Keep your Mouth shut

Once upon a time, there was a software engineer who used to develop programs on his Pentium machine, sitting under a tree on the banks of a river. He used to earn his bread by selling those programs in the Sunday market.

One day, while he was working, his machine tumbled off the table and fell in the river. Encouraged by the Panchatantra story of his childhood (the woodcutter and the axe), he started praying to the River Goddess.

The River Goddess wanted to test him and so appeared only after one month of rigorous prayers. The engineer told her that he had lost his computer in the river.

As usual, the Goddess wanted to test his honesty. She showed him a match box and asked, "Is this your computer?" Disappointed by the Goddess' lack of computer awareness, the engineer replied, "No."

She next showed him a pocket-sized calculator and asked if that was his. Annoyed, the engineer said "No, not at all!!"

Finally, she came up with his own Pentium machine and asked if it was his. The engineer, left with no option, sighed and said "Yes."

The River Goddess was happy with his honesty. She was about to give him all three items, but before she could make the offer, the engineer asked her, "Don't you know that you're supposed to show me some better computers before bringing up my own ?"

The River Goddess, angered at this, replied, "I know that, you stupid donkey! The first two things I showed you were the Trillennium and the Billennium, the latest computers from IBM!". So saying, she disappeared with
the Pentium!!
Moral: If you're not up-to-date with technology trends, it's better keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt . . .

Nicest thing about each other

One day Maths teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. 'Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!' and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in 'Kargil' war and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. The place was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk. The teacher was the last one to bless. As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. 'Were you Sanjay's math teacher?' he asked. She nodded: 'yes.' Then he said: 'Sanjay talked about you a lot.'

After the funeral, most of Sanjay's former classmates were there. Sanjay's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher. 'We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket 'They found this on Sanjay when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.'

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Sanjay's classmates had said about him.

'Thank you so much for doing that,' Sanjay's mother said. 'As you can see, Sanjay treasured it.'

All of Sanjay's former classmates started to gather around and they all still had their paper with them.