I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing with them. For the moment I forget that I am terribly old/adult and it is very long ago since I was a child. But when I sit down to write, I can’t forget my age and the distance that separates you from me. Old people have a habit of delivering sermons and good advice to the young.
I remember that I disliked this very much long ago when I was a boy. So I suppose you don’t like it very much. Grown-ups also have the habit of appearing to be very wise, even though very few of them possess much wisdom. I have not yet quite made up my mind whether I am wise or not. Sometimes listening to others I feel that I must be wise and brilliant and important. Then, looking at myself, I begin to doubt this.Then.looking at event, people who are wise do not talk about their wisdom and do not behave as if they were very superior persons……
What then shall I write about? If you were with me, I would love to talk to you about this beautiful world of ours, about Flowers,trees,birds,animals,stars,mountains,glaciers and all other beautiful things that surrounds us in the world. We have all this beauty all around us and yet we, who are Grown-ups, often forgot about it and lose ourselves in our arguments or in our Quarrels.
We sit in our offices and imagine that we are doing very important work.
You know we had a very great man amongst us. He was called Mahatma Gandhi, but we used to call him affectionately Bapuji. He was wise, but he did not show off his wisdom. He was simple and childlike in many ways and he loved children….he taught us to face the world cheerfully and with laughter.
Our country is a very big country and there is a great deal to be done by all of us. If each one does her little bit, then all this mounts up and the country prospers and goes ahead fast.
This was a story once written by Nehru.
Jawaharlal Nehru
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