Curiosity, Thoughts and Whatever...

>
> Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the
> M.K.Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, in his June 9 lecture at the
> University of Puerto Rico shared the following story:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~============
> I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my
> grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South Africa, in
> the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and
> had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to
> going to town to visit friends or go to the movies.
>
> One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day
> conference, and I jumped at the chance.
> Since I was going to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she
> needed and, since I had all day in town, my father asked me to take
> care of several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced.
>
> When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, "I will meet you
> here at 5:00 p.m., and we will go home together."
>
> After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the nearest
> movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John Wayne double-feature that
> I forgot the time. It was 5:30 before I remembered. By the time I ran
> to the garage and got the car and hurried to where my father was
> waiting for me, it was almost 6:00.
>
> He anxiously asked me, "Why were you late?"
>
> I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne western
> movie that I said, "The car wasn't ready, so I had to wait," not
> realizing that he had already called the garage.
>
> When he caught me in the lie, he said: "There's something wrong in the
> way I brought you up that didn't give you the confidence to tell me
> the truth.
> In order to figure out where I went wrong with you, I'm going to walk
> home 18 miles and think about it."
>
> So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began to walk home in the
> dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads.
>
> I couldn't leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove behind him,
> watching my father go through this agony for a stupid lie that I
> uttered. I decided then and there that I was never going to lie again.
>
> I often think about that episode and wonder, if he had punished me the
> way we punish our children, whether I would have learned a lesson at
> all. I don't think so. I would have suffered the punishment and gone
> on doing the same thing. But this single non-violent action was so
> powerful that it is still as if it happened yesterday.
>
> That is the power of non-violence.