, and you might have made some new resolutions too..! In today’s piece, I will only talk about resolutions. But before that let me tell you a true story that took place about 160 years ago. This story is about the person who had invented the light bulb so that our world could be illuminated. His name was Thomas Alva Edison!
Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in the United States. When he grew up, he was enrolled in school. A few years later, Edison returned home from school carrying an envelope. The teacher had asked him to give the envelope to his mother. His mother Nancy Matthew opened the envelope and started crying after reading whatever was written in it. Edison asked his mother why she was crying? Nancy lovingly caressed Edison and said, the school has written that your son is very promising, very intelligent, and our school is too small for him. After that, Edison did not go to school for many years. Mother taught him at home. With the passage of time, Edison’s talent started to appear and shine. He invented bulb, developed phonogram, made movie cameras and invented more than a hundred things. By now the mother had left the mundane world. When one day he was going through the old things, he chanced upon the same envelope. When Edison read out the letter sent from the school, he wept. The school wrote: your son is mentally weak. We can not keep him in our school. He has been suspended!
Edison’s eyes filled with tears. A principal had declared him mentally weak and a mother made him the world’s greatest scientist. Actually this story is trustworthy. Edison was not the person to follow the conventional path, so the school felt that he was mentally weak. The mother had faith in her son’s curiosity, so she gave him strength. If you want to see your children on the new path, then it is important that you understand them and promote their thinking. Give them the power to realise their dreams. Trust them completely. In fact, if we succeed in taking our youth in the right direction, nobody can stop India from becoming a world guru!
Come on, let us resolve on the first day of this New Year that we will stand with our youth, give all possible help to fulfil their new ideas, new thoughts, and innovative imaginations. Long ago, Swami Vivekananda had said that ‘Youth is our biggest power’. He was right then and today his statement is even more right because almost 65% of India’s population is under 35 years of age. We hope that by 2020 we will be the youngest country in the world. The government is trying to empower this youth power at its level. While announcing the National Youth Policy in 2014, the government had said that the purpose of this policy is to identify the capabilities of the youth and empower them by providing opportunities accordingly and through this, to secure a place of pride for India in the comity of nations of the world.
But the biggest question at this time is whether our society is moving in the right direction in terms of youth power? It seems that the direction is fine but the speed is slow. Our young people have proved their talent but opportunities for many of them are not available for many reasons. Those who get the opportunity can not choose the path according to their wishes because the ambition of the parents is something else. We usually do not try to understand the aptitude of a child and what he or she wants to be? After graduation, millions of youngsters face the question of what to do next? On the other hand, in the developed countries of the world, it becomes clear what the child can do better when he or she is still studying in the secondary school. Accordingly, the students there chart their future course of study.
Every effort should be made at the government level to provide opportunities but the family has to play a significant role too. I have seen many such examples wherein the child makes a very good painting or is interested in music, but efforts are made to make him an engineer or a doctor. The parents remain focussed only on the marks the child has scored. Nobody feels the need to whet the curiosity of a child. A desire in him should be generated to know something other than the school textbooks and he should be encouraged to do something new. If the Indian families learn to do this, we will be able to make as many youngsters talented as possible. Our children will also become great scientists of the world. Rest assured that if we promote new thinking, we will achieve newer heights!
Before I conclude…
On the occasion of New Year, I am sharing a beautiful poem of my choice. It is written by poet Yogendra Dutt Sharma:
Andheri raat nabh se chhant gayi hai
Hathili dhundh saari hat gayi hai,
Nayi raunak usha ke saath aai
Naye vishwas ki saugaat aai,
Naya utsaah hai thandi hava mein
Nayi asha achaanak haath aai.
(The darkness has left the sky,
The haze has disappeared,
The dawn has brought new light of hope,
New hope has warmed the cold air.
And ushered in new confidence)
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